37-day meet begins with twilight Fridays

Monmouth Park is typically a good place to spend an afternoon at the races. The grounds are spacious and groomed, the facility is clean and attractive, and there’s usually a nice breeze to enjoy, coming off the shore two miles to the east.

But nothing is typical in the Year of COVID-19.

With a first post of 5 p.m. Eastern, Monmouth Park will open its delayed 2020 meet on Friday evening with a six-race card, at a time when the COVID19 pandemic continues to disrupt all aspects of daily life. Although the track has been given the go-ahead to allow a limited number of customers, all spectators will be required to pass health checks at entry gates and wear masks at all times, except when “eating, drinking, or smoking,” according to track officials.

Dennis Drazin, chief executive of the company that operates Monmouth under a lease from the state, said that the track has little guidance on what to expect this year.

“We could have 15,000 on July 4, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 1,500 either,” he said. “People are not ready to leave their homes yet. People are scared. They want to see if what we are doing works. They want assurances that it is being done right.”

The meet this year will run for 37 days, on a Friday-toSunday schedule, through Sept. 27. The track originally planned to open on May 2 for a 56-day meet, but opening day was pushed back as the state, one of the initial hotspots for COVID-19, struggled to get the spread of the virus under control. With a resurgence in cases nationwide recently, the state government announced Monday that it has put an indefinite pause on its plans to allow indoor dining as of Thursday, a cautionary harbinger.

Currently, there are 1,200 horses on the grounds, according to John Heims, the track’s vice president of racing, from a total stable capacity of 1,500. Monmouth expects to attract more horses after the special five-day Keeneland meet in Lexington, Ky., wraps up on July 12, and more horses should be heading north from Tampa Bay Downs in Florida in the next few days, following the close of the track’s extended meet Wednesday.

Purses are expected to average $500,000 a day, consistent with last year’s racing, an amount made possible by a $10 million injection from the state government. Owners will continue to get $500 per start, and trainers will get $300. The track also covers worker’s compensation costs for trainers.

This year, the trainer’s title at Monmouth is up for grabs, to the relief of horsemen and bettors. For the past seven years, Jorge Navarro has topped the trainers’ standings, and in the past three years, Jason Servis has landed in second. But earlier this year, both trainers were banished from racing after being indicted in early March on federal charges related to administering illegal substances to horses, a headline that seems lifted from a lifetime ago.

Kelly Breen, who won training titles at Monmouth in 2005 and 2006, has 48 horses on the grounds, but he noted that many of those are 2-year-olds who aren’t expected to see a lot of action.

“Until I start claiming horses, I can’t think about a title,” he said. “We’ll see how that goes.”

Michael Stidham has 71 horses on the grounds, the most of any trainer, according to the track. Jose Delgado, a former jockey who finished tied for third with Breen in the standings last year, with 25 victories from just 81 starts, is expected to vie for the title. Jerry Hollendorfer has a string of horses at Monmouth for the first time, overseen by his assistant Dan Ward, and Antonio Machado, who trained a winner of the Venezuelan Triple Crown and is based at Tampa Bay, has headed north to New Jersey for the first time.

It’s not likely that many bettors will miss Navarro and Servis. In 2018, Navarro and Servis won with 45 percent and 41 percent of their starters, respectively; last year, they had win percentages of 31 percent and 29 percent. Their dominance left a lot of handicappers passing on races.

Unfortunately for bettors, a plan for Monmouth Park to offer fixed-odds bets on its races has been delayed as the state’s attorney general reviews an aspect of the bets regarding which regulatory agency should be responsible for overseeing the wagers, according to Drazin. In February, Monmouth reached an agreement with an Australian bookmaking company, BetMakers, to deploy a fixedodds platform for its races, in the hopes of having the bets available for the start of the meet.

“I don’t think it’s a question of whether we will offer it,” Drazin said. “It’s just a matter of when. Hopefully, in time for the Haskell” on July 18.

The headliner on the opener is the $75,000 Oceanport Centennial Stakes, at five furlongs for 3-year-olds and older. The race drew eight horses, and the Hollendorfer-trained Awesome Anywhere will likely get a long look. Two starts back, he won a $44,000 starter allowance race at Oaklawn Park by 3 3/4 lengths.