It's a shame that Gural has taken a Meadowlands loyalist like me and driven me away. The product there is so bad and the fields are too small to be competitive. While we are at it, let's also make the surface appear 3 seconds faster so that the B track garbage look like superstars. When a qualifier is clocked in 1:48 flat and Eric Abbatiello (nothing against him personally) wins a race in sub-1:49, something isn't right (btw, congrats Eric). Can't wait until Pace night when the winner goes 1:44.3.
There was a time when 95% of my play went to M1. It's been 10% at best this season and it's still declining. What a joke.
------------------------------------
http://xwebapp.ustrotting.com/absolutenm/templates/article.aspx?articleid=75592&zoneid=63East Rutherford, NJ --- The following is Meadowlands Chairman Jeff Gural’s response to owner Bruce Trogdon, who has blamed Gural’s out-of-competition testing rules for not supplementing his top 3-year-old colt Fear The Dragon to the $700,000 Crawford Farms Meadowlands Pace on July 15.
“While we can appreciate Mr. Trogdon's position, everyone else has accepted the terms of our out-of-competition testing program and is ready to race. We host nearly $12 million in stakes races at the Meadowlands and no other harness track produces nightly wagering handle at our level. We achieve all of this without purses that are inflated by money from alternative gaming. Most importantly, we care about the integrity of our races, especially our signature events. If that makes us a "B Track" as Mr. Trogdon alleges, I would like to know what an "A Track" is.”
