A Sobering Day For Monmouth Park: An Analysis

[Wandering Eyes]

The already struggling racing and breeding industries in New Jersey were hit by potentially devastating news on Wednesday when it was reported that there are bills afloat in the state capital in Trenton that could eventually allow Monmouth Park to reduce its meet to 25 days a year. Is this the beginning of the end for one of the sport's most iconic and picturesque tracks? Not necessarily. (I'll get to that later). But it's hard not to be pessimistic about Monmouth's future.

As with so many things that have become the real wheels that now make this sport churn, this is all about alternative sources of revenue from gaming. Monmouth is to the East Coast what Santa Anita is to the West Coast.

The first casino opened in Atlantic City, New Jersey way back in 1978. Over the next 48 years, Monmouth, along with the Meadowlands, has fought the good fight. Those in charge have done everything imaginable to try to get casinos or at least slot machines to call their own or to get the Atlantic City casinos to do something to help the horse racing game. But the casinos have immense political power, particularly in the southern half of the state, and their many cronies won't budge. They have protected Atlantic City at all costs. Horse racing be damned.

A band-aid was offered in 2019 when then-Governor Phil Murphy approved a $20 million package from the state to supplement purses. Half went to Monmouth and half went to the Standardbred industry. With that money, Monmouth was able to hold a 50-day meet, which didn't include nine extra days of all-turf Thoroughbred racing at the Meadowlands. By today's standards, the purses weren't anything special and the meet was way shorter than it needed to be. But, with the $10 million, Monmouth Park got by.

But there have been strings attached. The purse subsidies were often guaranteed for only one year at a time and that left the Monmouth team to return each year to Trenton to all but beg for more help. The other problem is that on Jan. 20, Murphy will no longer be the governor. This is the day that new governor, Mikie Sherrill, will be sworn in. She seems like a reasonable person and, as a fellow Democrat, has never seemed to have issues with Murphy or anything that he has done. She has given no indication that she will be an Atlantic City sycophant. But no one has any idea how Sherrill feels about horse racing and its place in the future of her state. If Sherrill does continue with the purse subsidies, then Monmouth's future will be safe, at least in the short term.

The other hope is that, finally, some form of casino gaming will come to the state's racetracks. Legislation that approved casinos in the New York City metropolitan area is now in effect and three casinos are set to open within the five boroughs. The timeline is anywhere from this spring to 2030. One will be at the site of Aqueduct, which will cease being a racetrack later this year and will become a full-fledged casino rather than a “racino” with limited gaming options.

Jeff Gural, the owner of the Meadowlands, is as perceptive as they come and has a lot of friends in political circles. He has expressed optimism that, with the new New York casinos just a short drive from the New York-New Jersey borders, politicians in the Garden State will finally wake up and put a stop to the exodus of New Jersey casino gamblers heading to New York and Pennsylvania, contributing nothing to the state they live in.

Picnics at Monmouth Park | Sarah Andrew

Barring the unforeseen, Monmouth is not going to get a casino. It is too far away from New York City and too close to Atlantic City. But should the Meadowlands get a casino, the conventional wisdom is that it will be required to split the revenue with the Thoroughbred game. The Meadowlands sits in the middle of one of the most densely populated areas in the country, and a casino there would surely be among the most successful on the planet.

There's that, but there's also the harsh reality of a possibly dire situation. Dennis Drazin, who heads the management team that runs the racetrack, has said that he does not want to cut dates but has to keep that option open if the purse subsidy goes away.

“We have no intention of ever cutting days unless we're forced do so because we don't have revenue,” Drazin told the TDN. “If we don't have revenue, then our choice is do we close down the operation or do we go to the horsemen and ask them to reduce days?”

The problem with his logic is that a 25-day meet will never work. The first blow would be to the state's breeding industry, which is already hanging on by a thread. With a guarantee of only 25 days of racing, no one is going to breed a horse in the state. The larger issue is that finding horsemen to stable and race at Monmouth with only 25 days of racing available to them will prove to be an impossibility. What trainer is going to come to Monmouth when there will be so many better options in the Mid-Atlantic region? All they have to do is look some 70 miles to the west at Parx, where there is year-round racing, fat purses and the state's breeding program is thriving.

For someone who has lived most of his life within a short distance of Monmouth Park, I find this highly upsetting. It is where my father used to take me to the track almost every Saturday and taught me to love the sport. (You still had to wear a jacket and a tie to get into the clubhouse in those days). It was where I had my first “real job” as a horse racing journalist, covering what was then a robust Garden State-Monmouth- Meadowlands circuit for the Daily Racing Form. It is a beautiful place with an atmosphere not unlike that at Del Mar. It is nestled next to the Atlantic Ocean and an afternoon spent there on a beautiful summer day at the Jersey Shore is an afternoon spent in heaven. If you've ever been there, you know exactly what I mean.

But times have dramatically changed, and the sport has lost way too many racetracks in recent years, and there are legitimate fears about the future of racing in California and Florida. Will Monmouth Park be the next to be given its last rites? I hope not. But I fear that it will.

The post A Sobering Day For Monmouth Park: An Analysis appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

View the full article