Tentative Agreement Reached on Monmouth Purses

A tentative plan for daily purses for Monmouth Park's 20 September dates has been laid out, but according to the Oceanport racetrack's general manager, there is "no deal."

"As of right now, we're not close to a deal," said Bob Kulina, in reference to a reported agreement between the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority and the local horsemen's association, for purses of $250,000 in September.

The amount of daily purses for the month has been in limbo since the traditional Monmouth meet began on May 24.

"There is a lot of uncertainty, and frankly we're running out of time to print the condition books," said Kulina.

On Wednesday, the tentative plan calling for five days of racing per week and $250,000 in purses was struck between Dennis Drazin, legal counsel for the NJTHA, and officials from the Sports Authority. However, the plan is subject to approval by both the NJTHA board, which is scheduled to meet tomorrow, and additional officials of the Sports Authority.

"The membership asked us (the board of the N. J. Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association) to get as much purse money as we could without cutting racing dates," said Dennis Drazin, legal counsel for the NJTHA.

Monmouth Park had guaranteed purses of $300,000 a day for the "traditional" summer meet, from the weekends of Memorial Day to Labor Day, but warned they would fall below that for the September portion of the racing calendar, which is set to conclude on Sept. 28.

One early proposal to keep purses high in September was to cut the number of live racing dates per week from five to three, which was rejected by the NJTHA membership.