By TED WADDELL<\/p>\n
MONTICELLO, NY \u2014 Records were made to be broken. Just ask any star athlete or horseman.<\/p>\n
On Monday, July 28, Hunt Off the Press earned a ticket to the winner\u2019s circle at the Mighty M in the New York Sire Stakes (NYSS) 1-mile pace with an impressive purse of $112,100 @ 1:53.1. The win narrowly edged the records formerly set down in 2021 by Forrest Blu, and then Hurrikane Hunter the following year in 2022, both with 1:54.1.<\/p>\n
Shawn Wiles, Monticello Raceway\u2019s director of racing and facilities, took a few minutes to explain to the River Reporter\u2019s sports scribbler the workings of the series of NYSS races, a highlight of the racing season around the Empire State.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Agriculture and New York State Horse Breeding Development Fund [known as the Fund] is a public benefit corporation established by the LaVerne Law in 1965. The mission of the Fund is to promote agriculture through the breeding of standardbred horses, and the conduct of equine research within the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wiles noted that to carry out its legislative mission, the Fund \u201cadministers the New York Sire Stakes races, Excelsior\/State Fair Series and the County Fair Races, and additionally the Fund provides assistance to county agriculture societies and contributes to the statewide 4-H program, and to the Harry M. Zweig Fund for Equine Research.\u201d<\/p>\n
Delving a bit further into the history and mission of the Fund: \u201cThe NYSS is the nation\u2019s oldest harness racing program of its kind, with goals\u2026 that can best be accomplished by supporting educational programs, equine research and supplementation of racing purses at NYS pari-mutual tracks (and) keep agricultural lands in service producing products of values, preserve open space and increase employment opportunities throughout the whole of New York State,\u201d according to the NYSS.<\/p>\n
Asked his take on the state of harness racing today, Wiles replied, \u201cHorsemen have plenty of racing opportunities this time of year with all the tracks now open. In the summer, we usually card between seven and 10 races; in the winter, we go with 10 to 13 races. Historically, we have always done better in the winter months, when many of the seasonal tracks are closed. The horse population is much better then, and the racing handle increases dramatically.\u201d<\/p>\n
As to what\u2019s going on nationally with the sport, trend-wise, Wiles said, \u201cThe horse racing business gets harder every year, for a plethora of reasons. The 2025 total national handle numbers for harness racing are off 11 percent from last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the harness racing action at the Mighty M still sets the pace for local Standardbred racing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By TED WADDELL MONTICELLO, NY \u2014 Records were made to be broken. Just ask any star athlete or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-48311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}