Churchill Downs Inc. is raising purses at Fair Grounds Racecourse in New Orleans, according to a Fair Grounds press release. The release credited “strong handle” as the purse increase driver, but the release didn’t cite any handle figures, nor does CDI permit handle totals to appear in daily results charts at the racetracks it owns.

All purses will get a 15 percent boost beginning with the Jan. 13 race card, which will be drawn Jan. 6; maiden special weight races, for instance, are going up to $52,000 from $45,000. 

Apprentice jockey Emmanuel Giles is expected to make a full recovery from serious injuries sustained in a race on Dec. 26 at Hawthorne Racecourse.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – What do Largent, Mutasaabeq, and Bemma’s Boy have in common? All three are finally ready to return to action after being given extended vacations following big stakes efforts, and all are among the 14 horses nominated for Saturday’s Grade 3 Tropical Turf, the lone stakes race to be offered here this week.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Led by Courvoisier, the top three finishers from Saturday’s $150,000 Jerome Stakes are expected to meet again in the Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes on Feb. 5 at Aqueduct.

Courvoisier won the Jerome by 1 1/4 lengths over Smarten Up, who finished three-quarters of a length in front of Cooke Creek. The race was run over an extremely sloppy surface, and jockey Jose Ortiz, riding Courvoisier for the first time, hustled the horse into contention as per instructions from trainer Kelly Breen. It wasn’t until the final sixteenth when Courvoisier began to edge clear.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – If Saturday’s New Year’s Day program here was a hockey game, nobody could argue that the top three stars at the end of the day were Simplification, Lightening Larry, and Kathleeen O. The only discussion, perhaps, would be what order to put them in.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Newgrange gave trainer Bob Baffert his third consecutive win in the Grade 3 Sham Stakes on Saturday at Santa Anita, and the trainer’s sixth win in the last 10 years in the early season one-mile test for 3-year-olds.

Newgrange joins outstanding company as a winner of the Sham trained by Baffert, who has claimed the exacta in the race the last three years.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Hot Rod Charlie, a two-time graded stakes winner in 2021 who was beaten a nose in the Grade 2 San Antonio Stakes on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita, is scheduled to be flown to the United Arab Emirates on Jan. 17. Hot Rod Charlie is part of a group of eight runners trained by Doug O’Neill that will be sent to Meydan Racecourse in Dubai, where the horses will stay through late March.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The two-time stakes winner Loud Mouth was claimed for $80,000 at Santa Anita on Friday and could start in the $150,000 California Cup Sprint on Jan. 15, new trainer John Sadler said.

On Friday, Loud Mouth finished fifth, beaten 13 lengths, in an optional claimer at six furlongs, fading through the stretch for Thomsen Racing and trainer Steve Knapp. Loud Mouth was claimed by Hronis Racing.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Apprentice jockey Emily Ellingwood will be sidelined until mid-January after suffering a concussion when she was unseated in deep stretch in the second race at Santa Anita on Friday.

Ellingwood said she will not ride the upcoming weekend, but hopes to return to riding later in the month.

“I’m going to take it easy for the next week,” Ellingwood said Sunday.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Globally, New Year’s Day was a milestone racing holiday for Larry, Nancy and Jaime Roth’s LNJ Foxwoods Stable. Not many stables win stakes in Australia and California on the same calendar day.

On Saturday at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, the 5-year-old Kentucky-bred mare Lighthouse remained unbeaten in four starts in Australia with a victory in the $115,900 Chester Manifold Stakes at seven furlongs.

At Santa Anita, Luck won her first stakes in the Grade 3 Robert Frankel Stakes at 1 1/8 miles for fillies and mares.