Monmouth Park average daily handle up slightly; total handle jumps during longer meet

Average daily handle at the recently completed Monmouth Park meet in Oceanport, New Jersey, rose slightly compared to a shorter meet last year, according to figures distributed by the track on Wednesday.

Average daily handle for the 60 live race cards during the meet was $3.43 million, up 1.2 percent compared with average daily handle of $3.38 million last year during a 52-day meet. Monmouth canceled one July race card during the meet, which was originally scheduled for 61 days, and it canceled six races on its biggest day, the Haskell Stakes card, losing approximately $5 million in handle.

With the eight additional race cards, total handle during the meet was up 16.8 percent, from $176.0 million last year to $205.5 million this year. Average attendance was up 1.6 percent, from 8,947 last year to 9,096 this year.

Monmouth had an especially rainy season for last year’s meet, and average daily handle for the 2018 meet was down 2.1 percent compared to the 2017 meet, with larger declines on a per-race basis. The $3.43 million average posted this year was down slightly from the 2017 average daily handle of $3.46 million.
Monmouth Park received a $10 million purse subsidy from the state legislature this year, amounting to nearly $170,000 a day in additional purse money. The track raised purses once during the meet, by 5 percent, and had advertised that average daily purse distribution would be approximately $500,000.

Under the legislation enabling the subsidy, Monmouth will be required to provide financial data to the legislature to review the subsidy’s impact on the state’s horse industry. The state’s harness tracks also received $10 million in purse subsidies and will face the same requirement.

In a release, Dennis Drazin, the head of the horsemen-controlled operating company that leases Monmouth from the state, said that the subsidy had allowed Monmouth to add racing dates to its schedule and provided the circuit with stability.

“When you remove uncertainty from any equation the end result is typically success,” Drazin said. “We’re optimistic about the future, not only for racing at Monmouth Park in general but specifically for the breeding industry in the state.”