Monmouth Yet to Pay Out Purses From End of Meet

[Wandering Eyes]

Monmouth Park's 2025 meet ended Sept. 14, but 38 days later some horsemen are still looking to get paid. Dennis Drazin, Chairman and CEO of Darby Development, the operator of Monmouth Park, vowed that the money will be available shortly.

Drazin said the problem is that the state has been late in turning funds over to Monmouth for the horsemen. The process is a complicated one.

“The process with purses is that we collect money, from account wagering, live handle, our OTWs,” Drazin said. “We do seven-day reports and send them to the state and they have to reconcile all the numbers. Then they send us money back. I think we sent them money again last Friday. We're waiting to get more money from them and then we will pay purses. There should be no concern whatsoever that purses won't get paid.

Drazin estimated that it has been “two to three weeks” since money was received from the state to fund the purse account. But one new Jersey horsemen who spoke on the condition of anonymity said he has been waiting more than seven weeks for his money.

In addition, people who have had horses claimed off them toward the end of the meet have not been able to withdraw that money from their accounts. With New Jersey horsemen about to scatter across the country for the winter, some are saying that money is essential to pay for the costs of shipping out and re-establishing themselves at a new track.

“It has all been straightened out and [the state] is probably going on a month-to-month basis,” Drazin said. “It's not just us, it's the Meadowlands and all the OTWs that have money coming to them.

Drazin said he did not know how much money was still owed.

Monmouth receives a $10 million annual subsidy from the state each year to help fund the purse account. The money for the 2026 meet will be available shortly, but Drazin said he did not want to dip into that fund.

“This has nothing to do with annual subsidy the state pays Monmouth,” he said. The subsidy is for next year's purses. Even if I had that money I wouldn't eat into it to pay this year's purses. If I used $2 million for this year, I'd only have $8 million for next year and we'd have to lower purses.

Monmouth also runs a nine-day all turf meet at the Meadowlands over a five-week period. Drazin was less optimistic that money would arrive shortly. He said that in addition to receiving money from the state, HISA must also clear the payments and will not do so until all the drug tests from the Meadowlands races have been completed.

The post Monmouth Yet to Pay Out Purses From End of Meet appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

View the full article