Meadowlands: Grand Circuit stakes to be televised nationally

The Meadowlands has announced that three of the top Grand Circuit stakes cards of the 2020 Championship Meet will be televised live across North America on a National Sports network.

Three live races will be broadcast on each program, with the Cutler Memorial (Saturday, May 16), Meadowlands Pace eliminations (Saturday, July 11) and Meadowlands Pace Final (Saturday, July 18) headlining the chosen nights. Each broadcast is tentatively set to run from 8:00 to 10:00 pm.

While the Meadowlands Pace elimination and final cards are loaded with supporting stakes such as the Graduate finals and Hambletonian Maturity, the Cutler Memorial will be supplemented by two brand new, yet to be named, Early Closers for the older pacing horses and mares.

A break in the schedule between the Blue Chip Matchmaker and Borgata (Levy) at Yonkers and the Betsy Ross and Commodore Barry at Harrah's Philly affords The Meadowlands a spot to add a new race for those divisions.

The new Early Closers will use a top 11 money winners in 2019-2020 and have a estimated purse of $85,000. They will also be considered point-bearing TVG legs, though horses need not be TVG eligible to be nominated to them.

These races will require a nomination payment of $1,000 due by March 15 and a $1,000 entry fee. The added money will be $60,000. Further details and conditions are in development and will be released soon.

"NYRA has been doing a lot of live TV since Saratoga last summer. We feel it's important to try broadcasting some of our big stakes live," said Meadowlands President Jeff Gural. "We have a good product and hope by exposing it to a national audience it will generate more interest in the sport.

-edited release (Meadowlands)