Aniston movie shoots scenes at Monmouth Park

Aniston movie shoots scenes at Monmouth Park

A grand entrance, by helicopter, of Hollywood stars Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler in the morning. Six hundred extras acting as if there was a real race taking place at Monmouth Park.

Instead of the normally scheduled day off for the Oceanport racetrack on Tuesday, there was plenty of activity with the filming of a segment in the Columbia Pictures comedy "Bounty Hunter," directed by Andy Tennant.

The film, targeted for release in 2010, centers on a bounty hunter (Butler) hired to retrieve his ex-wife who has jumped bail (Aniston), according to advance publicity.

John Heims, the track's media relations director, helped producers arrange having horses and jockeys on hand to simulate racing scenes to the cheers of the extras.

"The movie people began setting up yesterday and started getting ready at 5 a.m. today. The filming started at 11 a.m.," Heims said.

Previous filming took place in Atlantic City and New York.

This is not the first time for Monmouth Park on the big screen. The 1984 "Pope of Greenwich Village" with Mickey Rourke has scenes from the track. So do episodes from TV's "Law and Order" and "The Sopranos."

The participating jockeys in the racing scenes shot Tuesday included Luis Rivera, Felix Ortiz, Jose Velez, Pedro Cotto, Francisco Maysonett and Navin Mangalee, all regular riders when real races take place. The horses were supplied by trainers by Ben Perkins Jr., Tony Wilson, Patrick Bottazzi, Luis Carvajal and others.

"The idea was to have eight horses go to the starting gate, come out of the gate and run for about 70 yards, with crowd scenes," Heims said. "It took a good part of the day."