Here and There...

Finger Lakes Race Track will offer a schedule of 16 stakes races during the 2001 live racing season, totaling an estimated $755,000 in purse awards. Highlighting the 2001 schedule, which runs from April 13 through Dec. 9, is the $125,000 New York Derby on July 28 fro New York State-bred 3-year-olds. The Derby is the second leg of the Big Apple Triple, which offers a $250,000 bonus to the owner of a Thoroughbred that captures the New York Derby crown, as well as the Mike Lee at Belmont Park on June 30 and the Albany at Saratoga on Aug. 22 ...The Illinois Racing Board approved the stakes schedule for Hawthorne Race Course for the upcoming 2001 meet. The split meet will incorporate graded stakes events in both the spring and fall sessions, with the Hawthorne Derby (gr. III) and the Hawthorne Gold Cup (gr. II) featured in the spring, and the Robert F. Carey Memorial Handicap (gr. III) in the fall. In addition to those three graded stakes events, 12 additional stakes will be run, along with the inclusion of overnight stakes throughout the season. ... Russell C. Williams was appointed a trustee of the American Horse Council. He is vice president of Hanover Shoe Farms in Pennsylvania, one of the premier Standardbred breeding farms in the world, and replaces John Cashman, who had been an AHC Trustee for 12 years...The 1999 English Grand National winner Bobbyjo has been scratched from the 2001 race after fracturing his knee, Reuters news service reported. "He's probably going to get a screw put in the bone at the back of his knee,'' trainer Tommy Carberry said after Bobbyjo sustained the injury at the Irish track of Fairyhouse on Sunday. ``It'll mean he will be off for the best part of a year. Hopefully he will be back but you never know with this injury... Mike Gathagan has been hired as the Maryland Jockey Club director of corporate and racing communications. He replaces Chris Helein, who resigned to start his own public-relations consulting firm, CH Communications. Gathagan, 35, was a sports producer at the Baltimore TV station WMAR, public-relations director for the Baltimore Stallions of the Canadian Football League and assistant public-relations director for the Washington Wizards of the National Basketball Association... Jockey Kent Desormeaux was named "jockey of the year" for 2000 during Monday's ESPY awards on the ESPN network. ESPYs are awarded for "Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly." Desormeaux also won the jockey ESPY in 1999... The North American Pari-Mutuel Regulators Association has announced the addition of the New Mexico Racing Commission to its membership. The New Mexico Racing Commission thus becomes the twenty-fifth racing jurisdiction to join NAPRA and the second new jurisdiction this year. "The New Mexico Racing Commission is a good fit in our organization. They have a great commission and staff and I look forward to their contribution to our expanding organization," said Frank Lamb, NAPRA Executive Director. "The continued growth of NAPRA is very encouraging."