The wrecking ball went to work on Garden State Park Thursday, clearing the way for condominiums, townhouses and apartments. It was a conclusion to a funeral that began well before the last horse crossed the wire May 3, 2001. There has been never been a bigger disaster in horse racing than the modern Garden State Park. It was a $140 million white elephant and it had to go.

Yet, there was still something sad about its demise. These condos will be built on hallowed racing ground, and they will be built over the last racetrack based on the premise that live racing can work. The sport is a lot different now, and I'll never be convinced that is a good thing. Garden State opened in 1942 and, until a fire destroyed the original structure in 1977, it was everything a racetrack was supposed to be. It had an opening day and a closing day; it was part of an era when there was still something special about an ordinary day at the track. Fans filled the seats. The wooden grandstand had character, charm and class.

The racing was outstanding. Good horses filled the everyday cards and special horses often made appearances. Triple Crown winner Whirlaway won the Trenton Handicap in the track's inaugural season. In between the Preakness and Belmont, Citation stopped off at Garden State and won the 1948 Jersey Derby. Bold Ruler won twice during the 1957 fall meet, the second victory coming against Round Table and Gallant Man in the Trenton Handicap. Fifteen years later, his great son, Secretariat won the 1972 Garden State Stakes, then worth nearly $300,000, an astounding sum in that era.

On April 14, 1977, the track burned to the ground with two people dying in the blaze. Though Garden State would have a second life, it would never again be the same.

Robert Brennan, the penny-stock impresario who would eventually land in jail, had an idea. He would rebuild Garden State, creating his vision of the Racetrack of the 21st Century. It would be glitzier and more ostentatious than any racetrack had ever dared to be. Floors were made of marble, the paddock sat under an ornate glass roof, parts of the clubhouse resembled the slickest elements of a Vegas casino.

The new Garden State re-opened in 1985 and Brennan wasted little time making a splash. He put together a $2 million bonus scheme revolving around a couple of Kentucky Derby preps at Garden State, the Derby itself and the reincarnated Jersey Derby. In its first year, Spend a Buck qualified and bolted the Preakness and a chance to sweep the Triple Crown for Jersey Derby and the millions Brennan was offering.

Brennan had stirred up tremendous controversy, but it was his greatest moment as a racetrack owner. He had beaten the racing establishment out of the sport's biggest star. It was one of the last things he ever had to smile about.

Brennan's vision of racing in the 21st century could not have been more wrong. Just three years earlier, the first casino had opened just down the road and Atlantic City was already sucking the lifeblood out of the racing industry in the area. The age of simulcasting and off-track betting was about to explode, which would mean a lot fewer people would be interested in heading out to the track, marble floors or no marble floors. The last thing anyone needed was some sort of wildly expensive facility that placed more emphasis on style than substance.

The fans stopped coming. Brennan wanted a palace. What he got was a $140 million empty building. Garden State lost a reported $23 million in its first year of operation and never once turned a profit.

"It has been well established my life has been a display of extravagance and extremes," he said at his 2001 sentencing, when he was given nine years for bankruptcy fraud, touching upon far more than a failed racetrack. "At times, it has manifested itself in bad ways. My judgment has failed me and as a consequence I have failed a lot of people."

With his legal troubles mounting, Brennan was forced out, but new owners were no more successful. Garden State became a moribund racetrack with dismal crowds and terrible racing. The irony is that had Brennan aimed much lower and built a modest structure, Garden State may have survived. But no one could afford to keep that sort of place going.

Not that it matters anymore. Over the same ground Secretariat and Citation and so many other great horses traversed and thousands of races were run to the delight of millions of fans when the game used to be better than it is now, they're going to build condos. It's called progress. What a shame.