Monmouth

Monmouth Park showed a 25.2% increase in total handle and a 16.07% increase in on-track handle, while Paco Lopez won his ninth riding title and Claudio Gonzalez earned his first training title as the Jersey Shore track closed out its 77th season Sunday. Total handle was $217,243,199 this summer compared to $173,511,611 a year ago. On-track handle was $17,753,794 in 2022 compared to $15,216,978 a year ago. Total attendance was 368,101. Monmouth ran 60 live days of racing this year compared to 55 a year ago. "We're extremely pleased by...

While his half-sister, Nest, has been racking up the Grade I victories at Saratoga this summer, Lost Ark (Violence--Marion Ravenwood, by A.P. Indy) stayed behind in Todd Pletcher's Belmont division with Monmouth's Sapling S. targeted. Mission accomplished, as the 2-year-old remained undefeated in two starts and romped by 7 1/2 lengths in the Sapling. Shuffled back at the start, but securing a mid-pack spot on the inside, Lost Ark was content to let Bourbon Spirit (Liam's Map) battle it out up front for the :23.94 quarter and :47.51 half. Angled...

Michael Beychok, the 2012 National Handicapping Championship winner, has made plenty of headlines this year. A well-known, outspoken horseplayer, Beychok joined the latest episode of Bettor Things with Joe Bianca this week to talk about his class-action suit against Bob Baffert surrounding the since-vacated 2021 Kentucky Derby victory of Medina Spirit, his vow to move his handle to sports betting in response to drug issues in racing, the approach to tournament play that helped him win the NHC, his day job as a political consultant and more. Also this week,...

Michael Beychock, the 2012 National Handicapping Championship winner, has made plenty of headlines this year. A well-known, outspoken horseplayer, Beychok joined the latest episode of Bettor Things with Joe Bianca this week to talk about his class-action suit against Bob Baffert surrounding the since-vacated 2021 Kentucky Derby victory of Medina Spirit, his vow to move his handle to sports betting in response to drug issues in racing, the approach to tournament play that helped him win the NHC, his day job as a political consultant and more. Also this week,...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY - With the $1.25 million GI Travers S. on Aug. 27 as his summer goal, trainer Chad Brown said Thursday morning that he is close to declaring what path his GI Preakness S. winner Early Voting (Gun Runner) will take to Saratoga's biggest race. Brown has two options: send the colt to Monmouth Park to face unbeaten stablemate Jack Christopher (Munnings) in the GI Haskell Invitational S. on July 23 or wait a week and race him against another stablemate, GI Kentucky Derby third-place finisher Zandon (Upstart)...

Though admitting that he deserved his eight-day suspension after being the aggressor in an altercation with Paco Lopez following a July 1 race at Monmouth, Nik Juarez has some choice words for his fellow jockey, calling him "careless and someone who has no regard for his fellow riders." Lopez was suspended five days for his ride aboard Midnight Diva (Midnight Lute) in that day's seventh race. Juarez was suspended for eight days and fined $500 for "initiating a physical confrontation with another jockey." According to the footnote of the race,...

6th-Monmouth, $56,925, Msw, 6-18, 2yo, 5f, :59.60, ft, 3 3/4 lengths. MAJOR DUDE (c, 2, Bolt d'Oro--Mary Rita {SP}, by Distorted Humor) shipped down to the Jersey Shore following a series of drills at Todd Pletcher's Saratoga base, including a five-furlong bullet in 1:01 1/5 (1/5) over the Oklahoma training track June 3. He wasn't off to the sharpest of beginnings on debut and was scrubbed on early by John Velazquez. The 3-5 favorite chased from an inside fourth and was stuck in some traffic entering the far turn. Johnny...

Trainer Cody Axmaker has been handed two consecutive one-year suspensions and fined $5,000 by the New Jersey Racing Commission after a horse he trained named Wishful (Storm Wolf) died on or about May 9 at Monmouth Park due to an apparent overdose of Clenbuterol. He was suspended one year for possessing a prohibited substance in Clenbuterol and a second year for failing "in his duty as trainer to protect and guard the horse Wishful against the administration of the prohibited substance." The suspension is set to begin May 7, 2022...

Numerous horseplayers received an email Thursday from a touting service promising pari-mutuel riches that purported to be authored by trainer Wayne Potts. But Potts told the TDN that he was in no way affiliated with the service, which includes the website wayne-potts.com. "It's not me," he said. "It's not my phone number. I have already reached out to somebody. I don't want to get into it anymore. I have already made phone calls." The email includes a number in the 410 area code and the website lists a number in...

New Jersey native Bill Denver is today's subject in TDN's rotating series profiling racetrack photographers. We ask about memorable horses, races, and people they've viewed through the lens, and also talk about how the craft of equine imagery has evolved. Denver, 60, is the founder of Equi-Photo, which currently shoots the races and provides winner's circle photographs at Monmouth Park, the Meadowlands Thoroughbred meet, Parx, and Penn National. Separate from his work at East Coast tracks, Denver has previously freelanced for college athletic departments and numerous newspapers, including the New...

Monmouth Park is moving its first race post time to 3 p.m. for the next two Fridays of live racing, starting with the 10-race card Friday, Aug. 27. The new Friday post time will also be in effect for the Sept. 3 program that kicks off the four-day Labor Day weekend of racing. The following three Fridays in September--Sept. 10, 17 and 24--will then shift to a 12:15 p.m. first race post time. Prior to the change, Friday post time had been 5 p.m. First race post time remains at...

So the big question is whether the out-of-town jocks, in the heat of a $1-million battle for the GI TVG.com Haskell S., can master the instinct to reach for the whip? If any lifelong flagellants are anxious of their self-discipline, then they need only play back the 1988 running and remind themselves how Laffit Pincay, Jr. coaxed Forty Niner home, in withering heat, by a nose from Seeking the Gold. The whip is unsheathed, for sure, but so seamlessly with the horse's own efforts that the overall effect is like...