50-day meet for 2025, with $7.8 million in stakes races

Monmouth Park has taken the wraps off its 2025 meet, announcing Thursday it will run 50 days and offer a stakes schedule worth $7.8 million, with the 80th season of racing at the track getting underway on May 10, the Saturday after the Kentucky Derby.

The Oceanport track ran 50 days last year, with a stakes schedule worth $8 million.

It’s all anchored by the $1-million NYRA Bets Haskell Stakes on July 19, featuring some of the country’s top 3-year-olds.

According to Dennis Drazin, whose Darby Development LLC. now has an 85-year lease to operate the track and develop the property, the track will distribute around the same money in purses – about $28 million – with the track receiving a $10 million annual purse subsidy from the state.

“It’s going to be a similar purse structure to last year,” Drazin said. “We applied for nine dates at the Meadowlands (turf racing in the fall).”

The Monmouth Park meet, which runs through Sept. 15, is highlighted by a Haskell Day card that includes the $600,000 Grade 2 United Nations, the $500,000 Grade 3 Molly Pitcher, the $400,000 Grade 3 Monmouth Cup, the $300,000 Grade 3 WinStar Matchmaker and the $100,000 Wolf Hill.   

Last year’s Haskell produced a record all-sources handle of $21.74 million, topping the record set a year earlier, while a crowd of 38,976 was in attendance, the largest crowd since 60,983 came to see Triple Crown winner American Pharoah in 2015.