New Monmouth

Oldsters who can remember the Chester A. Arthur era of U. S. horse racing will never forget Monmouth Park. There, on the petticoat of Jersey's fashionable Long Branch, the Jersey Derby set a vogue for U.S. derbies. There, in 1872, in one of the greatest match races of all time, Longfellow, son of British-bred Leamington, licked Harry Bassett, son of Kentucky-bred Lexington. There, in 1890, James Ben Ali Haggin's immortal Salvator ran a mile in 1:35 1/2--a record that stood for over a quarter of a century.

Now, after an intermission of nearly 50 years, New Jersey racing approaches the starting gate once more. A year ago, the citizens voted to legalize pari-mutuel betting, and last week the State Racing Commission, after five months' deliberation, sanctioned Jersey's first horse park since betting was outlawed in 1893. True to tradition, the operators of Jersey's first 20th-century race track will be the Monmouth Park Racing Association--a group headed by Horse Fancier Amory Lawrence Haskell, M.F.H., on whose Red Bank estate the tony Monmouth County Steeplechase is held each fall.

Because the original Monmouth Park has long since been carved into house lots, Horseman Haskell & associates plan to buy tumble-down Elkwood Park, Monmouth's neighbor and chief competitor in the old days, since used at one time or another for auto racing, Ku Klux Klan rallies and county fairs. To its mile track they expect to add $1,200,000 worth of landscaping, grandstands and stables, make the new Monmouth worthy of its name when it opens next June.

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