JC / Railbird

Odds & Ends

A “secret group” has sent a letter to the US Attorney’s office urging that NYRA be prosecuted:

The group, whose identity is not being disclosed, said in a letter sent by its lawyer July 21 that NYRA has continued to operate in questionable and suspect ways — despite being under the terms of a strict deferred prosecution arrangement for more than a year (Blood-Horse)

Not so very coincidentally, the unidentified group is interested in bidding on the NYRA franchise.

I know the story of the investigation into Wild Desert’s whereabouts before the Queen’s Plate is a couple of days old, but I love this Bobby Frankel quote:

“I don’t know anything about it,” Frankel said. “They asked me to run the horse in my name in Canada. That’s what I did. That’s all I know” (Daily Racing Form)

Ok.

This sounds familiar

The new system, called the “FTBOA Chase to the Championship” rewards points for top-three finishes in for Breeders’ Cup races, graded stakes wins, races on Florida’s signature racing days, including the Florida Million, Florida Cup, Florida Stallion Stakes series, and Sunshine Millions, open-company stakes with purses of $40,000 and over, as well as group and listed races included in Part I of the of the International Cataloging Standards and International Statistics booklet…. The Florida-bred with the most points in each division on December 31 is deemed divisional champion (Thoroughbred Times).

Afleet Alex leads the three-year-old division and all categories overall in the new Florida standings. Just as he does in these standings.