No Hambletonian, no problem for a Meadowlands fan

by Debbie Little

The answer as to where the Hambletonian will be raced next is now known, but for some, questions still remain.

A longtime Meadowlands harness fan, known as Blades, for his love of the New York Rangers and his former beat covering high school hockey, questioned the impact of the decision.

“This year, the Hambletonian was only two elims and a final, it was three races out of the whole year,” he said. “Is the prestige of having it that much to where if you don’t have it, like you’re diminished that badly?”

Blades, 63, lives in Florida now, but he grew up in New Jersey, and was just at The Meadowlands on Hambletonian Day with his buddies, Greg and Mike, as well as his son, Matt.

“I learned harness racing from my dad and my uncle Bert,” Blades said. “And Greg, when I met him, he started coming with us, so he learned a lot of racing from my relatives. It sort of ties our families together a little bit.

“It’s something that we felt that we liked enough to do again, and now my son went for the first time.”

Since his son is 31, Blades added with a laugh, “It’s not like a Hallmark story, but for us it was special.”

Blades said Hambletonian Day was special to him because he was there from its beginning in East Rutherford.

“I remember that three-horse race [off] with Olaf breaking and Shiaway St Pat and Super Juan,” he said. “We lived in Rockaway [in New Jersey]. It was like a 45-minute drive, and we had a friend who could get us there in 30 minutes to make the Daily Double.

“We would be coming over Route 3, past the hotel, and you’d go up a ramp and then down a hill, but he would go so fast that we’d be airborne, like a monster truck, for like six seconds, that’s how fast he was going.

“But we’d get there, we’d always make the Daily Double when Nick was driving. It was incredible. We had so much fun there.”

Blades said his Hambletonian festivities started early this year.

“We went the previous Saturday night [Aug. 1 for the Hambletonian elims] and we hung out outside the whole night by the food trucks,” he said. “We had an incredible dinner, and it was really fun. Whoever’s running that, I thought they did a great job.”

Although he has missed some Hambletonian Days over the years, Blades said this one ranked pretty high for him.

“The West Deck was fun,” he said. “The buffet was good and the people were nice.

“We lost every bet, all of us, all four of us, but we all decided to bet Apex because he was pretty good money, like 5-2 or something. So, we all had Apex, and thank God he had a big nose.

“For all of us guys with big noses to finally win money on a horse with a bigger nose than the other horse was really nice. It made the day.”

He also said he couldn’t help but feel a little nostalgic when Larry Remen, brother of driver Ray Remmen, presented the trainer’s trophy to Marcus Melander, the winning conditioner of Apex.

“I was a Ray Remmen fan,” Blades said. “We were betting on Shiaway St Pat because of him. He was a Meadowlands local, so we really wanted to back him.

“He always won with long shots for us. I don’t think Shiaway St Pat was a long shot, but we always bet on Ray Remmen.”

Blades did have a question regarding future Hambletonian Days.

“There are a bunch of other races that are around the Hambletonian, and it’s all the same barns, and same drivers, like Trond Smedshammer, Ake Svanstedt, Marcus Melander and others,” he said. “Are they going to bring all those other trots so they’ll all be part of Hambletonian Day in Indiana now? Is The Meadowlands losing those races, too? Because I could see that could be a problem. Those are all good races, except for when those horses break before the start, and it’s usually my horse.

“Couldn’t The Meadowlands create a trot, maybe two weeks after the Hambletonian or a month before the Hambletonian?” he said. “If they put up a lot of money, all these same trotters will come as a lead up to the Hambletonian, and they could have the same drivers and barns. It’s all about money. They’d come if they could make money.”

Unlike the Hambletonian, Hambletonian Oaks, Hambletonian Maturity, Tompkins-Geers, and Reynolds, which are owned by the Hambletonian Society and therefore will not be raced at The Meadowlands in 2027, most of the races on this year’s Hambletonian Day card are owned by the track.

“The Meadowlands was going strong before it had the Hambletonian, and the Hambletonian was going strong before it came to The Meadowlands,” Blades said. “They had a very long time together, and now they’re separating, but I think both should be able to hold on.”

As for whether his group would follow the famous words of Horace Greeley and “Go West” for next year’s edition of America’s Trotting Classic, his response was emphatic.

“We would never meet in Indiana for it, no way,” he said. “Maybe we’ll pick another race at The Meadowlands. It wasn’t about the Hambletonian really, it was about the Hambletonian at The Meadowlands.”