I visited Monmouth Park this past Sunday. It’s a place I’ve enjoyed on many occasions. Unfortunately, Sunday turned out to be memorable for a different reason.

I had one personal irritation that turned out to be related to the larger issue. For some reason people were smoking both inside the plant and in the grandstand. At first I figured it was just a manifestation of the addictive grip smoking has, but then it occurred to me that this wasn’t just isolated behavior, it was a consistent reflection of the fact that track management wasn’t paying close attention to the fan experience. It wasn’t simply about people being inconsiderate, it was about nobody on either side caring enough to worry about it.

To be fair, as far as I can tell NJ law bans any indoor smoking, but doesn’t clamp down on outdoor smoking, so it would seem that the smoking in the outdoor grandstand was not banned, although to be precise outdoor in this case meant having a roof with no windows. Certainly there were no signs that would have indicated smoking was disallowed. There could have been no mistake that smoking inside was not allowed, and it appeared that the impunity of the scofflaws was a reflection of the fact that there wasn’t much of an employee presence throughout the facility.

The problem with smoking in the outdoor grandstand was twofold. Obviously if you were in the vicinity of the smokers, of which there were more than a few, you got your dose of second hand smoke. The other issue was that some of the windows in the indoor grandstand area were open and the smoke was just drifting in. It mostly seemed like a bad set-up if you wanted to sit outside and enjoy the ocean breezes without the acrid odor of cigarettes. I think to accommodate both sides Monmouth could have employed the Saratoga solution. You have to be outside of the physical plant to smoke, and there are plenty of open areas front and back.

I did mention it on twitter while I was there, and to his credit Travis Stone, Monmouth’s track announcer, did acknowledge my tweet and said he would pass my concern along. Nothing changed, but by that time I  figured I needed to focus on betting the races and stop worrying about things beyond my control. They weren’t going to fix the smaller problem or the bigger problem in an hour.

What I realized was that most of my disappointments that day were part of a larger problem that was not simply endemic to Monmouth.  On a day when the weather could hardly have been nicer, the beaches in Monmouth County were packed but the track looked positively ghostly.

Monmouth Park at one time was a jewel of a track, and during the summer the weekends were packed with racegoers. What has happened to Monmouth is happening at tracks all over the country. Attendance is down, handle is way down. Purses are declining. Same story as every other track. Saratoga is probably more immune than most places, but even the historic Spa is feeling the effects of a sport that is in decline. The impacts at Monmouth are obvious. Management finally dropped purses on Friday. The fields were fairly short on Sunday. Four races had 6 horses, four had 7, one had 8, one had 9 and one had 11. Two thirds of the races had 7 or fewer horses. They listed the attendance as 9,327. I can’t say with absolute certainty that number was inflated, but based on my wandering around the grounds, I would never have guessed half that number. Where i was betting there was never a line at the betting machines or the teller windows.

i wouldn’t say the place had slid horribly downhill physically, but it felt like I was going to work instead of for a day at the track. The place was almost funereal. There was no vibe, no buzz throughout the track. Large sections of the track were empty. There was a band playing in the back of the house to an audience of three,

I paid for the clubhouse admission, but was surprised to find out a lot of the outdoor grandstand seats on the clubhouse side had been taken out. I sent a query to the track asking about that, but never received a reply. The seats that remained in the clubhouse part of the grandstand were sparsely populated  because they were being sold for $2. It’s amazing how the price of one bet can deter anyone, but it does. If you wanted to watch a race seated in the grandstand, you either had to pay for a seat or go over to the general admission side. Of course, compared to Saratoga that isn’t so bad – there are no free seats there, unless you count the numerous benches in the clubhouse where people slap a newspaper through the slats and claim it as their own. But that is another rant for another day.

Travis Stone, the track announcer was a high point. Very professional, and I don’t think anyone could fairly say he was a downgrade from Larry Collmus. The plant and the grounds were relatively clean. The food has never been great at Monmouth, so there is nothing to gripe about there, and if you wanted something to eat or drink you at least didn’t have to stand in a long line.

The state of Monmouth was not unique. More and more tracks are feeling too large for the crowds that actually show up, but Monmouth was always a jewel of a track, not quite Saratoga but better than a lot of the summer tracks. It is now in a long line of tracks that are suffering, and there seems to be few solutions beyond some form of slot machines. We all know that is really not a long term answer.

The first step on the long road to decline is apathy. Whether it is related to the obviously detestable things like the track take or the less tangible things like unenthusiastic customer relations, failure starts with the absence of passion. Monmouth is not the problem. Monmouth is the result of the same years of poor management and promotion that occur everywhere. It is what happens when people look at their weekend and decide baking on the beach sounds like a better idea than heading to the track. It is what happens when everyone in the chain, from the head of management to the $2 punter just stop caring. Eventually Monmouth will start to show the obvious physical signs. Lighting going out, paint peeling, floors not being swept clean. If a track with a desirable location and no competition from the NY City area tracks for six weeks is struggling, the future is bleak indeed.