After six months of Hamburger Helper, the filet mignon is now being served.

This is not to disparage the overnight racing, and the early series and the stakes that sustain the industry's leading racetrack through the winter and spring months.

But there was a real sense of excitement in the air when Somebeachsomewhere [10th straight victory in his Meadowlands Pace elim] and Deweycheatumnhowe [13th in a row in the Dancer Final] extended their respective unbeaten streaks and Mister Big won the battle of the titans over Artistic Fella in the Haughton Final.

And for Stockman, who is challenged to keep the Meadowlands' racing dynasty alive, these final three weeks of the meet are the reward for months of dealing with a dwindling horse population and the competition of the new and resurrected slots-fueled tracks.

"I'm happy with the way things have gone, especially now that we're into the stakes season," said Stockman, as he watched the festivities in the winner's circle from the box seat area in the Meadowlands grandstand. "We've had very strong nominations to all the stakes.

"The Meadowlands Pace came up with three divisions with 26 horses entered which is the most in the last five years, probably second highest since the 1980s when they had three or four divisions," he added. "Overall, I'm happy [with the meet], especially with the stakes.

"As far as the overnight racing, we're in real stiff competition with the racino tracks, and it has hurt a little bit, but this is our time of the year - the month of July into the Hambletonian - and I'm really happy with it," he noted.

Much as movie stars flock to the south of France, equine celebrities and their people gravitate to the Meadowlands for the Championship Meet which showcases the cream of the two-year-old crop, anoints the sophomore class presidents and spotlights the older divisional champions.

Saturday night [July 12] was the 120th program of the meet which concludes on Hambletonian Day, August 2, and the Meadowlands, which has reigned as the harness racing world's showcase literally since the day it opened on September 1, 1976, has survived another year, has avoided a coup d'état from the racino tracks once again.

"I'm dealing with a much smaller horse population because it is all spread out - Yonkers, Pocono, especially Chester," noted Stockman, reflecting on the challenges to fill races and put on top quality events. "When Freehold closed, we got a few more horses. But sometimes we're a victim of our own success here.

"Guys come here, make a lot of money and go so fast, they have to lay their horses up for a while," he explained. "It's much easier racing at these smaller tracks. You don't have 10-horse fields, you don't have to go so fast and you're going for virtually the same money as we do here.

"We'll probably hit, by the end of the year, $215,000 to $220,000 a night in [purses for] overnights -- that doesn't count any of the stakes races," he said. "The stakes races are up in the five to six million range of what we pay out which is still more than other place in the business.

"The climate has changed," he added. "But it still puts us, because of the amount of days we race and races per night, I believe, as the highest in the industry."

The competition, though, is nipping at the heels of the Meadowlands. The surrounding states - New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware - all have hybrid racetracks [racinos] that devote most of their square footage to slots or video lottery terminals whose proceeds pump up their purse structures. This option does not currently exist in New Jersey.

There has probably never been a better time to own, train or drive a trotter or a pacer based in the northeast as there is right now, which adds to the challenges that the 50-year-old Stockman faces.

"We've got to reinvent ourselves and take a solid look at what we can do for the overnight program, maybe write more overnight late closers which appeal to the New Jersey horsemen and try to keep more of the guys from Jersey at home," he said.

"It has been a challenge since the day I step foot here," noted Stockman, who joined the Meadowlands staff as racing secretary in 1997 and was elevated to director of racing seven years ago, in August of 2001.

"We're in some tough competition," he conceded. "And we've always been number one, and I'm going to do what I can to keep us number one. We're going to have to come up with some fresh, new ideas."

Some of the frustrations faced by Stockman, who spent 10 years in the regulatory end of racing, including time as the presiding judge at the Meadowlands, are due to a "lack of understanding" about what he and his staff do on the part of both horsemen and gamblers.

"A lot of them don't know what goes into running a race office or running a racing department," he noted. "That's what is most frustrating. We can provide all the tools for horsemen to put their horses in - a weekly condition sheet that changes, stakes schedules -- and we still have horsemen who don't have a condition sheet [spelling out the type of races being offered for each program].

"It's on the web [www.meadowlandsracetrack.com], it's in the racing office, and we have an email list that it goes to," he said. "And on a Tuesday morning, when I have 500 horses in the [entry] box a guy will call up to ask ‘do you have a maiden for today?' It is just shocking. It's just a lack of understanding on how they interact with us that is the frustrating part."

Gamblers seem to understand the operations of a race office even less and fill Stockman's e-mail box on a regular basis.

"I don't think [bettors] know anything about my job," said Stockman, who shares his Bergen County home with his wife, Dorene, and Boston terrier, Ferguson. "The majority of people that bet on the races now are becoming more intelligent about the nuances of the actual racing product. But they have no idea how the races get put together.

"I still get the phone call from an irate owner, asking ‘how come you gave me the 10-hole two weeks in a row?'" he recalled. "Or you get an e-mail from a gambler that says ‘I know you gave that horse the outside because he was the best.' But we don't even do the draw [post positions draws are handled by the judges]. I think that's a real clear lack of understanding on what goes on."

Despite the frustrations, Stockman seems to have found the right fit for himself.

"I went as far as I could on the regulatory end of it, I was presiding judge here at the Meadowlands," he explained. "I think my personality is much better suited for the administrative side of it than the regulatory side of it.

"The regulatory side of it, you are at constant odds and war with the horsemen," he noted. "They view you as the enemy. I did it for enough years that I didn't want to be viewed as the enemy. I wanted to do what I think betters the sport with the racing product. As a judge, you're an enforcer of the rules."

Still, those regulatory concerns are never far from Stockman's thoughts.

"I want the same thing that everybody who works in regulatory or administration wants -- medication rules that conform across the board, stiffer penalties for those who break the rules, some type of system that if you are suspended here - you're suspended," he said. "None of this putting your sister up as trainer, your mother, your brother, your wife.

"That's the most frustrating thing, and it trickles all the way to the gamblers," he added. "That's something that really peeves the gamblers.

"The trainers, for lack of a better word, that we call ‘chemists' are always a step ahead," he observed. "That's the most frustrating thing. It drove a lot of the honest people out. All the money has brought some of those people back, but if the medication rules don't change, it doesn't matter how much money we go for."

Business continues to erode at the track - through the start of July, the Meadowlands is down 12 percent in attendance and 10 percent in live handle but up 10 percent with the inclusion of Internet and OTW [off track wagering] bets.

"I think we're past the point of bringing the public back into the facility," Stockman acknowledged. "I think we need to figure out better ways to market our product to a wider group of people. The days of 15-18,000 people coming to a racetrack are over except for special events. We need to take a more aggressive stance on the Internet, TV promotion, things like that."

It was hard not to see his point. The live crowd at the Meadowlands was 4,719 on Friday and 9,534 on Saturday.

The racing could not have been any better but where were the bettors?

Carol Hodes