A proposal floated by the Thoroughbred Breeders' Association of New Jersey (TBA) that would have significantly cut the cash awards the organization pays to the state's horse breeders and owners failed to gain approval at Wednesday's New Jersey Racing Commission (NJRC) meeting.
The measure, which was accompanied by the disclosure that the TBA has been unable to pay out $200,000 that is still due to breeders and owners who earned incentives at the 2025 Monmouth Park meet, got tabled until the July NJRC meeting by a 3-0 vote.
The money that pays for the incentives is generated by a percentage of handle.
Michael Campbell, the TBA's executive director, said the organization is currently short of funding to the point where it was only able to make good on 88% of its incentives from last year's meet.
“Coming into [2025] we had a little bit of a surplus from the prior year,” Campbell said at the May 27 meeting. “Our revenue since 2023 has decreased about $115,000. Our awards, our obligations, last year were about $1.6 million. That's really where the shortfall was. And obviously, we had to take our [operating] budget out of that as well.”
Sara Ben-David, the NJRC's acting executive director, read into the record an outline of the proposed changes the TBA wanted to make. The items that stood out were:
1) Dropping the awards to breeders from the 2025 levels (either 25% or 35% of the purse depending on whether the sire was a New Jersey stallion) to a flat 20%, regardless of the stallion's state status;
2) Lowering the horse owners' and stallion owners' awards from 10% of the purse to 5%;
3) Capping maximum awards at $10,000.
The TBA was additionally requesting that the changes be made retroactive to the start of the 2026 Monmouth meet.
When asked by several commissioners if the proposed reductions would enable the TBA to make good on the outstanding 2025 payments by the end of 2026, Campbell said that was unlikely.
“That's the difficult part. If we had additional revenue at the end of this year, which I'm not sure we're going to have, the board would decide that at the time,” Campbell said. “But we'll just keep it as a payable until we have it. If we have some, we'll just chip away at it. But I don't foresee us paying the additional $200,000 at the end of this year.”
Two of the three commissioners-they did not identify themselves when speaking-chimed in with concerns that by making the proposed reductions retroactive, the TBA would be breaking a promise to people who made breeding and ownership decisions as far back as several years ago on the on the current crop of racing-age horses.
“There is an obligation to satisfy them. I mean, that's why they bred [in New Jersey],” one commissioner said.
“I still think those folks need to be made whole for the investment that they made,” said another commissioner.
Campbell admitted that “we probably should have lowered the caps last year.” He suggested that if an $8,000 limit had been implemented for 2025, “the obligation would have been fulfilled.”
Dennis Drazin, the chairman and chief executive officer of Darby Development LLC, which operates Monmouth, was one of several Jersey-based horsepeople to voice concerns about the cuts. Although Drazin at first said he was speaking as a longtime in-state horse breeder and not as a track executive, his comments eventually blended those two roles.
“This is not a new problem. This is a problem that has existed for a long time. There was a point in time in the past where the [TBA] owed [incentives of] several million dollars, because we got into this 'couple hundred thousand every year' and they never paid it, and the backlog got to an unreasonable number,” Drazin said.
“Fortunately, the [New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association] had funds at that point in time [that] enabled us to lend [$4 million] to the breeders, so they could pay all their awards, and they did pay us back over a period of time,” Drazin said.
“We have a lot of breeders who were not consulted about these changes,” Drazin said. “There was no general membership meeting. There was no information passed on. I know about the change because I requested a copy of what they submitted to the commission by way of the new program. But there are a lot of breeders that don't even know that these requests are being made.”
Campbell admitted that the TBA's board had come up with the plan on its own, adding that the topic would be addressed at a general membership meeting June 24.
Drazin pointed out other issues related to the TBA, its shortfall, and how participants might be affected in the coming season and beyond.
Drazin said one problem is that Monmouth is required by statute to card at one New Jersey-bred race per day. But the racing office is continually asked by owners and trainers to offer additional restricted opportunities, so in recent seasons, more state-bred races have ended up on the overnight.
“This year, we're trying to keep a tight limit on this, given that they haven't able to pay [awards dating back to] last year, and only write one a day,” Drazin said. “The breeders aren't really happy about that [because] they'd rather run in Jersey-bred company than open company.
Another issue, Drazin said, has to do with the bonuses paid to Jersey-breds who do race successfully in open company.
“If they're requesting that the component of the owner award goes down from 10% to 5%, we pay-Monmouth Park pays-40% in open company,” Drazin said. “And we're not obligated to do that. We need revenues too.
“The agreement with the breeders in the past has been, 'We want to see the breeders encouraged to breed in New Jersey, so we're going to make sure collectively we get them 50% to run in open company,'” Drazin said.
“Because if you're not writing the restricted races, they can run in the open races, and if you get in an extra bonus, it encourages you to go in that spot,” Drazin said.
“But if the breeders now want to change their program to reduce the owner component, Monmouth Park may not give them the 40% in open company. We may look at whether or not we should save money.”
Drazin also questioned aspects of the TBA budget, specifically the recent hiring of a lobbyist for $60,000, which he said was not something that has been a traditional expense for the organization.
“They're taking that out of money that would otherwise be paid to the breeders,” Drazin said.
The post Facing $200k Shortfall, NJ Breeders’ Assn. Fails to Gain Commission Approval to Cut Incentives appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.
