Monmouth meet opens with hope of soon adding sports betting

There should be plenty of energy at Monmouth Park on Cinco de Mayo when the beautiful Jersey Shore track begins its meet a week earlier than usual on Kentucky Derby Day.

“We always get a big Derby crowd, but having live racing is a great way to start our 73rd season,” said Dennis Drazin, chairman of Darby Development, which operates the track on behalf of the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association. “This is something the horsemen have really wanted.”

On Saturday, the gates will open at 10 a.m. Eastern, a half-hour before the first race at Churchill Downs. A nine-race live card begins at 1:45 p.m.

While opening day looks like a slam dunk, everyone involved in New Jersey racing is on the edge of their seat awaiting the U.S. Supreme Court’s sports-betting decision, which could come as soon as May 14. New Jersey has waged a seven-year legal fight to bring sports betting to its racetracks and casinos.

“I’m a hair short of offering a Joe Namath guarantee, but I am 95 percent sure we are going to win this case,” Drazin said.

A positive outcome would bring sports betting to Monmouth within weeks. The William Hill Sports Bar is ready to go, and according to Drazin, management has “put a million dollars-plus into getting the grandstand ready” for the larger crowd sports betting will bring.

“We’ve renovated half the grandstand outside the William Hill bar,” Drazin said.

Ontrack sports betting would give Monmouth the alternative revenue source it has long wanted – and needs – to keep pace with neighboring racing states that benefit from casino gambling in some form.

“Sports betting will give us more revenue so we can have more days of racing and higher purses,” Drazin said.

The Monmouth season has been extended two days this year and consists of 52 cards through Sept. 9. Racing will be held on Saturdays and Sundays in May and June, with Friday cards added after July 4. There will be racing on Thursdays from Aug. 2-23. The schedule will revert back to Saturdays and Sundays in September.

There will be holiday cards on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day.

The $4.34 million stakes schedule has been increased $615,000 from a year ago. There will be five major days during the season when 22 of the 39 stakes will be held.

The centerpiece of the meet, the Grade 1, $1 million Haskell Invitational, will be July 29. The five supporting stakes include four Grade 3’s – the Monmouth Cup, Matchmaker, Oceanport, and Molly Pitcher.

The other bundled stakes days are May 26; Father’s Day (June 17); June 30; and Sept. 1. Those programs are topped, respectively, by the Grade 2 Monmouth Stakes, the Pegasus Stakes, the Grade 1 United Nations, and the Grade 3 Red Bank and Violet stakes.

John Heims is Monmouth’s counsel and director of communications, and also will serve as racing secretary this season. In an attempt to increase field size, Monmouth has put into place owner and trainer participation bonuses.

Owners will be guaranteed at least $500 per starter, excluding New Jersey-bred races and stakes, and trainers will receive a minimum of $300. This is intended to encourage horsemen to be less selective about picking spots for their horses since they are guaranteed some money.

Monmouth will host seven of the 25 Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred Championships races to be held in the region this summer.

Jorge Navarro will have approximately 70 horses at Monmouth. He has been the leading trainer at the meet the past five years and is tied with Juan Serey, John Forbes, and Budd Lepman for the most Monmouth titles.

Keith Nations has relocated the main string of his stable to Monmouth this year. Also new is Kent Sweezey, a former assistant to Jimmy Jerkens. Mike Stidham will have stalls at Monmouth in addition to his barn at Fair Hill.

Paco Lopez, a five-time leading rider at Monmouth, left the meet early last year to ride in New York but will be based here this summer. Jose Ferrer and Antonio Gallardo, the second- and third-leading riders of 2017, also are back

Cliff Hanger comes up tough

The opening-day feature is the $70,000 Cliff Hanger, a one-mile turf race for 3-year-olds and up. It has drawn a deep field of 10.

Irish Strait, one of two horses in the field trained by Graham Motion, won the Grade 3 Red Bank at Monmouth last season and may be a narrow favorite. The field also includes New York shippers from David Jacobson, Jimmy Jerkens, and Gary Sciacca.

Celebration, 5, will be making his U.S. debut for trainer Tres Abbott after racing in Britain and Ireland.

But the horse who jumps off the page is $1.2 million earner Force the Pass, who will be making his first start since finishing third, beaten a half-length, in the Grade 3 Commonwealth Turf Cup at Laurel Park in September 2016.

As a 3-year-old in 2015, Force the Pass won the Grade 3, $500,000 Penn Mile and Grade 1 Belmont Derby back to back for trainer Alan Goldberg and the Colts Neck Stable of Richard Santulli. Goldberg said Force the Pass came out of the Maryland stakes sore, and it took a while to determine his exact problem, which turned out to be a condylar fracture in a hind leg.

Four screws were inserted to help the fracture mend, but when Goldberg put him back in training last spring, he wasn’t doing well.

“One of the screws was irritating everything,” Goldberg said. “So, we stopped on him again, and they took three of the screws out.”

Force the Pass was put back in training in mid-February and is “doing great,” according to Goldberg.

“If you look at him in the paddock, no horse looks any better than him,” Goldberg said. “Now, how’s he going to run? I don’t know. It’s been a long time. But he’s a racehorse, and he’ll probably be fine.”