Live racing shrinks to danger point in New Jersey.

The Thoroughbred industry faces troubles almost everywhere you look, but it's no exaggeration to say that New Jersey racing and breeding is now struggling for its life.
Appearances will be deceiving when Monmouth Park opens for its 2003 meet on May 24, offering $300,000 a day in overnight purses‹the highest of any track in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Monmouth Park, on the Jersey shore, fulfills many people's ideas of what a race track ought to be a welcoming expanse of gracious architecture and old shade trees, where families enjoy spending the afternoon and fans can revel in the quality of the racing.

But, due to the complex mix of factors that exists in New Jersey, running successful meets at Monmouth and its sister track, Meadowlands, is not enough to secure their future. New Jersey¹s breeders and horsemen are like a property owner forced to keep selling off acreage in order to pay his utility bills. Sooner or later, there could be nothing left.

It all comes down to days vs. dollars.
New Jersey's horsemen agreed to cut 21 days from the 2003 live racing schedule at Monmouth Park and Meadowlands, in order to maintain the purse schedule at a substantial level. If Monmouth and Meadowlands were to attempt to run 141 days, as specified in a state law enacted in 2001, this year¹s purses at Monmouth would average approximately $185,000 a day, said the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen¹s Association (NJTHA) counsel Dennis Drazin.

" Given the choice between destroying the product and cutting days, we believe we did the right thing," said Drazin. "It was the responsible thing to do."
Not so long ago, New Jersey had four Thoroughbred tracks in full swing (Monmouth and Meadowlands, Atlantic City and Garden State) and 340 racing dates per year.

Garden State ran its final race in May 2001 and has since been wiped off the landscape, replaced by an upscale shopping center. Atlantic City now operates as a quasi-off-track betting facility (technically an inter-track wagering site), and is awarded 10 days in order to maintain its race track status; four of those days are actually run at Atlantic City, and six are transferred to Monmouth.

The 2003 schedule calls for Monmouth to race 92 days (including six days belonging to Atlantic City), and Meadowlands to run 28.

The shrinking schedule of racing dates translates into far fewer opportunities for owners to compete for purse money, and also spells financial woe for the people who earn their livelihood from breeding, training, grooming, riding, buying, selling or otherwise tending to race horses. At least for those who have not moved out of state.

Cutting Monmouth and Meadowlands to 120 days "really hurts us," said Michael Harrison, president of the Thoroughbred Breeders' Association of New Jersey. "Our interests are very consistent with those of the horsemen we'd all like more money, and more dates."
Account wagering and off-track betting, legal in New Jersey since 2001, will generate additional revenue when they get up and running possibly as soon as this fall. Video lottery terminals, now under consideration by a panel appointed by Governor Jim McGreevey, could go a long way toward rejuvenating New Jersey racing.

But those magic bullets, which have made such a difference in other states, won't resolve the fundamental issues at work in New Jersey.

New Jersey's Thoroughbred industry faces competition unlike anywhere else in the country namely, a double whammy from its Standardbred cousins as well as from Atlantic City casinos.

Casino interests, generally speaking, oppose anything that could be perceived as a threat to their monopoly on New Jersey gaming beyond the race tracks. That's a given.
But the Standardbred/Thoroughbred conflict strikes just as deeply, and is based on something that may be more painful to combat. That is built-in favoritism by the state, and state-controlled New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which owns and operates Meadowlands and Monmouth.

" Meadowlands's Standard-bred product is number one in the world, and they want to keep it that way," as Drazin will tell you.

Standardbred racing at Meadowlands benefits from a lopsided distribution of simulcast revenue that is unlikely to change without a protracted legal battle.

A twist in the law directs that simulcast revenue go to whichever breed is running at a track at that particular time. Meadowlands conducts eight and a half months of Standardbred racing a year vs. two and a half months of Thoroughbred.

Day-in and day-out, Meadowlands offers simulcasts of Thoroughbred races with the revenue generated from wagering on those races going toward Standardbred purses.
If simulcast revenue were divided evenly, purse funds would be available for 141 days at Monmouth/Meadowlands this year, said Drazin. That's the kicker.
In New Jersey, the playing field isn't just tilted, it's built on very shaky ground.