Monmouth meet opens with Long Branch; stable area at capacity
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Monmouth Park on the Jersey Shore launches a 61-day race meet Saturday, a season that figures to look a lot like the one in 2022.
The 61 days include 10 turf-only cards this fall at The Meadowlands. The Monmouth racing week remains a truncated three days, Friday through Sunday. Monday cards held last August, “a disaster” in the words of racing secretary John Heims, have been dropped.
The meet opener on Saturday, with a standard weekend first post of 12:40 Eastern, drew 95 entrants for 10 races, a robust number that won’t be the norm. Monmouth averaged 7.25 starters per race during 2022 and a paltry 6.33 in dirt races. Such is life in the crowded East Coast racing marketplace.
Heims said he wants to card as many races as possible, up to 12 on weekends. Eight-race Friday cards begin at 2 p.m.
Monmouth during its 2022 meet added two fall cards for a total of 62 racing days, including The Meadowlands. During 2022, Monmouth carded 606 races, down from a peak about 15 years ago of nearly 1,000 in a single season. Total handle has fallen alongside racing opportunities, down to $217.2 million last year from $266.6 million in 2015.
Monmouth introduced fixed odds wagering during the 2022 meeting, and bets into that market will be available again this year at designated windows ontrack and through a mobile app. The fixed odds wagering menu is expected to expand this year beyond races at Monmouth, pending final state approval.
Despite challenging times, purses remain attractive, thanks in great part to a $10 million annual subsidy that comes from New Jersey state coffers. That subsidy expires after 2023 but is expected to be renewed by the New Jersey state legislature, Heims said.
The track is scheduled to host 48 stakes races worth $7.7 million this season, and Heims expects overnight purses, not including stakes, to average about $425,000 daily. Maiden special weight races start the season at $57,000.
Heims said the stable area, which can house 1,550 horses, is over capacity right now, the first time in his six years as racing secretary that has been the case. All the trainers who were major participants during the 2022 meet return this year, including Claudio Gonzalez, who won his first Monmouth training title.
Gonzalez has a full complement of 60-plus horses at the track. Kelly Breen, Chad Brown, and Jose Delgado also have close to 60 stalls, and Jose Camejo has consolidated his summer operation at Monmouth. Hall of Famer Shug McGaughey, allotted 18 stalls, has the first Monmouth string of his long career. Breen, Brown, and Kent Sweezey won the most turf races last season over a course that often plays to speed.
No one rides Monmouth turf or dirt more deftly than Paco Lopez, who seeks his 10th Monmouth riding title this summer. Lopez’s 91 winners during 2022 were 46 more than the second-highest total.
As always, the meet’s high point is the $1 million Haskell Stakes, scheduled this year for July 22 with the Grade 1, $600,000 United Nations as a supporting feature.
The first small local step toward the Haskell comes with the opening-day feature, the $100,000 Long Branch Stakes. And as often happens, the Monmouth stakes runs right into a stakes race in New York, in this case the $200,000 Peter Pan at Belmont Park. There’s one key cross-entrant in the two spots, the Brad Cox-trained Slip Mahoney. Cox on Thursday morning said in a text message he still wasn’t sure where Slip Mahoney would race. Cox also entered lightly raced and vastly talented Bishops Bay in the Peter Pan.
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In the 1 1/16-mile Long Branch, Slip Mahoney would be the horse to beat coming off a pair of troubled trips at Aqueduct. The colt has more pace than he showed in his last two races but not so much that he’ll get caught up in a battle between several speedy types.
Fast fractions would also help Hayes Strike, the most likely winner if Slip Mahoney stays in New York. Lasix is permitted in the Long Branch, and racing on the anti-bleeding medication for the only time in his career, Hayes Strike on March 18 won the Private Terms at Laurel Park by nearly two lengths.
Kenny McPeek trains Hayes Strike, a tepid seventh last out in the Blue Grass Stakes, and gives the mount to jockey Samuel Marin. McPeek and Marin teamed to win the 2022 Long Branch with Dash Attack.
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