Meadowlands

The Meadowlands Country Club foursome of Thomas Kardish, Charles Marte Jr., Gary Rodgers and Andrew Sivak combined for a winning score of 126 on its home course yesterday in the Golf Association of Philadelphia's Pro-President tournament. The competition was held after a seminar for club officials that featured author James Finegan. The tournament, using a net two-best-balls-of-foursome format, consisted of 61 four-player teams at Meadowlands and Cedarbrook. Little Mill's Steven Backstrom, Ken Peyre-Ferry, John Hughey and Edward Laird prevailed at Cedarbrook with a 132.

Faced with a threatened shutdown of the Meadowlands race track today because of a contract dispute between harness horsemen and track operators, the New Jersey Racing Commission last night ordered the track to continue operating. Commission chairman Stuart O. Goldsmith also directed the track's horsemen to enter horses for Thursday's racing program. After daylong negotiations, the Meadowlands operators and officials of the Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association of New Jersey failed to reach agreement on a new contract.

The New York Giants yesterday reached an agreement with the state of New Jersey that will allow the team to build a new $750 million stadium in the Meadowlands. "This is a good deal for New Jersey taxpayers," acting Gov. Richard J. Codey said. "We're going to get a brand-new stadium with one of the best deals in the country. " The Giants have long offered to pay the entire cost of the stadium. But negotiations stalled last month because of the Giants' concerns regarding game-day traffic from Xanadu, a $1.3 billion shopping and entertainment complex being built at the Meadowlands.

The New Jersey Racing Commission yesterday approved a continuation of Garden State Park's simulcasts to the Meadowlands, assuring that the Cherry Hill track would continue its live harness racing at least into mid-November. If simulcasting between the two had stopped, Garden State would have closed down its live harness season, which is scheduled to run through Dec. 20. Garden State president Robert J. Quigley said after the commission meeting at the Meadowlands that he would have wasted little time in pulling the plug on the harness season if the track did not have additional revenue from the dual simulcasts.

Maybe the asphalt capital of North America is not the place to hold an Indy-car race. Mid-Ohio, Laguna Seca, Calif., and Road America at Elkhart Lake, Wis., are the most scenic Indy-car road racing courses. The Meadowlands, site of Sunday's Chase Grand Prix, is scenic only if you prefer asphalt over grass. The best road courses are in the country, where there are hills and grass. At the Meadowlands, the most prominent features are Byrne Arena, Giants Stadium, the Meadowlands race track and parking lots.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Standing in another half-built development that will get hundreds of millions of dollars in tax incentives, Gov. Christie today ushered in the "American Dream" to northern New Jersey. The much-maligned and long-delayed Xanadu development at the Meadowlands, which Christie himself has called the "the ugliest damn building in New Jersey, and maybe America," will get a makeover by the Canadian developer who built Mall of America in Minnesota. Next to the Jets' and Giants' stadium, with a dead-on view of the Manhattan skyline, the complex to be called American Dream at Meadowlands will feature high-end shopping, a 26-screen movie theater, nightclubs, a performing arts theater, world-class restaurants, an indoor ice skating rink, and an indoor ski slope (with moguls and a snowboard half-pipe)

The Meadowlands Racetrack, the financial underpinning of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, opens its 10th thoroughbred season tomorrow night. The evening card will feature split divisions of the Boiling Springs Handicap for 3-year-old fillies. After tomorrow's card, the track will be closed Saturday - for the Giants-Steelers exhibition football game at the authority's Giants Stadium - and Sunday, a dark day in New Jersey. The northern New Jersey track will reopen with an afternoon Labor Day card, which also represents a milestone for the Meadowlands.

For the second time in three seasons, Temple is moving a home game against Penn State from Veterans Stadium due to a scheduling conflict with the Phillies. On Sept. 21, the Owls will play Penn State at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. In 1994, the game was moved from the Vet to Franklin Field. Penn State, which played Rutgers at the Meadowlands last season, also will meet Southern Cal there on Aug. 25 in the annual Kickoff Classic. Tickets, when they do go on sale, will be priced at $25. Kickoff time has not been announced.

Balancing a badge with barn duty paid off handsomely for Philadelphia police officer Owen Eiler Jr. on Thursday night as he scored his first Meadowlands stakes win with Dontevenknowmymame in the $58,500 Super Bowl final. Dontevenknowmymame came first up to clear the lead past the three-quarter marker and dug in for a 11/4-length victory over My Man in 1 minute, 57 seconds. All Munky Business was third. Dontevenknowmymame, driven to victory by Eric Abbatiello, paid $9.80 to win the sixth-race feature.

Even before a team from the Meadowlands - the New York Giants - earned a spot in the Super Bowl, New Jersey was preparing for a Super Bowl at the Meadowlands. Two years from now. "An awful lot of preparation is required for an event of [that] size, and we are taking this quite seriously," said Lt. Steve Jones, spokesman for the state police. The NFL voted in 2010 to award the 2014 game to a bid led by the Giants and New York Jets, setting the stage for the first outdoor cold-weather Super Bowl.

Balancing a badge with barn duty paid off handsomely for Philadelphia police officer Owen Eiler Jr. on Thursday night as he scored his first Meadowlands stakes win with Dontevenknowmymame in the $58,500 Super Bowl final. Dontevenknowmymame came first up to clear the lead past the three-quarter marker and dug in for a 11/4-length victory over My Man in 1 minute, 57 seconds. All Munky Business was third. Dontevenknowmymame, driven to victory by Eric Abbatiello, paid $9.80 to win the sixth-race feature.

Owen Eiler Jr. is hoping for a big win in Thursday's $58,500 Super Bowl Series final for 4-year-old trotters at Meadowlands Racetrack. Eiler, a Philadelphia police officer, trains a small stable of horses in southern New Jersey in his spare time. His mare Dontevenknowmymame won her second-round race in the series and was second, by a head, in the first round. She will start the 10-horse final from post two with regular driver Eric Abbatiello. A victory in the Super Bowl final would give Eiler the most lucrative triumph of his training career, which is in its second full season.

There are two weeks to go in the NFL season, and the NFC East is still up for grabs among the Eagles, New York Giants, and Dallas Cowboys. Not surprisingly, Dallas, which leads the division, has the best chance of winning the title, according to the founder of a handicapping website. RJ Bell, who founded Pregame.com, says the 'Boys (8-6), 11/2-point favorites over the Birds on Saturday and likely to be a slight underdog the next week at the Meadowlands against the Giants, have a 60 percent chance to win the division.

The Eagles wasted no time tagging the Giants' shiny new football palace. For more than three decades, the place across the parking lot from MetLife Stadium was haunted by the ghostly image of Herm Edwards' scooping up Joe Pisarcik's inconceivable fumble and scooting for an impossible game-winning touchdown. The Eagles never set foot in Giants Stadium again without the original Miracle of the Meadowlands coming to mind. It stood as the emotional backdrop for every big Eagles moment there, from Clyde Simmons' rumbling for a game-winning touchdown with a blocked Eagles field goal to Brian Westbrook's incredible punt return to win a game in 2003.

A return to the Meadowlands may be just the cure DeSean Jackson has been looking for. The Eagles wide receiver's production has slipped in each of last five games he has played, and last week he was benched after he overslept and was late for a special teams meeting. Oh, and he doesn't have the contract extension that he said Monday made it difficult to be happy at work. But Jackson said Friday that he's refocused and determined to end the season on a high. He may need to if he wants to remain in Philadelphia.

Delaware connections will be well represented with four contending horses in the $1 million Meadowlands Pace for 3-year-old pacing colts, to be held Saturday night at the Meadowlands Racetrack. Trainer George Teague Jr., from Harrington, Delaware, sends out three horses: the 4-1 Custard The Dragon from post three, co-owned by Teague with Ted Gewertz, Robert Feldman and Elmer Fannin, of Lincoln, Delaware. Custard The Dragon, who won his Meadowlands Pace elimination race, will be driven by Teague's 20-year-old son Montrell, who is the youngest driver to ever compete in the Pace.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Standing in another half-built development that will get hundreds of millions of dollars in tax incentives, Gov. Christie ushered in the arrival of the "American Dream" in North Jersey on Tuesday. The much-maligned and long-delayed Xanadu development at the Meadowlands, which Christie called the "the ugliest damn building in New Jersey, and maybe America," will get a makeover by the Canadian developer who built Mall of America in Minnesota. Next to the Jets and Giants stadium, with a dead-on view of the Manhattan skyline, the newly minted complex, called American Dream at Meadowlands, will feature high-end shopping, a 26-screen movie theater, nightclubs, a performing arts theater, restaurants, an indoor ice-skating rink, and an indoor ski slope (with moguls and a snowboard half-pipe)

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Standing in another half-built development that will get hundreds of millions of dollars in tax incentives, Gov. Christie today ushered in the "American Dream" to northern New Jersey. The much-maligned and long-delayed Xanadu development at the Meadowlands, which Christie himself has called the "the ugliest damn building in New Jersey, and maybe America," will get a makeover by the Canadian developer who built Mall of America in Minnesota. Next to the Jets' and Giants' stadium, with a dead-on view of the Manhattan skyline, the complex to be called American Dream at Meadowlands will feature high-end shopping, a 26-screen movie theater, nightclubs, a performing arts theater, world-class restaurants, an indoor ice skating rink, and an indoor ski slope (with moguls and a snowboard half-pipe)

NEWARK, N.J. - Legalized gambling should remain restricted to Atlantic City and likely won't be allowed at Meadowlands anytime soon, the head of Gov. Christie's commission on casinos and racetracks said Thursday. Jon Hanson told a forum on the future of the gambling industry in New Jersey that the state is focused on healing the ailing casino industry while trying to make horse racing self-sufficient. Those were the central recommendations of a report his commission issued last July.