Thursday Thoughts with Jason Beem July 2, 2026

A good Thursday morning to you all! Hope everyone is doing well out there and if you’re seemingly anywhere in the Eastern half of the United States this weekend, I hope you’re staying cool! Supposed to touch triple digits here in Richmond, Virginia this weekend and we’re going to run at early Colonial Downs and try to finish up the card by about 2 p.m, (ET) each day, so it’s going to be interesting!

I was on Steve Byk’s “At the Races” show on SiriusXM on Wednesday to talk about the start of the Colonial meet so far and we were talking about the early starts and the upcoming heat wave and I posed the question to him about the hottest days at the track that he remembered. He talked about some cancellations at Saratoga from a few years back.  

My answer was easy, the 2019 Haskell (G1) at Monmouth Park. It was so hot but also humid and was absolutely the most miserable weather I’ve experienced, not just at the races, but in my 46 years on planet Earth. The temperature gauge read 99 or 100 but with the humidity, it was something else all together. I was working there for the publicity office, in charge of getting quotes from riders and helping to write press releases about the stakes races. The office was nice and cool, but venturing out into the paddock area was just obscenely uncomfortable. 

The races were scheduled to start at their normal time, but after a while the powers that be decided that they were going to cancel the non-stakes events and run the graded stakes later in the evening in a short window before it got dark. Monmouth doesn’t have lights! I went back to my hotel for most of the afternoon to stay in the air conditioning and finally returned to the track about 5 or 6 p.m., maybe an hour before the stakes races were going to begin. 

It was a tough decision I’m sure for Monmouth because Saratoga and many other eastern tracks had been cancelled. So it would have been a monster handle day for them had they run in the afternoon. I think the Haskell itself did handle a few million dollars that night, but not the numbers it would have been in its normal spot. 

By the time the races did begin that evening, with the heat and late start, the crowd was a fraction of what it was earlier and what it would have been had the weather cooperated. But people were still excited to see some good racing. One memory that stuck with me was jockey Mike Smith signing autographs after Midnight Bisou won the Molly Pitcher (G3). He was walking back and sweating and I’m sure wanted nothing more than to get back to jocks room. But he signed a ton of autographs for the few people still there on the rail. I don’t think anyone would have blamed him if he’d have just said “not today guys” to get back inside. I had to get quotes from him after he’d spent all that time signing for the people and he couldn’t have been more generous with his time. That always stuck with me how kind and professional he was to everyone in a very uncomfortable spot. 

Maximum Security won the Haskell as darkness started to set in. And had to survive an inquiry involving him possibly cutting off King for a Day at the quarter-pole. They made no change and everyone quickly exited, going to their cars and to some air conditioning. I’ve been to some hot days at the races, but nothing will ever come close to the Haskell of 2019.  

Stay cool everyone!