Horses

SARASOTA, Fla. - For most of the past two decades, the American League East has been considered the toughest division in baseball, primarily because it contained the sport's two financial behemoths, the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Each year since the wild-card spot was created in 1995, one of those two has made the playoffs. Eight times in those 17 years they've done it together. Ever so slightly, though, things have been shifting in the AL East. In 2008, the low-budget Tampa Bay Rays emerged from a franchise-spanning slumber to win the division while the Yankees failed to make the playoffs for the first time since the strike-shortened 1994 season.

Horse racing Rules on claiming horses toughened The Maryland Racing Commission toughened its rules on claiming horses at its monthly meeting Wednesday, addressing an issue that some believe might have contributed to an early-year spike in racetrack deaths at Laurel Park. The commission passed a new rule that will prevent a claimed horse from racing within 30 days unless the purse is at least 25 percent higher than in the thoroughbred's previous run. The new rule is designed to prevent owners from making a quick profit by claiming a horse and running him without proper rest against inferior competition in another claiming race.

There appears to be yet another reality check for those who thought that casino gambling would save horse racing in Maryland: twice as many horses were euthanized at Maryland race tracks last year (21) as in the previous year. Apparently track conditions and animal care regimens have not changed;  speculation is that with slot gambling responsible for larger purses, more horses are being raced in less than perfect condition. Casino gambling was supposed to be the panacea for Maryland's woes. Yet we have new and higher taxes, and now the animals are paying, too.  Marjorie Schulenburg Laurel

Last April, The New York Times reported on a startling spike in the deaths of horses running at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens. The investigation found widespread use of drugs to prop up horses that were worn out, broken down or otherwise unfit for the contests in which they were entered, contributing to a 100 percent increase in the horse fatality rate in the first few months of the year. Why were horse owners suddenly taking those kinds of risks? The answer was simple: money. A slot machine gambling parlor opened at Aqueduct in late 2011, subsidizing a massive increase in the purses paid to winning horses and creating financial incentives for owners to take advantage of a lax regulatory structure.

Patricia du Pont, founder of the Fair Hill Pony Club who was active in animal rescue work, died Feb. 16 of complications from a stroke at her home in Fairview, Cecil County. She was 94. The daughter of Archibald du Pont, who had been CEO of the Delaware Trust Bank, and Elizabeth Hayward du Pont, a homemaker, she was born and raised in Wilmington, Del. She was a graduate of St. Timothy's School. An accomplished horsewoman, show rider and avid fox hunter, Miss du Pont enjoyed fox hunting with the Elkridge-Harford Hunt Club, and hunted with her own pack of foxhounds.

Ten horses were injured and euthanized at Laurel Park over nearly six weeks this year, prompting the state to investigate why the rate of deaths at the racetrack had spiked so drastically and suddenly. But the deaths remain a mystery, a concern for horse racing fans and those in the industry. On Monday, a report on the state investigation did not identify a cause for the rise in deaths. Instead, the Maryland Racing Commission suggested in its report a tightening of current safety protocols and increased study of fallen horses.

Last week, food safety officials in United Kingdom, France and Sweden found traces of horse meat in ground beef sold across Europe. Massive recalls and lawsuits are ensuing. Can it happen here? Horse slaughter for human consumption was banned in the U.S. between 2007 and 2011. But now a New Mexico slaughterhouse is getting approved by U.S. authorities to slaughter horses for human consumption, and a Philadelphia restaurant has already announced plans to serve horse meat. I marvel at our hypocrisy of rejecting the notion of horse or dog meat on our dinner plates, while condemning cows, pigs and chickens to the same fate.

Bel Air police have arrested a man wanted in connection with a stabbing that wounded two people in a parking lot outside the Dark Horse Saloon Dec. 1. Tyron Lee Fuqua, 33, of the 1800 block of North Wolfe Street in Baltimore, was picked up Friday in Baltimore City by the Baltimore Police Department, according to a Bel Air Police Department news release. Fuqua is being held at the Harford County Detention Center on a no bond indictment, according to the release. Fuqua has been charged with two counts of first-degree assault and three counts of second-degree assault, according to Maryland electronic court records.