It was a moment in time like no other for New Jersey racing when Robert Brennan’s opulent $178 million rebuild of Garden State Park opened with a splash in 1985, luring Kentucky Derby winner Spend A Buck away from the Preakness, and a chance at Triple Crown immortality, with a $2 million bonus the colt secured by winning the Jersey Derby.
“That was kind of crazy. It turned the whole Triple Crown on its ear at the time. It was unheard of,” said Howard Bruno, who worked at Garden State Park from its reopening until it closed in 2001.
Bruno came to Freehold Raceway later that year, and now, as the track’s general manager, is charged with guiding the historic oval through the homestretch. The sad, desolate three-level grandstand – with broken escalators on every floor and just a handful of bettors in daily attendance – represents shattered dreams that are in stark contrast to the golden era for New Jersey racing four decades earlier…