(edited press release)
Monmouth Park opens its 94-day meet May 9 with an 11-race program that attracted a total of 102 entries. The stand will run through Sept. 27.
Topping Saturday’s card is the $70,000 Decathlon Stakes for 3-year-olds and upward. The feature attracted eight starters, including Gerry Sleeter’s Who’s the Cowboy, winner of stakes races at Monmouth in 2005, 2006 and 2008.
The six-furlong Decathlon is the first of 83 stakes races to be run at the meeting, including 13 graded events. Centerpiece of Monmouth’s summer will be the $1 million Haskell Invitational (gr. I), which has its 42nd running on Aug. 2. Monmouth’s Grade I turf race, the $750,000 United Nations Stakes, will highlight the Independence Day weekend when it is renewed for the 56th time on July 4.
Monmouth will offer racing on Saturday and Sunday for the first two weekends in May before running on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday of Memorial Day weekend. The track returns with live racing on Friday, May 29 through Sunday May 31, before picking up the regular schedule of racing Wednesday through Sunday, beginning on June 3.
Gates will open at 11:30 a.m. and first post is set for 12:50 p.m. every day except Haskell Day, Aug. 2, when the gates open at 10 a.m. and first post will be at noon.