6 events in Passaic County with a date

Final Stretch?

Meadowlands Racetrack looks to add casino for help as industry fades

By: Daniel Munoz
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... The horse paddock at the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford can be hot and frenetic.
..... As horses are led to and from their holding stalls, their hoofs ring loudly on the concrete floors.
..... The voice of an announcer issues alerts over the loudspeaker about which horse and driver's race is up next. Trainers, drives and caretakers zip in and out of the building.
..... Trainers ready horses with harnesses, head-poles - used to hep horse maintain a straight line while racing - and chariot-like carts the drivers ride in and that harness horses pull during races - through the building.
..... Off to the side behind a glass door,, there's cash-only snack bar for anyone hoping to get in some quick calories. A ceiling fan provides the only relief from the heat.
..... It's all organized and perfect chaos in the Meadowlands.
..... Less that a mile away form the paddock, at the glass-fronted climate-controlled Meadowlands grandstand, which doubles as a FanDuel Sportsbook betting site, hundreds of patrons - from college students to retirees - place their bets, either for the horse races in progress on the dirt track below them or for their sporting event of choice.
..... You buy a program and make your way to your seat, or maybe you stand, or head over to the clubhouse or the restaurant, called Pink.
....."A lot of people go there just for the fun of it," said Jeffrey Gural, who has owned the Meadowlands Racetrack since December 2011.
..... You can bet as little as 50 cents on horse races and wager among "a million different betting options," Gurel said.
..... Meanwhile, from the grandstand, patrons can see horses pull sulkies and their riders around the track - the site's original lure.
..... The Medaodowlands Racetrack is at a crossroads. As it prepares to host the historic 100th running of the Hamiltonian on Saturday August 2 [2025] - harness racing's version of the Kentucky derby - today's racetracks face an uphill industry shrinks and fan interest wanders. The number of thoroughbred horse races run in the United States for instance, has been cut in half since 1988.
..... That's why one of New Jersey's three track's recently closed, and why the remaining two - the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park - receive a combined $20 million annually in state support to help pay employee salaries. Online sports betting is a show what newer attraction, but Gural now also eyes the possibility of adding a casino to the site to make it profitable.
..... The racetrack's newer grandstand, which opened in 2013 and cost $100 million to build, is smaller than the original, which opened in 1976. Still, it wasn't particularly crowded on Friday, July 25. [2025] just a week before the track's biggest race, the Hamiltonian/
..... Gural said he wasn't surprised -a vast majority of wagering on sports and horse racing happens Online. Of the $12.7 billion worth of sports bets wagered in New Jersey in 2024, $12.2 billion - or 96% - was processed via mobile and Online apps, according to figures from the New Jersey division of gaming Enforcement, which regulates the state's casinos, sportbooks and gambling industries.
..... Additionally, in 2023 - the most recent year for which statistics are behavioral - the amount bet at tracks on horse-races run in New Jersey was a mere430 million, which Internet and mobile betting on those races was $240 million, said the New Jersey racing Commission, which regulates horse racing in the state.
..... As a result, the Meadowlands Racetrack has come up with a slew of events meant to draw crowds in the thousands, Gural said, from beer fests and wine fests to a seafood festival. A corn fest is set for August 9, [2025] and the Corgi Cup race is on September 6. [2025]

100th Hamiltonian could draw 20,000 to Meadowlands

..... The big race, the Hamiltonian, is on August 2 [2025] at noon. Gural said he's expecting a turnout of 15,000 to 20,000 people.
..... The Hamiltonian is really our Kentucky Derby or Super Bawl" of harness racing, said River Vale resident John Campbell, a six-time winner of the race and since 2017 president of the Hamiltonian Society, which oversees the event.
..... The Meadowlands Racetrack started hosting the Hamiltonian in 1981, snatching the race from its longtime home at the rural DuQuoin fairgrounds in Illinois.
..... A spot in Syracuse, New York, was also considered, but the Meadowlands provided easier access to the New York City media market, the Asbury Park Press reported in 1988. Crowd sizes at the time exploded beyond 32,000 people.

Since the 1970s, horse racing's long decline

..... During the Great Depression and World War II , the three mainstream sports were boxing, baseball and horse racing, said Victor Matheson, a sports economist at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts.
..... Before that, horse racing had a bumpy run, declining with gambling and lotteries in the late 19th century amid a nationwide "general prohibition on sin," Matheson said.
..... But once the Great Depression rolled around, cash-strapped states were desperate for money, prompting a reversal of that trend. the racetracks introduced "parimutuel betting,: Matheson said, which also helped them.
..... "Instead of betting against the horse, all of the betters in horse racing are betting against one another," he explained.
..... All went well until the 1970s, when gambling came to Atlantic City. Coupled with the expansion of state lotteries, people thorough, "Why do horse racing?" Matheson said.
..... Thoroughbred horse racing shrank from about 71,000 in 1988 to fewer than 31,000 races in 2024, according to The Jockey Club.
.....There used to be three racetracks in New Jersey; Freehold Raceway was shut down in December, [2024] with ownership citing declining interest in the sport.
..... With the decline, the two remaining racetracks - Monmouth Park and the Meadowlands - have come to rely on state subsidies, with the two of them divvying up a $20 million yearly pool of public money.
.... "They couldn't survive" without it, Gural said. "the subside is designed to protect the jobs" at the racetracks.
..... Other racetracks in neighboring states, like Yonkers Raceway in New York, also receive state subsidies. Nealy $200 million in stat subsidies go to Pennsylvania;s racetracks, and that has generated public controversy.
..... Monmouth Park, in Oceanport has thoroughbred hoses, and jockeys ride on the horses; backs during the race. thoroughbred horse are considered faster and more agile, according to the Pennsylvania Horse Racing Association.
..... The horses used at the Meadowlands are known as standard-bred horses. they are stronger and more suited for pulling a sulky.

Day in the life of a horse, trainer, driver

..... On the day of a race, horses are fed as early as 4:30 AM. at their home stable, said Chesterfield-based horse trainer Noel Daley, who is from Australia.
..... Maybe an hour later the horses are out on a track at the home stable just to get them warned up for the day, said Nancy Takter,a horse trainer in East Windsor, who has trained several horses that won previous Hamiltonian races.
..... "They're athletes, so they need to be taken care of," she said of the horses. That includes washing them, feeding them and even giving them a massage.
..... The horses are loaded into their trailers for the ride to the racetrack typically around 2 PM., Takter said. Other horses hail from rural stretches of Central and South Jersey.
..... The horses generally arrive at least two hours before the races. Some get warned up not for that night's races, but for qualifying races.
..... "If they haven't race in 30 days ... they have to qualify , so the public has some idea of what shape they're in," Gural said.
..... A few trainers oversee upward of 150 horses, said Scott Zeron, a Canadian harness racer who won the Hamiltonian three times.
..... Zeron estimates that in any given year, he would race 1,500 separate horses.
..... "They're not married to us," he joked.
..... At the racetrack, the drivers have a room for changing and a lounge for down time and socializing with trainers and owners, Zeron said.
..... Accommodation for the derives are decent, too - "planes, trains and automobiles," Zeron said, given the level of travel that comes with horse racing.
..... Zeron said he is particularly fond of the Meadowlands Racetrack due to its one-mile loop - the larger size means fewer turns for horses during a race and a better chance for the horses to go faster than at a smaller track such as Yonkers in New York or The Downs at Nohegan sun Pocono in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
..... Most horse races at the Meadowlands are run on Friday and Saturday and start at 6:20 PM.
..... On July 25, [2025] there were 14 races.
..... A one-mile race might have a purse - money for the top finishers - of $25,000. the winner gets half of that, the second place gets half of the remaining amount, and so on utile their's nothing left.

'Racinco' in Meadowlands' future?

..... Gural wants to explore a casino at the Meadowlands Racetrack, given the heavy possibility of a new casino somewhere in New York City, possible at Hudson Yards in Manhattan or near Citi Field in Queens.
..... "People aren't going to be happy to drive over the George Washington Bridge, paying the toll, sitting in traffic and losing there money in New York," Gural said in a recent interview.
..... He would like to bid for a casino at the Meadowlands to move forward in 2026 once New Jersey elects a new governor and there's more clarity about where a casino might be built in New York City.
..... New Jersey state lawmakers have already introduced a bill that would cerate a constitutional ballot question asking voters whether the state should allow casinos at the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park racetracks.
..... to compete with Online gambling, the casinos would have to provide high-end in-person amenities like hotels, shows, food and dinning, niche sports betting offering like "slapfight" matches, and indoor and outdoor pools, said Bil Pascrell III, a lobbyist for the gambling industry.
..... A casino at the Meadowlands would need to partner with another casino operator, Gural said, and could carry a price tag as high as $2 billion.
..... One of the newest casinos in New Jersey the Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City, carried a construction price tag of $2.4 billion.
..... The other recently opened casino, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City, cost $500 million to renovate - it was previously the Trump Taj Mahal, which went bankrupt.
..... Both Hard Rock and Ocean opened in Atlantic City in June 2018.
..... Gural said he was confident that people would want to come to a North Jersey casino - pointing out that most of the in-person sports betting was dun at the Meadowlands.
..... Public records from gambling regulators show that the Meadowlands sportsbook brought in $569 million in 2024, followed by Resorts Casino Hotel at a distant second place with $297 million in sports betting revenue and he Borgata a distant third with $80 million.
..... The idea of a casino-racetrack combination - which Matheson of Holy Cross called a "racino" - is not unique.
.....MGM Resorts International operates Yorkers raceway & Empire City Casino, which also offers gambling such as slot machines and electronic table games.
..... "Racinos are just ways that you try to keep those racetracks in business," Matheson said. "It's also a way for racetracks to actually have people in them 365 days a year rather than just a handful of race days a year.

HOME