Racing Association

The Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association's overwhelming success with last year's series of technical seminars has generated a second season.The four-week series, which begins next weekend in the Naval Academy's Rickover and Michelson halls, will feature some of the region's top sailing authorities."

Lawyers for the Laurel Park racetrack asked Maryland's highest court Tuesday to restore its disqualified proposal for a slots casino license, suggesting the state would be better off restarting a bidding process that has fallen short of expectations. A slots license selection commission tossed out a bid from Laurel Racing Association in February because the company didn't submit the $28.5 million in mandatory licensing fees. A legal team for the track argued in the Court of Appeals that the company was concerned that there was no guarantee it would get the money back if it didn't win a license.

Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association Region 2 sailors enjoyed a challenging weekend of varying conditions and solid competition in back-to-back events.They had the Magothy River Sailing Association Race to Baltimore, sponsored by the Harbor Hospital Center last Saturday, and the Rock Creek Racing Association Baltimore Harbor Race on Sunday.Winners in Saturday's MRSA race, on a course shortened to 18.8 miles from the PHRF A division's 24.8-mile route -- and of the Harbor Hospital Center's Gull Trophy for best overall in the event -- were Pasadena sailor Les Toeplitz and his crew aboard his Morgan 27 Wizard.

Families, spectators and power-boat race enthusiasts can join the Kent Narrows Racing Association this weekend to watch powerboats race more than 100 mph at the 17th annual Thunder on the Narrows races at the Kent Island Yacht Club. "It's flat-out fun; I tell people it's the most fun you can have with your clothes on," said Wheeler Baker, the race director. Attendees can watch more than 50 boats whizzing past at high speeds. The fastest boats go about 140 mph, Baker said. According to Baker, the event usually draws a crowd of more than 1,000 spectators.

Determined to win over Anne Arundel County residents in its third try to find an uncontested site for a $100 million speedway, the Middle River Racing Association held a tightly formatted community meeting last night, highlighted by displays, tables of food and speakers.Its pitch was that a speedway would be a boon to the county and not a loud, polluting, traffic-generating bad neighbor.About 400 residents and race fans turned out for the meeting in a Pasadena fire hall. By press time, opponents in the crowd had not yet been allowed time to ask their questions -- all to be funneled through a moderator -- and complained that the meeting was "too tightly controlled" and a "snow job."

LOS ANGELES - The detente between Frank Stronach and the National Thoroughbred Racing Association means that the Breeders' Cup is heading back to Santa Anita Park. Sherwood Chillingworth, executive vice president of the Oak Tree Racing Association, which, as a Santa Anita tenant, was host to Breeders' Cups in 1986 and 1993, said that no contract has been signed for racing's big year-end day in 2002, but other sources indicated that the Breeders' Cup and Oak Tree are close to a deal. The Breeders' Cup is a partner of the NTRA.

Horse racing's barrage of national advertising is apparently working, says Alan Foreman, the Baltimore lawyer serving as a director of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association.Foreman recently attended a two-day retreat at Colorado Springs of NTRA's managers and board of directors. Begun April 1, Foreman the NTRA set a goal of transforming horse racing into one of the country's top five sports.That transformation will take years, the NTRA acknowledges, but the quest began with highly visible newspaper and magazine ads and the "Go Baby Go" TV commercials featuring the actress Lori Petty.

In financial statements delivered this week to the Maryland Racing Commission, the owners of Pimlico and Laurel Park reported a profit of $670,955 in 2000. That is down significantly from 1999, when the companies showed a profit of $2,458,723. Pimlico Racing Association owns Pimlico, and Laurel Racing Association owns Laurel Park. Joe De Francis is president and CEO of both companies. Asked the reason for last year's lackluster performance, De Francis said: "The short answer is, revenues were flat and expenses continue to go up."

Along the residential corridors of west county's Russett community, a collective sigh of relief could almost be heard late last week as residents realized a 54,800-seat racetrack may not end up in their back yard after all.Representatives of Timonium's Middle River Racing Association, which since December has been considering Russett for its proposed $100 million racetrack, now are checking another site in the county, in North Pasadena near Hawkins Point."I'm...

August Belmont IV, 86, grandson of the founder of Belmont Park, dead Monday in Easton, after a stroke, the New York Racing Association said.Among his stakes winners were Dew Line, Heed, Quadratic and Caveat, who won the 1983 Belmont Stakes, named after his great-grandfather, the first August Belmont.His grandfather, August Belmont II, formed the Westchester Racing Association in 1895 and oversaw construction of Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y.. Mr. Belmont II also bred the famed Man o' War.Mr.

If you compete in serious - or even semiserious - sailboat racing on the Chesapeake Bay, chances are you've been exposed to the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association. The group is in charge of racing and runs regattas, establishes rules and puts on various clinics for Bay racers. We talked to Angelo Buscemi, 40, of Washington, who recently became the group's new president, about its role: What is CBYRA, and who belongs? We're the local governing body for the sport of sailboat racing for the Chesapeake Bay area.

John Passero, former track superintendent for the Maryland Jockey Club, has accepted the same job with the New York Racing Association, which conducts racing at Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga. After 17 years' maintaining racing surfaces at Pimlico, Bowie and Laurel Park, Passero resigned in May after saying he'd been excluded from Magna Entertainment Corp.'s rebuilding of Laurel's track surfaces. Magna is majority owner of the MJC. Passero has declined to elaborate, and Magna and MJC officials have declined to comment.

With jockeys boycotting races at Churchill Downs and the nationally known Shane Sellers being escorted from the track in handcuffs, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association is stepping into the exploding crisis over jockeys' insurance. D.G. Van Clief Jr., commissioner of the NTRA, said yesterday that the NTRA will convene a working group to try to resolve the dispute that cost the Breeders' Cup a marquee rider and now threatens racing at the home of the Kentucky Derby. Terry Meyocks, special assistant to the NTRA and former president of the New York Racing Association, will preside over the group.

WASHINGTON - While public-interest groups were deriding billions of dollars in business tax breaks approved by the Senate this week, Maryland horse racing executives celebrated a provision that could significantly boost foreign betting at U.S. tracks. It goes to show that one person's "pork" is another person's "perk." The provision - one of at least a half-dozen in the bill affecting sports - eliminates a 30 percent withholding tax that foreigners must pay on winning wagers into U.S. horse-track betting pools.

The Maryland Racing Commission today approved the Maryland Jockey Club's request to extend the Pimlico summer-fall race meeting as reconstruction of the Laurel Park racing surfaces has fallen behind schedule because of inclement weather this summer. The current stand was scheduled to end on Oct. 11 but now will tentatively conclude on Nov. 2. Two $50,000 stakes races were added at Old Hilltop: Sonny Hine Stakes (Oct. 16) and Japan Racing Association (Oct. 23), as well as a pair of $75,000 two-year old state-bred stakes (Heavenly Cause and Rollicking)

SHORTLY BEFORE last month's Preakness, as the media circus spun in three rings around him, Smarty Jones stood in his Pimlico stall casually munching from hay nets, alternately unfazed and mildly amused. His cool demeanor may have had something to do with his front feet being in buckets of ice water. It held, though, through a four-hour nap Preakness morning, after which he trotted out and blew away the field by a record 11 1/2 lengths. If anything, horse racing's latest darling is approaching tomorrow's Belmont Stakes with an even more confident air. He's the 2-5 favorite to win and thus become the first horse in 26 years to claim racing's Triple Crown.

A task force examining electronic wagering on thoroughbred races met yesterday and agreed to hire a firm that specializes in information technology security. The task force was formed last week by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association to restore confidence shaken by allegations of bet tampering related to the Oct. 26 Breeders' Cup. A Baltimore man holds the winning ticket to the Pick Six, which is worth $3.1 million. However, regulators have frozen payment while they investigate suspicious circumstances surrounding the bet, including the alleged involvement of a computer engineer who was fired last week by the company that processed the bet. Three of the leading track owners - including Magna Entertainment Corp.

In the wake of protests at a public meeting Monday, a majority of Anne Arundel County councilmen said yesterday they oppose a zoning law change sought by developers of an auto racetrack proposed for the western end of the county.The lack of political support is expected to slow plans by the Middle River Racing Association of Timonium to build a 54,800-seat track on 380 acres north of Russett.But the developers -- who recently backed away from a Baltimore County site after a political battle that lasted more than a year -- are refusing to shut off their engines.

The Justice Department and the FBI joined the investigation yesterday into allegations of wire fraud in a suspect winning wager, possibly worth $3.1 million, placed by a Baltimore man through a New York betting service. The disclosure of the federal criminal investigation came even as racing industry officials announced an emergency program designed to close a betting loophole and restore "customer confidence. "At the request of the New York State Police, this office, along with the FBI, is assisting in this matter," said U.S. Attorney James B. Comey in the Southern District of New York.

A task force examining electronic wagering on thoroughbred races met yesterday and agreed to hire a firm that specializes in information technology security. The task force was formed last week by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association to restore confidence shaken by allegations of bet tampering related to the Oct. 26 Breeders' Cup. A Baltimore man holds the winning ticket to the Pick Six, which is worth $3.1 million. However, regulators have frozen payment while they investigate suspicious circumstances surrounding the bet, including the alleged involvement of a computer engineer who was fired last week by the company that processed the bet. Three of the leading track owners - including Magna Entertainment Corp.