T.D. Thornton

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Thursday issued what it called a "final rule" that pushes back the start date for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety (HISA) Authority's Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) program until May 22. The ADMC program had been expected to go into effect May 1 after twice having its start delayed this year. TDN had reported on Apr. 25 that this date change was in the pipeline. The switch was revealed when Tom Chuckas, the director of Thoroughbred horse racing for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture,...

The rankings below are independent from the "Road to the Derby" leaderboard Churchill Downs uses to determine starting berths, with several horses included here who are currently below the cut. View the qualifying list here. 1) PRACTICAL MOVE (c, Practical Joke--Ack Naughty, by Afleet Alex) O-Leslie & Pierre Jean Amestoy & Roger Beasley; B-Chad Brown & Head of Plains Partners (KY); T-Tim Yakteen. Sales history: $90,000 RNA yrl '21 KEESEP; $230,000 2yo '22 OBSAPR. Lifetime Record: GISW, 7-4-1-2, $884,200. Last Start: 1st Apr. 8 GI Runhappy Santa Anita Derby. Kentucky...

Several contenders at the top of this week's rankings solidified their status, but one new shooter debuted at No. 4 to add some intrigue as we edge past the 90-day mark to the GI Kentucky Derby. 1) ARABIAN KNIGHT (c, Uncle Mo--Borealis Night, by Astrology) 'TDN Rising Star'. O-Zedan Racing Stables, Inc.; B-Corser Thoroughbreds LLC (KY); T-Bob Baffert. Sales history: $250,000 Ylg '21 KEESEP; $2,300,000 2yo '22 OBSAPR. Lifetime Record: 2-2-0-0, $544.275 Last start: 1st GIII Southwest S. at Oaklawn Park, Jan. 28. KY Derby Points: 0. Arabian Knight's thorough...

On a Saturday that included bi-coastal graded stakes for sophomores, the most emphatic performance on the GI Kentucky Derby trail was orchestrated in a first-level allowance race at Gulfstream Park by Tapit Trice (Tapit). It wasn't just the eight-length blowout margin of victory or the 92 Beyer Speed Figure that made the athletic gray's effort stand out. It's the fluid, three-race progression and unruffled demeanor that suggests Tapit Trice is ascending his developmental arc while honing an air of confident capability. A $1.3 million KEESEP yearling owned in partnership by...

Responding to a legal filing in which Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI), alleged that a court-mandated lifting of Bob Baffert's ban from competing in the GI Kentucky Derby would harm the connections of other qualifying points earners who would "lose their fairly-earned berths in the Derby to make room for Baffert," the Hall-of-Fame trainer's legal team fired back with a written response on Friday claiming that CDI "appears to misunderstand its own rules," regarding the qualifying system. "CDI argues that an injunction would force it to 'reallocate' points and 'deprive' owners...

Jessica Paquette never imagined that she would become the full-time announcer at a major racetrack. Neither did anyone else. The job, for as long as the sport has been around, has been a profession that largely excluded women. But when the field loads into the gate at Parx Racing for Tuesday's first race, Paquette will be high atop the grandstand, nervous but excited, and ready to make history. "The best thing we can all hope for in this sport is to leave the game a little bit better than it...

The veterinarian Seth Fishman, who is currently imprisoned but appealing his 11-year sentence for two felony drug-supplying convictions in a decades-long international racehorse doping conspiracy, has filed legal paperwork objecting to the $13.5-million forfeiture that was also imposed upon him, claiming the judge's order was illegal. "The forfeiture sought here is not authorized by statute and is therefore unlawful in its entirety," Fishman's attorney, Steven Kessler, stated in a Sept. 12 filing in United States District Court (Southern District of New York). "The Preliminary Order of Forfeiture (POF) seeks a...

The ever-expanding business of betting in America is in a difficult-to-predict flux right now, and one entity's risk is another's potential reward. "The gaming industry, generally, and horse racing, as a part of that, is one of the most dynamic industries on the scene today," Patrick E. Brown, a New York-based attorney who specializes in gaming and public policy, told TDN in a phone interview. "There's the obvious increase in sports betting and fantasy wagering, plus new technologies and advances making it so easy to wager. It's also way more...

Two weeks after being granted an extra month to determine if Ahmed Zayat is hiding assets while seeking Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, the court-assigned trustee in the case told a federal judge Friday that the allegedly insolvent owner and breeder of Triple Crown champ American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile) is still trying to evade scrutiny by withholding records. And trustee Jeffrey Testa further warned that the longer the case drags on, the higher the risk is that Zayat will wipe away cloud-storage financials before the trustee can examine those documents....

Nearly two decades apart, we've witnessed a Breeders' Cup in the aftermath of a devastating terrorism attack, which led to armed marksmen defending the rooftop of the host track, and now during a global pandemic, which necessitated the barring of the general public from the two-day event and kept the relatively few essential attendees masked and socially distanced from one another. Unlike 2001, this year's championships produced no singular "Tiznow wins it for America!" moment to buoy the spirit of a nation in crisis. But the crescendo of Authentic (Into...

Two odds-on favorites who won their respective races by 15 1/2 and 7 1/2 lengths at Charles Town Sept. 17 have subsequently been disqualified after both tested positive for the widely abused-in-humans synthetic opioid fentanyl and eutylone, the street-drug stimulant known as "bath salts." The Charles Town board of stewards, however, is citing "substantial mitigating factors" and terming both "trace level" cases as "environmental contamination" that will spare both horses' trainers from steep Class 1, Category A penalties. The explanation, according to a pair of West Virginia Racing Commission (WVRC)...

A Prairie Meadows-based Thoroughbred who twice ran second within eight days while carrying a Class 1, Penalty A substance that humans consume to produce psychoactive effects has earned its trainer a one-year suspension and a $1,000 fine. According to an Iowa Racing Commission ruling dated Oct. 23, trainer Robert Roe "did not dispute the findings, nor did he deny he has to be penalized" after the Sept. 20 and 28 blood and urine samples for Candy My Boy (Candy Ride {Arg}) both came back positive for the banned substances mitragynine...