Monmouth Park sets 2026 meet, Haskell Stakes anchors $2.65 million card

Monmouth Park is making the Haskell Stakes the spine of its 2026 season, not just its biggest day. The Oceanport track unveiled a 50-day meet that opens May 9 and builds toward July 18, when the $1 million NYRA Bets Haskell anchors a six-stakes card worth $2.65 million in purses.

That design gives the meet a clear stakes ladder. The Pegasus Stakes, a $150,000 local prep scheduled for June 13 at one mile and one sixteenth, sends its top two finishers into the Haskell with free entry and start fees. That is the kind of incentive that matters to horsemen and bettors alike: it makes the road to Monmouth’s marquee race a real competitive route, not just a promotional stop.

The Haskell already carries fresh weight because Journalism won the 2025 edition at Monmouth and then went on to win the Preakness Stakes. Last year’s Haskell Day also set the bar for the business side of the sport, producing a record all-sources handle of $21,999,963 and drawing 41,876 fans, the biggest Haskell crowd at Monmouth since 2015. The 2025 race carried a purse of $1,017,500, and this summer’s card adds the Grade 2 United Nations, Grade 2 Molly Pitcher, Grade 3 Monmouth Cup and Grade 3 Matchmaker Stakes around the main event.

The broader calendar backs up the Haskell focus. Monmouth’s 2026 stakes schedule totals 36 races worth $5.85 million, while the New Jersey Racing Commission approved a 50-date spring and summer Thoroughbred schedule for Monmouth and nine all-turf autumn dates at the Meadowlands. For a track that lives on summer momentum, the point is obvious: the Haskell is the headline, but the meet is being built to keep bettors engaged long before July 18 and keep horsemen circling back after it.

The opening-season press event also recognized Dr. Chris Samaha, who founded the Backstretch Community Assistance Program more than 30 years ago, starting in 1995. BCAP offers free counseling, health education and medical screenings for licensed backstretch workers, a reminder that the meet runs on more than purse money and handle figures. The Virgil Buddy Raines Award, now in its 31st year, is presented before the season opener, and Monmouth’s 2026 promotional calendar, with food festivals, giveaways, specialty days, handicapping contests and repeated T-shirt tosses, is aimed at turning the Haskell into a summer-long runway rather than a single spike.

Jorge Delgado also enters the season with a target on his back as he tries to defend his training title. That gives Monmouth’s summer a competitive edge beyond the Haskell: the meet is set up to reward the barns that stay sharp from opening day through the final stakes, and the ones that do will shape the region’s racing conversation all the way to July.