Hollywood Park is this weekend’s site of the best filly and mare turf racing in the world, the American Oaks Weekend Stakes, combined with nearly $3 million in guaranteed wager pools.
The weekend races starts on Saturday, July 1, when the inaugural running of the $750,000 CashCall Mile Invitational (G3) is sure to whet your appetite [...]

Rider and two-time Eclipse Award winner, John Velazquez, was chosen as chairman of the Jockeys’ Guild board of directors Monday, another step in the union’s recovery from near-bankruptcy. The jockey recently returned to riding after suffering a cracked shoulder blade, collapsed lung and bruised ribs while riding at Keeneland on April 20.

Edenwold, ridden by Emile Ramsammy, rolled into victory at Sunday’s $1 million Queen’s Plate at Woodbine Racecourse. The 1 1/4 mile Queen’s Plate is the first race in Canada’s Triple Crown. Voted champion two-year-old in Canada last year, Edenwold recorded his first victory of 2006 by winning Canada’s most important race.

Hongkong horse racing Champion jockey Shane Dye is in a coma after a race fall on Sunday, the South China Morning Post reports. Dye, 39, was aboard Ambitious Marju in the second race at Hong Kong’s Sha Tin race track when his mount clipped the heels of another horse and he was thrown.

OCEANPORT, N.J. (AP) — Travers Stakes‘ winner Flower Alley returned from a nearly eight-month layoff and posted a 3-length victory over Park Avenue Ball in the $150,000 Salvator Mile Stakes at Monmouth Park on Saturday.
"It was exactly what we were looking for, with the exception of the (sloppy) track condition," trainer Todd Pletcher said. "We [...]

Hollywood Park will replace its dirt main track with a synthetic surface in July, making it the first California track to do so. The state’s other major thoroughbred tracks — Santa Anita, Del Mar, Los Alamitos, Bay Meadows and Golden Gate — face a Dec. 31, 2007, deadline by the California Horse Racing Board to install synthetic surfaces as well.

Even the queen might have trouble finding her way around refurbished Royal Ascot when the premier meet of the English racing season opens Tuesday. It took nearly two years and $368 million to renovate the centuries-old track west of London, which now includes a grandstand that accommodates 57,000, a new finish line about 30 yards from its original site and refurbished stables.