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A 32-year-old man has been arrested and charged with arson after he allegedly set fire to a New York barn on Thursday, killing more than two dozen race horses. The tragic events took place at the Tioga Downs Casino complex in Nichols, New York, around an hour south of Syracuse. The New York State Police say they responded to a structure fire, later releasing a statement to confirm that 'over two dozen racehorses died' in the blaze. The statement added: 'One person who entered the burning barn in an attempt to save horses suffered second-degree burns and was transported to...

There's the Kentucky Derby, and then there's the mad Kentucky highway dash that a 2-year-old filly named Bold and Bossy made this weekend. She threw her jockey during a race Saturday in Kentucky, and then escaped the race park for a 30-minute gallop along a highway and an interstate before eventually getting corralled into a barn overnight. Then, that barn caught fire...

Hundreds of elite thoroughbred race horses sprinted away from flames Thursday as one of California’s major wildfires tore through a training center in San Diego County. Not all made it. There was no official count of how many animals were killed in the hazy confusion as both horses and humans evacuated, but trainers at San Luis Rey Downs estimated that at least a dozen had died, possibly far more.

Scientists have traced the origin of the 'speed gene' in Thoroughbred racehorses back to a single British mare that lived in the United Kingdom around 300 years ago, according to findings published today in the scientific journal Nature Communications. The origin of the 'speed gene' (C type myostatin gene variant) was revealed by analysing DNA from hundreds of horses, including DNA extracted from the skeletal remains of 12 celebrated Thoroughbred stallions born between 1764 and 1930. "Changes in racing since the foundation of the Thoroughbred have shaped the distribution of 'speed gene' types over time and in different racing regions,"...

HONG KONG: It was a device worthy of Rube Goldberg or Wile E. Coyote: a dozen remote-controlled launching tubes secretly buried in the turf at Hong Kong's most famous horse race track last week, armed with compressed air to fire tiny, liquid-filled darts into the bellies of horses at the starting gate. No horses were hurt, because the track supervisor noticed something underfoot before racing started, discovered the elaborate mechanism concealed by grass-colored tape and called in a police bomb squad to remove it. But the discovery of the device, equipped with elaborate electronic controls, has raised concerns about security...