Winter weather at The Meadowlands is ‘snow’ joke
by Debbie Little
Winter weather has not been the best friend of racing at The Meadowlands recently, and for the third straight weekend, Mother Nature will try to derail some of the action.
On Saturday (Jan. 10), the East Rutherford oval dealt with torrential rain that shifted the start of the first race by a half-hour, from 6:30 to 7 p.m.
“We backed up the other night because the weather was worse than what we thought it was going to be,” Meadowlands chief operating officer/general manager Jason Settlemoir said. “And I want the track to be safe, and so does my trackman [Ritchie Decker], because safety comes first; that’s just what it boils down to for me.
“I want to make it very clear to my horsemen and women that at any point in time when they feel like the track condition is unsafe, they just have to say something.”
Sunday’s (Jan. 18) race card was canceled the night before out of an abundance of caution, due to a winter weather advisory being issued for the area. Several inches of snow and unsafe driving conditions enveloped the area that Sunday.
The weekend, The Big M is once again weighing its options, as an arctic high descends on the area with the coldest temperatures of the season and significant snow expected for Sunday (Jan. 25).
Settlemoir told HRU in the past of his passion for weather, which garnered him the nickname “the meteorologist” while working at Scioto Downs in his home state of Ohio.
Both Settlemoir and recently retired Big M trackman Gary Wolff have talked about how unpredictable the weather in Northern New Jersey, or more specifically East Rutherford, can be, especially in winter.
In a recent press release looking back at his time in the Garden State, Wolff said, “The weather at The Meadowlands is the biggest challenge. It’s so unpredictable there. Winter is so up and down, and days of thawing make it challenging.”
Wolff went on to add that some wet weather can be an advantage.
“The best time for racing [at The Meadowlands] is hours after it rains,” Wolff said. “The moisture that gets into that track is so even.”
The perfect example of that was the night Bulldog Hanover went 1:45.4, the only sub-1:46 mile in harness racing history, after a slight rain.
Even though a little rain can be good for the track, the amount received two weeks ago was not.
“The rain came down a lot harder than we had expected,” Settlemoir said. “It was actually supposed to start moving out around the middle of the evening, but the storm just sat there; that’s what it does sometimes in East Rutherford. I’ve had storms that were supposed to come in and go directly out, and those storms just sat there, like this one did, and I’ve had storms that they said were going to be direct impacts, not hit us at all. I’d love to be paid as a weatherman.”
The average high temperature for this time of year should be 39 degrees, and although the temps had been a little below normal earlier in the week, the calm before the storm came on Thursday (Jan. 22) when the high jumped up into the mid-40s.
Today’s (Jan. 23) forecasted high in East Rutherford is 35 degrees before the bottom drops out for Saturday (Jan. 24) and Sunday (Jan. 25), when the temperature is not expected to rise above 20 degrees.
Even without snow in the forecast, Settlemoir said the bitter cold is always a concern, and, as a result, horses will spend less time than usual on the track between the post parade and the start of the race.
According to their rules, should the temperature hit minus 15 degrees, including wind chill, the races would be canceled.
At press time, the storm in question, which some forecasters have said could be crippling and catastrophic, had not yet come together, but was expected to form around the panhandle of Texas sometime today.
Once the storm takes shape, local meteorologists will be able to get observational data, as opposed to now when everyone, including Settlemoir, is dealing with projections, which are all theoretical.
On Thursday (Jan. 22) at noon, both the Euro and GFS models were still projecting over a foot of snow for the New York City area, but with the storm now thought to be tracking more to the north, the ice/snow line could land closer to East Rutherford, with perhaps a little less snow, but more ice making the roads even more treacherous.
With dangerous cold and hazardous travel expected, Settlemoir said a decision on whether they will race or not on Sunday, will again be made some time on Saturday.
“The number one thing for me is the safety of both our horsemen and women and the equine athletes,” he said. “I don’t take anything for granted when it comes to the weather, because I’ve seen some really weird things happen in East Rutherford since 2012 when I got here.”
