Arlington Park, which recently received approximately $140 million in casino impact fees, will add a new $400k stakes race on the grass to its stakes program, as well as an increase of $1.3 million to its stakes purses, according to a report in the Daily Racing Form. The new race will be open to three-year-olds and up and will run during the August 18th Arlington International Festival of Racing card, along with the G1-Arlington Million, G1-Beverly D., and the G1-Secretariat Stakes. The Secretariat, which had its purse reduced to $400,000 last year, will once again be a $500,000 race.

The Arlington St. Leger is based on the St. Leger races run in England and Ireland, each of which are contested at a distance of one mile and six furlongs. The Arlington St. Leger will run at one mile and five and a half furlongs.

Arlington Million day is already one of the best days for grass racing in the United States and the addition of a $400k race like the St. Leger should only add to that quality. The purse is high enough and the distance sufficiently unique that the race should attract a much different caliber and type of horse than the Million. Additionally, since the European owners and trainers like to ship to Arlington for the Festival, there shouldn't be a shortage of international horses looking to take a shot at a race tailor-made for them. Finally, although the race is currently ungraded (and will be until the requisite number of years have passed), this is a nice addition to the grass racing stakes calendar.

Arlington added another European-style turf race a few years ago when it started running the American 1,000 Guineas in 2008. The race was open tor three-year-old fillies at a mile and had a purse of $200,000. Sadly, the race only lasted three years and was dropped from the Arlington stakes calendar in 2010.

Today, the NTRA, Daily Racing Form, and National Turf Writers and Broadcasters announced the top three finalists for the Eclipse Awards.The awards ceremony will take place on January 16th in Beverly Hills, California.

The finalists for Horse of the Year will not be announced until the night of the awards ceremony.

The finalists are determined by voters assigning various points (10, 5, 1) to three horses in each category. The winner is determined by first place votes only.

There are a few slam dunks among the contenders, and several categories where it's really hard to separate the top three. In fact, I think this is one of the more difficult years that we've seen in quite some time.

Below are my Eclipse Award votes (if I had one):

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The last couple of days I've posted FanShots on the handle gains at Turfway and Golden Gate following the conclusion of their fall/winter meets (as well as news on gains at Hollywood Park just before Christmas). And while we've seen some good news for individual tracks it was unclear as to whether handle was increasing nationally. Today, the Daily Racing Form reported that wagering in December of 2011 was up almost 18% when compared to the same month in 2010 (according to figures compiled by Equibase). From the article:

It was by far the largest monthly gain in handle for U.S. racetracks since Equibase, the racing industry’s data supplier, began tracking the figures more than five years ago, before the late-2008 recession sent an already struggling industry reeling. According to Equibase, it was the first month-over-month gain in handle since February 2008.

Since the beginning of the recession, national handle dropped 7.2%, 9.9% and 7.3% in 2008 though 2010, according to the article. And while the 5.6% drop this year is certainly the wrong direction, you get the feeling that things are beginning to stabilize.

There is still a lot of work to be done to get handle back to where it was prior to these tough economic times, especially when you compare all years in current dollars. Posting the first month-over-month handle gain in almost three years is a good place to start.

Rapid Redux held off a long, grinding run from rival Awesome Rhythm to win his 22nd race in a row this afternoon at Laurel Park. (Chart via DRF.com) Taking command of the race right from the start, Rapid Redux carved out splits of 24.14 and 47.57 for the first half of his mile long journey. Awesome Rhythm, second to Rapid Redux in their last start back on Dec. 13th, stalked the leader from second, three lengths clear of his nearest rival. At the top of the stretch, Rapid Redux had expanded his lead to a couple of lengths, but Awesome Rhythm would make him earn this victory as he kept pounding away through the final furlong. Ultimately, Awesome Rhythm would come up three-quarters of a length short.

Five scratches left the $5,000 Starter Allowance field with just five runners.

Rapid Redux went off at odds of 4/10, and paid $2.80, $2.10, and $2.10. The $2 Rapid Redux/Awesome Rhythm exacta, the same finish as their race just under a month ago, returned $5.00.

Video below the jump.

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[UPDATED with additional information about this spring's racing coverage on the NBC family of networks.]

The long-anticipated change of Versus to the new NBC Sports Network occurred today at 4pm Eastern time, just in time for the NHL's annual Winter Classic. The re-branded network, along with NBC, will broadcast several of this year's Kentucky Derby prep races, all three legs of the Triple Crown, and selected telecasts from Saratoga and Keeneland. Additionally, the NBC Sports Network will cover Olympic events, NHL, MLS, the Tour de France, college football and basketball, as well as a variety of sports-centric talk shows to fill out the all-day channel.

While ESPN is the self-titled "World Wide Leader", the congestion of programing on their family of network tends to relegate the niche sports to the proverbial back-of-the-line in terms of resources and promotion. The NHL moved to Versus from ESPN and found a good home. MLS will do the same this year after many years of appearing on ESPN.

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I hope everyone had (or is still having) a good holiday season. I finally got home late last night after a week of Christmas travel to Eastern Washington and Western Montana. All told, we put about 1,300 miles on the car while driving through three states and two time zones. Just a typical Christmas for our family.

I didn't have the chance to do much handicapping or wagering over the past few weeks, but I did get to catch a few races from Santa Anita and Gulfstream a little bit last weekend. One great thing about our relatives that we stay with is that they both have Dish Network which carries both HRTV and TVG. That's a good thing since I can't go too long without sitting down to watch a race.

Below is a rundown on some thoughts I had as I was catching up:

• While I got to see a few races from Santa Anita on opening day, I missed The Factor's smoking performance in the Grade 1 Malibu. The spits weren't quite as insane as we've seen at Santa Anita over the past year, at least for the first half-mile (22.61, 44.61), but the move The Factor made from the half-mile to three-quarter mile mark was simply blistering. After clicking off a quick 44.61 over the first four furlongs, The Factor threw down a 23.37 split in the 3^rd quarter and still had enough left in the tank for clock the final 1/8^th of a mile in 11.91.
  
  In terms of speed figures, The Factor got a 106 from the Beyer boys.
• Saturday's seven furlong La Brea Stakes at Santa Anita is the last Grade 1 race of 2011. Turbulent Descent will try to cap off a pretty good year with a win on the last day of the calendar.
  
  The first Grade 1 race of 2012 is the Santa Monica on Jan. 28^th.
• One final Santa Anita notes that you probably read about, attendance for opening day was 44,579, the largest first day figures since 1994 and 30% higher than in 2010. I didn't read about any kind of special promotion or giveaway that might have impacted the turnout. Perhaps people just wanted to spend a nice day at the track.
  
• The finalists for the 2011 Eclipse Awards will be announced on Thursday, Jan. 5^th, 2012 awards ceremony taking place on Monday, Jan. 16^th in Beverly Hills.
• Emerald Downs has released a new, re-vamped website for 2012, which you can find at www.emeralddowns.com. Among improvements to the site are a new look that works better with mobile devices, an increased presence and integration of social media, stewards rulings and photo finish gallery for the upcoming 2012 racing season, and a blog featuring from Emerald Downs handicappers and staff.
  
  Additionally, the layout and user interface has received a big upgrade. Kudos to all the people at EMD for the new site.
• We haven't even moved into 2012 and already one of the top juveniles of 2011 is out with an injury. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, My Miss Aurelia, an impressive winner of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies last month, sustained a minor shin injury that will force her to miss some training days. The injury is not expected to derail the connections plans to prepare her for the 2012 Kentucky Oaks.
• For all those that like lower takeout (and what player doesn't?), NYRA cut the takeout rate 2% on exotic wagers. Of course, the main reason the cut was put into place was the revelation that NYRA had charged 1% higher on those same bets for over a year. Oops. Still, a 2% cut is a 2% cut, even if it is the result of an "invisible" hike from the past.
• It seems as if the new "Instant Racing" machines are a pretty big hit at Kentucky Downs. According to a report at BloodHorse.com, the machines have taken in $19.52 million over the first three months.
  

I'm working on a Year in Review post that I'll have up later in the day tomorrow, as well as a look at the contenders for all of the 2011 Eclipse Awards. Until then, happy wagering.

Patrick Valenzuela, an extremely talented jockey with a trouble-filled career, retired today, according to an article at the Daily Racing Form. He cited gall bladder surgery, difficultly controlling his weight, and constant pain in his right knee as reasons for his retirement.

During his 33-year career, Valenzuela won 15 riding titles and over 4,000 races, including the 1989 Kentucky Derby, 1989 Preakness, the Santa Anita Derby on two occasions, and seven Breeders' Cup races. In 1980, Valenzuela became the youngest jockey to ever win the Santa Anita Derby when as a 17-year-old he guided Codex to victory. In 1992, Valenzuela became the first jockey to win two Breeders' Cup races on the same card, taking home the top spots with Fraise (Turf) and Eliza (Juvenile Fillies).

Valenzuela was the 1982 winner of the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award and rode such notable horses as Sunday Silence in his Derby and Preakness wins, Arazi during his dominating performance in the 1991 Breeders' Cup Juvenile, Best Pal, Lava Man, and Bertrando. He won the 2011 Pacific Classic on Acclamation, the last million dollar race he would win in his career.

Valenzuela, now 49-years-old, was suspended on numerous occasions due to substance abuse, causing him to miss out on important events and races during his career. At the 1989 Breeders' Cup Classic, billed as the "Race of the Decade" due to the rivalry between Sunday Silence and Easy Goer, Valenzuela had to be replaced on Sunday Silence by Chris McCarron due to one of his many suspensions.

Notorious for his ability to get a horse to break quickly from the starting gate, Valenzuela never lost his knack for giving a front-running horse a huge chance at victory. Throughout his career, a Patrick Valenzuela-ridden horse alone on the lead was an extremely dangerous animal.

Sadly, Valenzuela's career would have been even greater if he could have avoided the issues that plagued him over the last three decades. In a statement to the Daily Racing Form, Valenzuela suggested that he understood that didn't reach the limits of his potential:

"It should have been a lot more, and it is what it is," he said. "It's been a blessing, the opportunity that God has given me. It's hard to walk away. It's emotional right now. There is a certain time when you know what's in your mind. It's time to do something else."

While many might remember his jockey career more for the off-track incidents, Valenzuela was, without a doubt, one of the best riders of his generation.

Below is a video of Pat Valenzuela riding Arazi in the 1991 Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs.

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A happy Veterans Day to everybody, and a "thank you" for all the men and women that have served this country, either past or present. 

Below are a few of the items making headlines on this Friday.  Among the big stories: Drosselmeyer will likely come back in 2012; the recently completed Santa Anita meet turned out to be pretty good; Tampa Bay is going to see an increase in stakes purses this winter; and Bernardini gets a price increase.

Total Handle Jumps 8.7% at Santa Anita Meet | BloodHorse.com
Santa Anita Park posted gains across the board during the recently concluded 24-day fall meet, led by an 8.7% jump in all-sources handle when compared to the corresponding days in 2009.

Tampa Bay Stakes Purses to Increase | BloodHorse.com
Track's stakes schedule offers purse money of about $2.6 million. Seven stakes races are offering increases of $25,000, fueled partially by contributions from the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' and Owners' Association.

Belmont fall meet shows increases in on-track handle, attendance - Handicappers' Edge
On-track handle and NYRA Rewards account wagering demonstrated huge gains during the 2011 Belmont Park fall meet and attendance also increased, while all-sources handle declined from last year.

Prairie Meadows race days shift for 2012 | Daily Racing Form
The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission on Thursday approved a 67-day meet for Prairie Meadows in 2012 that will run from April 20 to Aug. 11 and have a Thursday-to-Sunday race week, a change from recent years when the track raced Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.

Nominees announced for Cartier Awards - Handicappers' Edge
Established in 1991 to reward excellence in horse racing, the Cartier Awards are determined by points earned by horses in Pattern races throughout 2011, combined at the end of the season with the opinions of a panel of racing journalists and votes from readers of the Racing Post and The Daily Telegraph

Mucho Macho Man returns a winner - Handicappers' Edge
One of only three horses to contest every leg of this year's Triple Crown, Mucho Macho Man returned to the races with a sharp front-running performance at Aqueduct on Wednesday, winning a one-mile optional claimer by a widening 5 3/4-length margin.

Hollywood: Amazombie's 2012 plan ends with BC Sprint | Daily Racing Form
Spawr has sketched a tentative six-start campaign for Amazombie in 2012 that will begin in January and end in the BC Sprint.

Darley doubling Bernardini's fee to $150K | Daily Racing Form
Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum’s Darley Stud announced Thursday that it will double Bernardini’s stud fee, from $75,000 to $150,000, for the 2012 breeding season.