Monmouth Park

THE FUTURE of horse racing at Monmouth Park is in jeopardy as negotiations to transfer ownership of the Jersey Shore track to private management have broken down. The dispute threatens to derail Gov. Chris Christie's plan to privatize both Monmouth and the Meadowlands Racetrack. The sticking point is a permit to run thoroughbred dates at the Meadowlands, even though all thoroughbred racing in New Jersey has been consolidated at Monmouth. The permit was given to the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association in June as part of a deal in which the horsemen agreed to cut the racing schedule in half to 71 days for a 5-year period.

Kentucky Derby runner-up Hard Spun worked out this week at Delaware Park and is being pointed toward the $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on Aug. 5. Preakness Stakes winner Curlin also is a likely Haskell starter. Jockey Mario Pino is back on the mount after being replaced for the Belmont, where Hard Spun finished fourth. Pino was replaced after a third-place finish in the Preakness. Hard Spun breezed five furlongs in one minute and one-fifth second on Monday.

If you want to watch the 3-year-old horse of the year for 1996 run Sunday, where do you turn? To Saratoga, where the winners of the Preakness (Louis Quatorze) and Belmont Stakes (Editor's Note) clash in the $150,000 Jim Dandy Stakes? Or to Monmouth Park, where the Preakness and Belmont runner-up (Skip Away) takes on seven rivals in the $750,000 Haskell Invitational? Most of the top candidates in the 3-year-old division will be running at one place or the other Sunday, and what happens will go a long way toward determining the 1996 champion.

The next stop for Afleet Alex could be the Jersey Shore. Unless trainer Tim Ritchey decides that running on the sand should be his next training technique, the Belmont Stakes champion won't feel the ocean breeze. But nearby Monmouth Park in Oceanport is his "most likely" next destination. Going home to Delaware Park isn't in the cards right now. The morning after Afleet Alex ran the fastest closing quarter-mile of the Belmont Stakes (24 2/5 seconds) since 1969, after his seven-length victory gave him two of the three legs of the Triple Crown, Ritchey reiterated that the colt would ease up on his training for a while, but he isn't off the racing trail.

TRENTON - The Meadowlands and Monmouth Park racetracks will be turned to private operators who will run them without state purse subsidies under agreements announced Thursday night by Gov. Christie. Christie said the new operators would take control of the tracks June 1 and assume the costs associated with running live racing at the venues. The operators also will be responsible for simulcast wagering at the tracks, operation and development of offtrack wagering facilities, and continued operation of the state's account wagering system.

One year ago, International Thoroughbred Breeders, Inc., the parent company of Garden State Park, was set to sell the track and get out of the racing business. ITB eventually decided to keep the track and continue racing. Now, the Daily News has learned, ITB is ready to announce a megadeal that has the potential to give the company control of every race track in New Jersey. The details are unclear at this point and company officials were unavailable for comment yesterday. But, apparently, ITB is ready to take options to purchase the Meadowlands, Monmouth Park, Atlantic City Race Course and Freehold Raceway.

Trying to predict the winner of a horse race is a fool's game, and doing so for the Kentucky Derby - a jostling, 20-horse charge over a distance none of them has previously mastered - is a game for only the bravest of fools or the most foolish of the brave. Bill Handleman was my professor as I learned those hard lessons. He was a devoted addict of the calculus required for balancing the limits of a horse's pedigree, its will to run, the savvy of its trainer and jockey, the bias of a particular racetrack, the conditions of the day, the fickle nature of racing luck, and all of those factors as they were measured against the other horses in the race.

As streams of Saturday bettors made their way from distant parking lots into Monmouth Park, three veteran race-track barkers, standing side by side behind white-and-green sales booths, crowed like roosters for attention: "Get yourself a winner heah. " "The double. Here it is - Bailey's. " "New York, Jack's, Lawton, all cards. Get 'em heah. " They are race-track touts, relics from another era, leftover Damon Runyon characters with a flair for fast talk, fast action, fast bucks and, by their account at least, fast horses.

OCEANPORT, N.J. - The Kentucky Derby winner, Super Saver, is here for Sunday's $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park, and so is the Preakness Stakes winner, Lookin At Lucky, as are a number of other top-flight colts who could leap to the top of the 3-year-old pile with a win in what some participating trainers are calling the deepest Haskell field in memory. But these days, the race isn't just around the track. Horse racing is in a fight for survival. Around the country, horses share headlines with politicians.

Garden State Park and Delaware Park will offer full-card simulcasts from Laurel Race Course in Maryland beginning today. A bill recently passed in New Jersey allows full-card simulcasting from out-of-state racing cards, and Garden State Park will be the first to take advantage of the new legislation. Rich Orbann, general manager at Garden State, said that, pending racing commission approval, Arlington International Race Course would be added to the simulcast menu on "dark" days at Monmouth Park, which the Garden also simulcasts.

Trying to predict the winner of a horse race is a fool's game, and doing so for the Kentucky Derby - a jostling, 20-horse charge over a distance none of them has previously mastered - is a game for only the bravest of fools or the most foolish of the brave. Bill Handleman was my professor as I learned those hard lessons. He was a devoted addict of the calculus required for balancing the limits of a horse's pedigree, its will to run, the savvy of its trainer and jockey, the bias of a particular racetrack, the conditions of the day, the fickle nature of racing luck, and all of those factors as they were measured against the other horses in the race.

Plans are under way to turn a former restaurant in Gloucester Township into New Jersey's fifth free-standing offtrack wagering operation. A lease was signed this week for the building at 1300 Blackwood-Clementon Rd. that had housed the Stone Grille, Chris McErlean, vice president of racing for Penn National Gaming Inc., said Thursday. The site, which would have a restaurant and bar, would be known as Favorites at Gloucester Township. It shares a name with three other OTWs now open in the state.

Stormy Lord successfully defended his title in the $250,000 PTHA President's Cup, a 11/8-mile turf test for three-year-olds and up at Parx Racing on Saturday afternoon. David Wilmot 's Stormy Lord strode home nearly three lengths in front. Jockey James McAleney allowed Kara's Orientation and Cantonic to set the pace while he placed Stormy Lord in the clear on the outside of traffic and in third place. At the three-eighths pole, McAleney and the 5-year-old gelded son of Stormy Atlantic made a run and passed both front-runners, winning in 1 minute, 53.00 seconds.

The Monmouth Oaks Monmouth Park, Race 10 - Post 5:26 $100,000 (Grade III), 3 y.o. fil., 1 1/16 mi. 1. Wine Princess . . . Shaun Bridgmohan. . . 2-1 2. Proud Pearl . . . Joe Bravo. . . 15-1 3. Defy Gravity . . . Carlos Marquez. . . 8-1 4. Final Escrow . . . Kendrick Carmouche. . . 6-1 5. Morrow Cave . . . Paco Lopez. . . 9-5 6. Jemimia's Pearl . . . Elvis Trujillo. . . 5-2 When Morrow Cove wins, she wins by a lot. Her three wins have been by nearly 21 lengths.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Would I'll Have Another have won the Belmont Stakes and the Triple Crown had he not gotten injured? Would Union Rags have won the Kentucky Derby had he not been eliminated at the break? The fascinating 2012 Triple Crown season did not play out the way it had been envisioned when the prep races began, and it ended without any answer to the two most pressing questions. What we did get was great stretch runs in Kentucky, Maryland, and New York, one crushing disappointment within hours of a potential coronation, and one setback seconds into the race that may be the start of the Triple Crown but always will be the most important in American racing.

ELMONT, N.Y. — Would I'll Have Another have won the Belmont Stakes and the Triple Crown if he had not gotten injured? Would Union Rags have won the Kentucky Derby if he had not been eliminated at the break? The fascinating 2012 Triple Crown season did not play out like it had been envisioned when the prep races began and it ended without any answer to the two most pressing questions. What we did get was three great stretch runs in Kentucky, Maryland and New York sandwiched around one crushing disappointment within hours of a potential coronation and one setback seconds into the race that may be the start of the Triple Crown, but will always be the most important in American racing.

NEWARK, N.J. - Gov. Christie issued an ultimatum to New Jersey's thoroughbred horse owners Monday, telling them they had a week to come up with a new deal to save horse racing in the state. Christie blamed the owners for causing an investor to pull out of an agreement to lease Monmouth Park. He said a recent handshake agreement with the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association was scuttled when lawyers for the group made new demands for $5 million in purse subsidies. "If they don't come to us in the next week with a deal that works and stop extorting the taxpayers for millions of dollars in subsidies to their industry, then we're not going to have a deal and we won't have a horse-racing industry in the state anymore," he said.

THE FUTURE of horse racing at Monmouth Park is in jeopardy as negotiations to transfer ownership of the Jersey Shore track to private management have broken down. The dispute threatens to derail Gov. Chris Christie's plan to privatize both Monmouth and the Meadowlands Racetrack. The sticking point is a permit to run thoroughbred dates at the Meadowlands, even though all thoroughbred racing in New Jersey has been consolidated at Monmouth. The permit was given to the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association in June as part of a deal in which the horsemen agreed to cut the racing schedule in half to 71 days for a 5-year period.