New Jersey Commission schedules Monday meeting to address post-race testing logjam

The New Jersey Racing Commission has scheduled a special meeting for Monday in order to consider a request by Monmouth Park to pay out purses without first receiving the results of post-race drug tests, according to Monmouth’s top official.

Dennis Drazin, the head of the company that operates Monmouth under a lease with the state, said on Thursday night that the commission agreed to the meeting in order to address delays in receiving post-race test results from the state’s testing laboratory, Truesdail in California. Under New Jersey racing regulations, purses cannot be distributed without first receiving the post-race results.

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Drazin said that since the testing delays were first reported earlier this week, Truesdail has returned several additional days of testing to the state racing commission. Prior to those test results being returned, the lab had only processed test results for the first day of racing at Monmouth, which opened on July 3.

New Jersey’s racing regulations require post-race drug tests for all winning horses, plus some horses selected at random or by the stewards. Monmouth has paid out purses to those horses that were not tested, but it has been prevented from paying out approximately $7 million of the $10 million in purses that horses have earned so far at the meet.