Short on horses, Meadowlands delays draw

[RocknRoll]

The draw for the opening night card at the Meadowlands will be delayed with the entry box remaining open until 9 a.m. on Wednesday morning due to an extreme shortage of entries in all classes.
 
The Fall Final Four stakes did not draw enough entries in any of the four divisions to require eliminations and those races will all go directly to the finals on Nov. 30. Left to fill the card with predominately overnight races, the number of entries came up woefully short of what is needed to put on any semblance of a program, let alone the kind of race card worthy of launching the new grandstand.
 
"I'm extremely disappointed at the lack of support by the trainers on such an important night,” said Jeff Gural. "We are spending upwards of $90 million on a project to try and breathe some life in the sport and we get half the entries we need to launch what we're representing to be a new beginning. What kind of message are we sending when there is so little regard for what is probably the biggest thing to happen in a generation?
 
"It's also frustrating that we chose this date (Nov. 23) to open due in part to Pocono's live racing being concluded the week before. At the last minute they then added another weekend onto their season in direct competition to our open, which is costing us horses.”
 
"We have a promotion opening night where if you could pick the winner of all 13 races you would win a million dollars and right now we only have enough horses for four races. I hope the industry will step up and not embarrass all of us on this critical start to what I hope is a successful effort to market the sport to new and younger customers," Gural continued.
 
Entries will be accepted for all overnight classes until 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 20. Qualifying entries for the 6 p.m. preview card on Thursday, Nov. 21, will also be taken until that time. Call the Racing Office at (877) 782-2537 with entries for both.

[LVGaryD]

I can see how Mr. Gural would be embarrassed. 

[Headpole Dave]

Pretty shabby by the horsemen.

Gural is putting a lot of time, money and effort into rebuilding the Meadowlands, and they can't support him at all?

[RocknRoll]

Meadowlands adds classes to Saturday's draw


Horsemen have responded with their support in the entry box at the Meadowlands and the picture for Saturday's Grand Opening now looks less grim. To get to the advertised number of races, the 13 that are needed to accommodate the $1 million grand prize, it will be necessary to add two more classes.
 
The racing office will now accept entries for C-2 pacers to race for a purse of $9,000 and a pace for 2, 3 & 4 year olds that are NW of 2 PM races or $15,000 life for a $12,500 pursein addition to the C-1 class (purse $11,000) that was added earlier today.
 
The existing classes that are still short horses are as follows: A-1, A-2, B-1, B-1 for 3YO and B-2.
 
"I received several calls of support from the horsemen and I want to apologize if I came on too strong but a lot of work has gone into the New Meadowlands and not having enough horses on opening night is clearly frustrating," said Jeff Gural."Obviously we anticipated that we would have some eliminations for the 2-year-old races and that did not happen."
 
Saturday's draw will be conducted Wednesday and the box is open from 7:30 a.m. until 9 a.m. Please call your entries for both the existing and added classes in to (877) 782-2537

[LVGaryD]

    Guess Mr. Gural changed his tune.

[careless hal]

Joint races 1 or 2 times a week.  What?  He wants everyone to line up and kiss his ass? Run a 4-5 cards a week program and then you can bitch.  Otherwise,STFU

[Jeremy]

Joint races 1 or 2 times a week.  What?  He wants everyone to line up and kiss his ass? Run a 4-5 cards a week program and then you can bitch.  Otherwise,STFU

Seemed to me all he wanted to do was have a big opening day.

[Harrisbg]

Interesting.  At first I was a Gural fan, heck he is the "savior".  But now that the smoke has cleared, well... 2 days a week? Come On and you demand respect, loyalty, legions?  You basically eliminate an entire group of races aka filly/mare races, your purses are lower, and top drivers are at a premium and you want horse owners to commit to the Big M??  The industry has changed over the years, specifically what owners race.  There are less and less claiming races as owners, including the Big Hitters like the Burkes, have turned their attention to the babies.  There are no more 30, 40, 50 claimers, and I'm not sure how owners feel about having someone arbitrary classifying their horses aka C1, C2, B1, B2, etc.  Then you also have a track like Dover that will penalize you a week if you race at Dover, then try to race somewhere else.  I think he shouldn't have taken such a rough edge, hard line stance/comment like he did.  He should have been more sympathetic towards the owners/trainers.  Really, why would they care if they raced at the Big M during the grand Re-Opening Weekend.  In 30 days, 3 month, 3 years, 30 years, it will mean nothing to them or anyone else.

[Gazoo]

Joint races 1 or 2 times a week.  What?  He wants everyone to line up and kiss his ass? Run a 4-5 cards a week program and then you can bitch.  Otherwise,STFU

Hal, his biggest gripe is with Pocono !! they f**ked him and they did it on purpose ..... maybe the Meadowlands should have 8 races of nothing but 4 claimers (not really 4k at any other track) or have the same horses race week in and week out like Balmoral. 

I don't blame the horsemen for racing at Yonkers or Pocono instead, but when Pocono moves their closing night back a week just to f**k the Meadowlands its a total bush league move .

 

[The Skipper]

Hal, his biggest gripe is with Pocono !! they f**ked him and they did it on purpose ..... maybe the Meadowlands should have 8 races of nothing but 4 claimers (not really 4k at any other track) or have the same horses race week in and week out like Balmoral. 

I don't blame the horsemen for racing at Yonkers or Pocono instead, but when Pocono moves their closing night back a week just to f**k the Meadowlands its a total bush league move .

I'm not yay or nay for Mr Gural but I love racing at M1. I think Mr Gural is a very smart business man

and if they get slots we could have year round 4 night a week racing. I think little set backs like this may

speed up that situation. 

[jordanjacob]

PROGRAM FOR Saturday, November 23, 2013 (DECLARE BY 09:00AM Tuesday, November 19, 2013)
1    Trot    "TVG" FREE FOR ALL- Points earned toward $500,000 final on November 30 (Declaration Fee $1,000)    $50,000
2    Pace    "TVG" FREE FOR ALL - Points earned toward $500,000 final on November 30 (Declaration Fee $1,000)    $50,000
3    Pace    "THE GOVERNOR`S CUP" - ELIMINATIONS 2 Year Old Open (Declaration Fee $2,000) Elimination winners choose posts in final.    $20,000
4    Pace    "THE THREE DIAMONDS" - ELIMINATIONS 2 Year Old Fillies (Declaration Fee $2,000) Elimination winners choose posts in final.    $20,000
5    Trot    "THE VALLEY VICTORY" - ELIMINATIONS 2 Year Old Open (Declaration Fee $2,000) Elimination winners choose posts in final.    $20,000
6    Trot    "THE GOLDSMITH MAID" - ELIMINATIONS 2 Year Old Fillies (Declaration Fee $2,000) Elimination winners choose posts in final.    $20,000
7    Pace    3 Year Old Fillies - Open - Nadia Lobell eligibles preferred    $25,000
8    Trot    3 Year Old Fillies - Open - Moni Maker eligibles preferred    $25,000
9    Pace    A-2 Horses & Geldings    $20,000
10    Pace    A-1/FFA Handicap - Post positions drawn according to class    $30,000
11    Pace    (SUB) B-1 Horses & Geldings    $16,000
12    Pace    (SUB) B-1 3 Year Old Colts & Geldings    $16,000
*13    Pace    (SUB) B-2 Horses & Geldings    $14,000
*14    Pace    (SUB) 2 & 3 Year Old Colts & Geldings - N/W 3 (2 year olds 4) extended PM races or $30,000 lifetime (2 year olds $40,000)    $15,000
 

his purses Saturday evening offered more than Yonkers or Pocono but 4 classes were for 2 year olds and many 2 year olds are done by now, it's late in the season and many are tired or sore, and Yonkers may be offering better purses for the Open and sub open classes

with the Yonkers draw out of the way, hopefully some of the horses that didn't get in at Yonkers will enter at The Meadowlands

I hope Jeff Gural succeeds and continues to race a quality product until he gets slots, then races a world class product

[pezz97]

I find it funny people bring up the 2 night a week racing. What is he supposed to do? Race 4 nights a week and have purses that are Balmoral like or less? Yeah that will pack em in.  He races 3 nights a week when all the other tracks are closed cause he knows he can get horses. When they open, he goes 2 days a week so he can keep his purses the same. I don't agree with everything he says or does, but when he gets his casino, I really hope that Pocono goes out of business

[careless hal]

Would the purses be higher than Northfield?  If pools large enough to support 1-5 k win bets are important to you, just play some of the big T bred tracks.  The competition from the syndicates would not be any tougher. And, they race more than twice a week. 



Post Time
Race 1   $2,000   NW1000L5CD   Trot   1 Mile   9      ENTRIES   6:30 PM
Race 2   $2,000   NW1000L5CD   Pace   1 Mile   9      ENTRIES   6:50 PM
Race 3   $2,400   NW200PSCD   Trot   1 Mile   9      ENTRIES   7:10 PM
Race 4   $2,000   NW1000L5CD   Pace   1 Mile   9      ENTRIES   7:30 PM
Race 5   $2,800   NW250PSCD   Trot   1 Mile   9      ENTRIES   7:50 PM
Race 6   $3,200   NW300PSCD   Trot   1 Mile   9      ENTRIES   8:10 PM
Race 7   $2,000   NW1000L5CD   Pace   1 Mile   9      ENTRIES   8:30 PM
Race 8   $2,800   NW250PSCD   Trot   1 Mile   9      ENTRIES   8:50 PM
Race 9   $2,800   10000CLNW3   Pace   1 Mile   9      ENTRIES   9:10 PM
Race 10   $2,800   NW250PSCD   Pace   1 Mile   9      ENTRIES   9:30 PM
Race 11   $2,000   7500CLNW2   Pace   1 Mile   9      ENTRIES   9:50 PM
Race 12   $2,800   NW250PSCD   Pace   1 Mile   9      ENTRIES   10:10 PM
Race 13   $2,400   NW200PSCD   Pace   1 Mile   9      ENTRIES   10:30 PM