The Meadowlands big stakes season ended last Saturday, Nov. 25 on Fall Four/FanDuel Championships Night and with winter about to place its chilly grip on the Northeast, The Big M will now shift into cold-weather mode. Some new faces will be trying to make their mark in the driver colony as some of the superstar pilots take some well-deserved time off.
Two such faces belong to Johnathan Ahle, 26, and Braxten Boyd, 23.
Both have shown signs of promise at The Big M and are hoping for more opportunity there during the next three to four months.
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” said Boyd, who scored 11 times at The Big M from Oct. 20 through Nov. 18, including a four-win night on Oct. 28. “I felt pretty good about it. You know, you’ve got to have a little horsepower and then try to drive smart and be aggressive.”
Meadowlands fans have caught on quickly. Ten of Boyd’s winners have come at odds of 5-1 or less, with the exception being the 27-1 action on a Ron Burke trainee named Copperfield in a Kindergarten preliminary leg.
“He raced well,” said Boyd. “I couldn’t believe he was that long, to be honest with you.”
Boyd also mentioned the night he won four.
“Going into the card, I thought I could have a good night,” said Boyd. “But anytime you win four, it surprises you a little bit.”
Boyd is hoping to pick up some drives from trainers Bill MacKenzie, Edwin Quevedo and Mark and Cam Capone.
“Other than that, I’d like to be in every race as often as I can, trying for anybody I can,” said Boyd.
Boyd has found most of his success at Pocono Downs, and it’s at that Pennsylvania five-eighths-mile track and The Meadowlands where he is aiming to get most of his drives over the next few months.
He’ll race at The Big M regularly on Fridays and Saturdays, hoping some trainer might take a shot with him with a two-year-old down the road.
“That’s the hope,” said Boyd. “I mean, fingers crossed. Maybe I’ll get lucky.”
Ahle’s rise in the game has been swift – and nothing short of amazing – to say the least.
While Boyd has won at least 239 races in each of his three seasons as a regular driver, Ahle was still an amateur pilot as recently as August of last year. Yet, after totalling three victories in 2021 and 45 in 2022, he has exploded on the national scene this season, with 271 wins heading into action Thursday.
“I think just travelling around and, you know, getting a lot more drives, helps you get more wins,” said Ahle. “It’s getting a chance to drive better horses, driving favourites and stuff like that. I’ve been going down to [Rosecroft in] Maryland and doing a lot of Freehold whenever I can.”
Ahle currently sits 23rd in the standings at The Meadowlands with nine victories. His workload has been respectable, at 131 starts, with 27 on-the-board finishes.
Ahle learned the ropes working first for Shaun Vallee, and now, Noel Daley.
“Noel’s helped me out a lot,” said Ahle. “He gives me drives, gives me shots.”
Like Boyd, Ahle is on-board with being a Big M regular.
“I certainly plan to [be there] as long as I get to work,” said Ahle. “Assuming that a lot of bigger drivers take the winter off, I should get enough work to be able to. Noel uses me some and Tony Alagna used me a bit while the guys were in Kentucky, so that’s pretty cool. Whatever opportunities I can get, I’m grateful for.
“If I had my druthers, I’d have most of my starts [over the winter] at The Meadowlands, Rosecroft and Freehold, and maybe a little bit of Dover.”
During Saturday night’s pre-game show, Ahle will be the guest as segment host Dave Little puts the pilot “In the Sulky” live on the Sam McKee Memorial Broadcast Set. In the Sulky takes place shortly after the pre-game show begins at 5:45 p.m.
Big fields at The Big M create a big chance for a big score.
Once again, they’ll be a pair of carryovers heading into Friday’s race card after last Saturday’s 20-cent Pick-8 and 20-cent Pick-6 failed to yield any winning tickets.
The Pick-8 (which spans races four through 11) will begin with $8,180 in the hat while the Pick-6 (races eight through 13) will start with $13,662 in the pot.
“Both wagers will deservedly get an enormous amount of interest,” said Jason Settlemoir, the track's Chief Operating Officer and General Manager. “The minimum for both wagers is only 20 cents, so everyone can afford to play. Negative takeout is extremely likely with the carryovers. Combine all that with a 15 per cent takeout and these wagers certainly check all the boxes for the horseplayers on Friday.”
Both of the multi-leg puzzles will feature large fields, which is what the player seeking a big hit craves. Beginning with the fourth race on the Friday card, of the 10 races that make up the Pick-8 and Pick-6, seven will have 10 starters and three will have nine behind the gate.
It figures that Fall Four/FanDuel Championships Night last Saturday was a hit with bettors. After all, it’s the last huge night of racing in the sport for the calendar year. But 2023 was a tad more special than all of the others, because when the final tallies were calculated, it turned out to be the biggest FF/FDC night ever in terms of business.
Despite two of the big races having five-horse fields, total handle on the 14 dashes was $3,691,552, which is $200,000 more than the previous best, set in 2013 when the great Foiled Again was the star attraction.
“Watching the top three-year-olds take on the very best in the sport while setting the handle record was a great curtain call for the 2023 stakes season at The Meadowlands,” said Settlemoir. “At the end of the day, we gave racing fans the year-end matchups they desperately wanted to see. Their record-setting response says it all.
“There are many factors that go into our success,” said Settlemoir. “And one that all of us at The Meadowlands are extremely appreciative of are the steps Gov. [Phil] Murphy and the N.J. State Legislature have taken to make sure that the harness game stays strong in the great State of New Jersey.”
The numbers in November show anything but a game in decline.
These are the average nightly Big M handle figures for the month of November, starting in 2018:
- 2018: $2,110,835
- 2019: $2,390,320
- 2020: $2,510,807
- 2021: $2,534,332
- 2022: $2,757,900
- 2023: $2,995,875
Over the five-year span, November handle figures are up 41.9 per cent.
(With files from The Meadowlands)