It's been some years and NYRA may have been running this chat board back then. The Board Meetings were invariably held at Aqueduct and Belmont but there was one I vaguely remember at Monmouth on a Saturday run by Stevie Belmont who was a Jersey fellow and a good man.

I drove the 90 miles to Monmouth in my old '74 Olds Omega I believe with a bankroll and a small cooler. Or I might have been driving a Ford Escort stick. And there was Stevie Belmont down by the rail by the 1/8th pole with his crew of Jersey railrats and some New York regulars I knew. The Jersey guys were there with some of the largest coolers I had ever seen and Stevie told me to drink the beers I had in my cooler in a hurry since he had about 40 more in the coolers reserved for me.

The memory of that day is foggy but I do remember getting to a motel nearby after the races to catch some rest. I wasn't in the best of shape to drive to Long Island that evening.

Must have Monmouth soire...vaguely remember, yes...when it was nyra board of some early vintage. Must have been 1998-2000 or so.

Remember the Golden Tent debacle?

Chad Brown's father was on camera today on the broadcast. He was walking down stairs with Chad to the winners circle . I think race 7 Mascha win. Talking heads were saying that "Chad's dad is at Saratoga everyday". That's oldguy, right?

Yup, that's OG, Jerry Brown. And I was the first guy to put up a fifty for GOLDEN TENT. The board people saved that gallant old horse and Gary Contessa claimed him for us out of a bottom claimer at Philly Park. A friend of Shammy took in the steed out on Long Island and he was placed in a retirement home (upstate I think). And then he died eight days later of natural causes.

No good deed goes unpunished. On a visit to see GOLDEN TENT one early morning when I had the DRF for a day at Aqueduct I was feeding him some carrots on the horse farm in eastern Suffolk County.