Meadowlands Racetrack History: The Big M and Hambletonian

Feature Photo: Meadowlandsracetrack, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The history of the Meadowlands Racetrack officially began on September 1, 1976, when the track held its first harness race. Thoroughbred racing followed on September 6, 1977. Today, the venue operates as Meadowlands Racing & Entertainment, with harness racing at the center of its calendar and a short fall thoroughbred turf meet conducted as Monmouth Park at the Meadowlands. Located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, the Meadowlands remains one of North America’s best-known harness-racing venues.

Racing with the Moon

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Long before Meadowlands Racetrack went from concept to reality, the phrase “Racing with the Moon” had already been popularized by bandleader Vaughn Monroe’s 1941 song. When thoroughbred racing began at the Meadowlands in 1977, “Racing with the Moon” became part of the track’s advertising campaign, a fitting slogan for a venue known for evening racing. The ad campaign was later replaced with a new slogan, “It’s All About Being Here – The Meadowlands!”

The main track at the Meadowlands has a one-mile circumference. Inside it is a seven-furlong turf course used for thoroughbred racing. For the most part, racing at the Meadowlands has traditionally taken place during the evening. One of the track’s most unusual visual features is the manmade lake in the infield, designed in the shape of the state of New Jersey.

Another phrase closely associated with racing is Dave Johnson’s famous call, “…and down the stretch they come!” Johnson had been the public-address announcer for the New York Racing Association before moving to the Meadowlands in 1977, where he called both thoroughbred and harness racing. The Meadowlands’ inaugural thoroughbred meeting, which began on September 6, 1977, ran for 100 nights.

Making Impressions

Also referred to as the “Big M,” the racetrack is noted for sweeping curves and wide stretches, making it an ideal track for harness racing. More than 42,000 spectators attended opening night in 1976. Quick Baron won the first pari-mutuel race, while Rambling Willie won the opening-night feature in 1:55 3/5. This was followed by the first Meadowlands Pace in 1977, won by Escort. The Woodrow Wilson was also introduced at the racetrack that year, with No No Yankee earning the first victory in what also became a major annual racing event.

The Hambletonian moved to the Meadowlands in 1981 and became one of the track’s defining events. The Hambletonian is part of the Trotting Triple Crown, while the Cane Pace, one of the major races in the Pacing Triple Crown, has also been contested at the Meadowlands since 2015.

Located at the Meadowlands Sports Complex, the racetrack shares the broader complex with MetLife Stadium and American Dream. The former Meadowlands Arena, later known as the Izod Center, also stood there for decades. The Quest Diagnostics Training Center serves as the headquarters of the New York Giants. The racetrack was the first major venue in the complex to open in 1976.

When the Meadowlands was nicknamed the Big M, the idea was to attract the New York crowd by playing off Aqueduct Racetrack’s own nickname, the Big A. As a night-racing venue, the Meadowlands was at the top of its game by holding major stakes races on Thursday nights instead of competing on weekends with New York’s tracks. When the Meadowlands Cup began as its signature thoroughbred stake, it started as a ten-furlong race on dirt. The first winner was Pay Tribute in 1977, trained by Ron McAnally and ridden by Hall of Fame jockey Ángel Cordero Jr. Cordero later won the Meadowlands Cup three more times. John Velazquez also won the race four times.

The Meadowlands Cup remained at the New Jersey track through 2009 before moving to Monmouth Park in 2010 and becoming the Monmouth Cup Stakes. By that period, thoroughbred racing at the Meadowlands had been reduced considerably from the track’s earlier years.

KO’d

On June 11, 1982, the Meadowlands drew a record crowd of 52,974 people as fans came to watch racing and the closed-circuit simulcast of the heavyweight championship fight between Gerry Cooney and Larry Holmes. It was one of the most anticipated fights of the era, as WBC heavyweight champion Holmes sought to end the unbeaten Cooney’s rise after Cooney had defeated former champion Ken Norton at Madison Square Garden in 1981.

Don King’s promotional campaign helped turn the Holmes-Cooney fight, which took place at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, into a national spectacle. The bout was shown live by closed-circuit television and was rebroadcast on HBO a week later. The fight lasted thirteen rounds before Cooney’s trainer entered the ring and the contest was stopped. For boxing fans in New Jersey, being at the Meadowlands Racetrack was about as close to sports heaven as it gets. Boxing and racing as a dual event, along with the betting involved, felt pivotal at the time.

Simulcasting itself soon became the center of a legal controversy in New Jersey. In 1985, the practice was ruled unconstitutional under the state’s existing law and was discontinued. Voters subsequently approved a referendum allowing simulcasting to return later that year.

Game Changers

When the Meadowlands opened in 1976, its harness track changed the face of the sport. Among New Jersey locals, the site became known as the Big M, and its one-mile oval attracted many of the best harness horses, drivers, and trainers in North America. As far as harness racing was concerned, the Meadowlands was the “it” place to be.

The wide, sweeping design of the Meadowlands encouraged a more aggressive and competitive style of racing than drivers often encountered on smaller ovals. It also helped elevate the profile of the professional catch driver, a driver hired to handle horses trained by others and expected to adapt quickly from one horse to the next.

Success as a catch driver depended on judgment, strength, timing, and the ability to adjust to different horses and racing situations. Among these drivers, John Campbell became the dominant force. His combination of tactical intelligence, athletic ability, and feel for a horse helped make him one of the greatest drivers in harness-racing history.

Making History

During the 1986 fall season, the eleven-year-old thoroughbred John Henry returned to the Meadowlands Racetrack for a ceremonial appearance as the track celebrated its tenth anniversary. His final race had taken place there two years earlier, when he won the Ballantine’s Scotch Classic in 1984. By the end of his racing career, the Hall of Fame gelding had earned more than $6.5 million over 83 starts and won seven Eclipse Awards.

In 1984, John Henry became the oldest horse at that time to win the Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year at nine years old. That same year, he won the prestigious Arlington Million for the second time, having first captured the inaugural running in 1981. He remains the only horse to win the race twice. In 1990, he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.

Six years after the Hambletonian moved to the Meadowlands, driver John Campbell began a remarkable run in the event. On August 8, 1987, he drove Mack Lobell to his first Hambletonian victory. Mack Lobell went on to become a two-time Horse of the Year honoree. Campbell followed with another Hambletonian victory aboard Armbro Goal in 1988 and a third aboard Harmonious in 1990.

On Meadowlands Pace night in 1995, a total of $6,771,499 was wagered, setting an industry record at the time. Hambletonian Day that year produced the second-highest handle at $5,828,749. The Hambletonian Day total topped $6.5 million in 1998, the year John Campbell earned his fifth Hambletonian victory with Muscles Yankee.

The Hambletonian

For the Meadowlands, the Hambletonian Stakes moving to the New Jersey racetrack was a big deal. The history of this premier harness-racing event has its roots at the New York State Fair in Syracuse in 1926. In 1927, the race was moved to Lexington, Kentucky, because of a rainout. It returned to Syracuse in 1928, then went back to Lexington in 1929. In 1930, Good Time Park in Goshen, New York, became the new home of the Hambletonian and remained so through 1956. In 1943, wartime gas rationing forced the race to be held at Empire City Race Track.

From 1957 through 1980, the Hambletonian was held at the Du Quoin State Fair in Illinois. It returned east in 1981, this time to the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The race features three-year-old trotters and takes its name from Hambletonian 10, the foundation sire whose bloodlines became central to the development of the American Standardbred.

Adding to the rich history of the Hambletonian and the Meadowlands is John Campbell. From 1987 through 2006, Campbell won the race six times, a record that still stands. Born on April 8, 1955, in Ailsa Craig, Ontario, the Canadian driver earned his place in the U.S. Harness Racing Hall of Fame in 1990 at just thirty-five years old. He was also inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame and Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Campbell himself came from a family of Standardbred horsemen, and his sons also became involved in the sport. Many consider John Campbell one of the greatest reinsmen of all time. His career became inseparable from the Meadowlands, where some of his most important victories helped define the track’s modern history.

Big Mack Attack

The first of John Campbell’s Hambletonian Stakes victories came during the summer of 1987 with Mack Lobell. Deemed the “Mack Attack” in the media, the combination of Campbell and Mack Lobell helped push the Meadowlands and harness racing into the spotlight. Mack Lobell entered the Hambletonian having already set a world record for two-year-old trotters at 1:55 3/5, as well as a track record of 1:54 at the Meadowlands in the Beacon Course Trot. He was sired by another notable Standardbred, Mystic Park.

Mystic Park had been the favorite for the 1982 Hambletonian but broke stride in the first heat and failed to qualify for the final. He was found to be suffering from a staph infection. After retiring from racing, Mystic Park was stricken with Potomac Fever and later foundered, a dangerous condition he managed to survive. He recovered well enough to stand at stud, where he sired Mack Lobell, the horse who accomplished in 1987 what Mystic Park could not five years earlier.

During the 1987 Hambletonian, Campbell and Mack Lobell set a two-heat world record of 3:47.3. Mack Lobell won the first heat in 1:54 and the second in 1:53.3. In both heats, Campbell moved him to the front before the quarter, held off mid-race challengers, and then drew away in the stretch.

After that season, Mack Lobell was voted Horse of the Year for 1987 and repeated the honor in 1988. In 1988, a majority interest in him was sold to a European group headed by John-Erik Magnusson, and Mack Lobell continued both racing and breeding in Europe. He won Sweden’s Elitloppet in 1988 and again in 1990, along with major races throughout Europe.

Mack Lobell also had a substantial breeding career. Although his record as a sire never matched his extraordinary success on the racetrack, the Harness Racing Museum records 444 sons and daughters in Sweden, and he later became an influential broodmare sire. Mack Lobell died in Sweden in 2016 at thirty-two years old.

Campbell’s Streak

The 1988 Hambletonian Stakes witnessed John Campbell race to his second victory with Armbro Goal. In 1990, he earned his third with Harmonious. In 1995, Campbell drove Tagliabue while his brother, Jim Campbell, trained the horse, giving John his fourth Hambletonian victory. In 1998, Campbell earned his fifth with Muscles Yankee. At 1:52 2/5, Muscles Yankee’s time was only one-fifth of a second slower than Continentalvictory’s Hambletonian and track record of 1:52 1/5 from 1996.

In 2006, John Campbell’s sixth Hambletonian Stakes victory came with Glidemaster. For Campbell and the Meadowlands, it was another chapter in a remarkable shared legacy. The Hambletonian Society notes that Glidemaster was the fifth Canadian-owned horse to win the event.

Aside from the Hambletonian, John Campbell’s winning streak as a driver made him a legend among harness-racing fans. Although born in Canada, he became a resident of River Vale, New Jersey. His connection with the Meadowlands continued even after he officially retired from driving.

Campbell recorded his 10,000th career driving victory on July 12, 2008, with Share the Delight at the Meadowlands. By the time he retired from driving in 2017, he had accumulated 10,688 victories and nearly $300 million in purse earnings.

Glidemaster

What makes Glidemaster’s 2006 Hambletonian victory stand out is what happened just before the eliminations. After pulling a horseshoe loose in his stall, Glidemaster stepped on a nail that punctured the outer rim of his hoof. The injury initially left him unsound, but round-the-clock care got him ready in time to finish second in his elimination and qualify for the final, which he then won.

Glidemaster went on to complete the 2006 Trotting Triple Crown, becoming the eighth trotter to sweep the series and the first since 1972 to do so over the traditional configuration of two one-mile tracks and the half-mile oval at Yonkers. His run began with the Hambletonian at the Meadowlands, continued with the Kentucky Futurity at The Red Mile, and concluded with the Yonkers Trot. He also became the second horse from trainer Blair Burgess’s stable to win the Hambletonian after Amigo Hall’s 27-1 upset in 2003.

Glidemaster later sired Maven, who won the 2013 Breeders Crown Mare Trot at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs. The Breeders Crown championships themselves have been staged at the Meadowlands many times since the 1980s, adding another major event to the track’s history.

Eyeballing the Prize

Bruton Smith of Lowe’s Motor Speedway looked at the Meadowlands Racetrack as a potential NASCAR short-track site serving the New York City market and made several attempts to acquire the property during the late 1990s. Going into 2010, the New Jersey government also considered closing the track, selling it for commercial development, or exploring a NASCAR-related conversion.

The major change came in December 2011, when the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority entered into a ground lease with New Meadowlands Racetrack LLC, led by Jeffrey Gural, giving the private company responsibility for operating the Meadowlands Racetrack. A major redevelopment followed, including construction of a new grandstand and clubhouse on the former backstretch. The old grandstand closed for racing in November 2013 as the new facility prepared to open.

The new grandstand opened for simulcasting on November 18, 2013, and hosted its first live harness-racing program five days later. The smaller, modern complex was designed for a racing industry in which far more wagering takes place away from the traditional grandstand than it did during the Meadowlands’ peak attendance years.

Meadowlands Today

The Meadowlands continues to serve as one of the premier venues in harness racing even though the face of the sport has changed considerably since the height of its popularity. The Hambletonian and Meadowlands Pace remain signature events, while the track has also hosted the Breeders Crown on numerous occasions. When horses are not circling the track, the facility has also been used for festivals, outdoor concerts, and other entertainment events. One such concert was held on June 28, 2015, when Life in Color NYNJ: World’s Largest Paint Party featured Ansolo, Bro Safari, Showtek, TJR, and Zaxx.

Another major change came in 2018 after New Jersey legalized sports wagering. FanDuel Sportsbook opened at the Meadowlands in July of that year, adding year-round sports betting to the facility’s horse-racing and simulcasting operations. The sportsbook remains part of Meadowlands Racing & Entertainment today.

In 2026, the Meadowlands is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. The current racing calendar still centers on harness racing, with a short Monmouth Park at the Meadowlands thoroughbred turf meet scheduled during the fall. Half a century after opening night, the Big M remains a major racing and entertainment venue just outside New York City.

The combination of sports betting and big-screen excitement in New Jersey was proven to be a draw long before the FanDuel era, as the huge turnout for the 1982 Holmes-Cooney simulcast demonstrated. Today’s Meadowlands has built on that same idea, combining horse racing, sports wagering, dining, and live events under one roof.

Readers interested in more New York racing history can also explore the history of Belmont Park Racetrack, Roosevelt Raceway, Monticello Raceway, and the history of Saratoga Racetrack.