At Turf Paradise in Arizona, it was Dancing Porky (Honor A.P.–Morning Dance, by Broken Vow) who handed his Lane's End Farm freshman sire Honor A.P. his first worldwide winner on Thursday afternoon. Making his second attempt to graduate, the 2-year-old might not have broken all that alertly, but he began to make up ground around the far turn. Full of run down the lane, the bay colt rolled home a winner by 1 1/4 lengths over Just Trust Me (Bodexpress). The final running time was :59.17. GISW Honor A.P., the son of champion Honor Code, has 84 recorded offspring in his first-crop. Lifetime Record ..read more

Daily Racing Form (DRF) writer Dan Illman has been named recipient of the 2024 Old Hilltop Award for covering Thoroughbred racing with excellence and distinction and will be honored May 16 at Pimlico's Alibi Breakfast in the buildup to the GI Preakness S. “I am very honored to receive the Old Hilltop Award from the Maryland Jockey Club,” said Illman, who also serves as executive producer for DRF's video productions. “I fell in love with racing the first time I went to Belmont Park as a child, snuck the Daily Racing Form into my high school classes, and am very grateful to live my dream by cove ..read more

Keeneland will host its April Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale following Friday's 10-race card on closing day of the Spring Meet. The fledgling auction will begin at 6:30 p.m. ET. Keeneland's final race will go off at approximately 5:09 p.m. ET. A total of 134 horses–and still growing–have been catalogued to the one-day sale. “It's an exciting sale,” Keeneland's Director of Sales Operations Cormac Breathnach said earlier this week. “It's kind of a celebration of the end of our race meet and it also kicks off Derby week. This is only the second time that we've held it right after the race mee ..read more

A portion of any purse money earned in the May 4 GI Kentucky Derby by Sierra Leone (Gun Runner), winner of the GI Blue Grass S. and expected to be one of the favorites for the American Classic, will benefit the Backside Learning Center (BLC)'s initiative “Purses for a Purpose.” In addition, should the 'TDN Rising Star' win the Derby, co-owner Brook Smith has promised an additional $100,000 to the BLC. Smith, who recently joined the TDN Writers' Room, is a Louisville resident and long-time supporter of the BLC, which is a non-profit aiming to provide support and resources for racetrack workers ..read more

Del Mar Thoroughbred Club has scheduled a 31-day/39 stakes program topped by its premier offering–the 34th running of the $1-million GI FanDuel Racing Pacific Classic slated for Saturday, Aug. 31. Del Mar is also projecting a total purse distribution of more than $26.6 million over the course of the eight-week season. The shore oval's 85th summer session staged alongside the blue Pacific opens Saturday, July 20 and races ahead to Sunday, Sept. 8. The Pacific Classic will be the highlight of a rich afternoon that will feature five graded stakes, including the GII Del Mar H. and the GII Del Mar ..read more

2nd-Keeneland, $77,839, Msw, 4-25, 2yo, 5 1/2fT, 1:03.29, fm, neck. INTO DIAMONDS (c, 2, Into Mischief–Diamond Sparkles {GSP}, by War Front) was overlooked by the betting public at odds of 6-1 for his debut here. The bay settled mid-pack up the backstretch as the tone was set by fellow firster Cheval de Guerre (Caravaggio). Trying to get involved around the far turn, the colt fanned four wide at the top of the lane and uncorked a bid to catch the leader. With a final push just the before the wire, the homebred got up in time to graduate. The first registered foal for his dam, the winner has a ..read more

Samantha Randazzo will no longer serve as The Jockey Club steward at New York Racing Association Inc. (NYRA) racetracks, the Jockey Club announced Thursday. The move was made with immediate effect. Current NYRA safety steward Juliet Kagno will fill the vacancy for the remainder of NYRA's Aqueduct spring meet and for the Belmont at the Big A spring/summer meet from May 2 to July 7. Former Jockey Club steward at NYRA Dr. Ted Hill will assume the steward position during the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival at Saratoga from June 6-9 and during NYRA's annual summer meet at Saratoga from July 11 throu ..read more

A Kentucky Court of Appeals judge on Wednesday denied a motion by Amr Zedan's incorporated racing stable that would have conferred “emergency” status on his legal quest to get 'TDN Rising Star' Muth (Good Magic) into the GI Kentucky Derby despite a ban by Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI) against the colt's trainer, Bob Baffert. Technically, the Apr. 24 order by Judge Jeff Taylor didn't decide Zedan's appeal of a lower court's denial of a temporary injunction in full. But from a practical standpoint, it appears that time has all but run out on that appeal being decided before Saturday's entry time f ..read more

Group 1 winner Big Rock (Fr) (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}) and 12 other Yeguada Centurion horses have transferred to the stable of Maurizio Guarnieri as of Thursday evening, Jour de Galop reported. The baker's dozen were formerly listed in training with Christopher Head. Speaking to the French publication, Head said, “I was notified Thursday morning of the departure of the horses for Maurizio Guarnieri's stable, with transport planned for the evening. I savored every minute spent with the Yeguada Centurion horses. I [will] only have good memories of this valuable experience for the rest of my trai ..read more

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has affirmed an earlier Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) arbitration panel ruling against trainer Jonathan Wong, suspending him for two years and fining him $25,000 for a 2023 post-race metformin positive. Metformin is a type 2 diabetes drug that HISA has classified as a banned substance. Wong will now take the case to federal court, according to the trainer's long-time owner, Brent Malmstrom. This would make it the first HISA-related medication violation case to work its way up to the federal court level. “If anyone thinks I have enjoyed spe ..read more