Sports Illustrated - Monmouth Park #1

[CharlieR]

From Sports Illustrated July 10th

Sports on the cheap: The 25 best summer sports bargains

Sure, life's expensive. But attending sporting events doesn't have to be. Below, SI.com offers its list of the top summer sports deals across the country.

1. Monmouth Park Racetrack -- Oceanport, N.J.

The dollar menu isn't limited to McDonald's: You can watch the ponies every Friday in July for just $1. It's the same price for grandstand admission, an official track program and hot dogs and sodas.

Nice to see something positive about a track and racing. Especially since it's our local track 10 minutes from our home.

[Kasept]

Monmouth was the first track I attended truly regularly throughout an entire meet when living in Brielle in 1988. It was that summer that really stamped me as a racing fan. It's an utter delight and continues to be one of the oddly under-appreciated facilities in racing.

[freddymo]

Monmouth is a great place. Have you seen some the fields this year? They actually have some race horses. More importantly, Rachel is coming and they banged the purse up another 250k to 1,250,000 which is a nice gesture. Although if management would have used their heads they could have added 20k to every race that day and called it Horseman Appreciation day.. You think the extra 150 that Rachel or Munnings is going to win is going to help Jess or Tabor out? I guess the charity could be the benefactor of the extra 250k but again I think it could have been better used to sweeten the smaller pots. The Haskell is the Haskell at 1mil or 1.25mil..At least management did something?

[Kasept]

Speaking of Haskell, Haskin brought up the interesting point last night on ATR that the race had three "house horses" (Monmouth-based) in Musket Man, Atomic Rain and Big Drama that are all missing the race for disparate reasons...

We agreed the $250k was a strange move.

I just don't dig the course. And the New Jersey breds are absolutely horrendous.

[philcski]

Originally Posted by Coach Pants

I just don't dig the course. And the New Jersey breds are absolutely horrendous.

Agree that the NJ breds are generally horrendous in ability but there's a LOT of value in those races if you're willing to put in some work. People just bet trainers/jockeys in those races because of their nondescript pedigrees and ability.

As for the plant, I love Monmouth Park. I sincerely hope they get another shot at the BC because the Noah's Ark wasn't their fault, it actually usually is pleasant and dry on the Jersey Shore in October.

[Suffolk Shippers]

Originally Posted by Coach Pants

I just don't dig the course. And the New Jersey breds are absolutely horrendous.

Yeah but the point of the article in SI was finding cheap, fun, sporting events to attend. Aka not geared toward a horse player. I doubt a family showing up for an afternoon is concerned about NJ breds and how good or bad they are, they are concentrating on keeping the kids entertained for the afternoon.

[chucklestheclown]

[quote=Kasept]Speaking of Haskell, Haskin brought up the interesting point last night on ATR that the race had three "house horses" (Monmouth-based) in Musket Man, Atomic Rain and Big Drama that are all missing the race for disparate reasons...QUOTE]
I didn't ever know he was in but why is Musket Man out?

[Merlinsky]

Originally Posted by chucklestheclown

I didn't ever know he was in but why is Musket Man out?

It was bone bruising right? When I heard Nicanor had that I remember thinking Musket Man was the other one. Was MM's just worse or is Nicanor also out for the year? I didn't get the impression the latter was the case.