Jeff Gural, his partner convinced Christie to give them time to work out an agreement to lease the racetrack from the state, take over operations privately
EAST RUTHERFORD — The magic is all but gone at the Big M.
The harness racing industry in New Jersey, centered around the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, was once the epicenter of the sport in America. Now it hangs by a thread.
The roaring crowds have dwindled. Once-dependable revenue has become a burden of debt for the state to the tune of about $10 million a year. Trainers and drivers who years ago uprooted their lives to take a shot at the Meadowlands’ big cash purses are now chasing them in other states.
But Jeff Gural, a New York developer and owner of two racetracks, isn’t ready to see it die. In fact, he sees promise in the home of the Hambletonian. More importantly, he sees money.
"The Meadowlands is vital to the whole industry. If it were to close, it would be devastating," Gural said at his Manhattan office last week. "I’m optimistic that if we can make it fun again, it can be a success. I think I can fill the place."
Last year, harness racing seemed all but certain to disappear in the Garden State after Gov. Chris Christie announced he would seek to end state subsidies for racing and a task force recommended scrapping meets at the Meadowlands.
But Gural and his partner, the Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association of New Jersey, convinced Christie to give them until this spring to work out an agreement to lease the racetrack from the state and take over operations privately.
"When we went down to Trenton to talk to Christie’s guys, they were prepared to announce that night that they were closing the Meadowlands," he said. "When it came down to it, I told myself ‘I can’t let it close.’ It would be bad for the state, bad for the horsemen, bad for the industry. So we asked them for 90 days to put together a plan."
Christie agreed but now says if a deal isn’t in place by the first week of May, he will shutter the track, all but ending harness racing’s 35-year run in the state. The harness racing season is scheduled to begin May 7 and run through August.
Gural has obstacles to overcome before he even gets a chance to save the track.
He is entrenched in a protracted battle with Local 137 of the AFL-CIO, which represents tellers at Meadowlands Racetrack, who have thus far refused to vote on a package of job concessions needed to move his takeover package forward.
A more complicated battle over simulcast revenue sharing with the leaders of the thoroughbred industry in New Jersey is also likely in the offing.
"I think the state would like us to work together and play in the same sandbox," he said. "But that might require some help from the state to work out."
Gural’s life has long been tied to the sport.
He remembers attending races at Yonkers Raceway as a teenager growing up on Long Island.
"It was a very popular thing to do at the time. There was an excitement to it. The racetracks were packed," he said. "It was always my desire to own horses."
He bought his first horse in 1970 with a friend for $10,000. One horse quickly turned to two, then four, then five.
Though he owned horses, Gural, 68, said he didn’t become seriously involved in the racing industry until the late 1980s.
Much of his professional career has revolved around real estate. A graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Gural has been chairman of real estate firm Newmark Knight Frank since 1978.
Under his watch, Newmark Knight Frank has grown from a small, metropolitan company to an international powerhouse with more than 200 offices worldwide, according to its website.
But in 1988, harness racing hooked him for good. He visited a friend’s horse farm in Dutchess County in upstate New York with his wife, and they made the decision to get into the breeding business.
"We had such a fantastic time. We came to the conclusion (my friend) didn’t have any idea what he was doing so it couldn’t be that hard to succeed in the breeding business," Gural said.
He now owns Allerage Farm in Stanfordville, N.Y., where he has more than 20 horses on 135 acres.
In 2000, he became a key advocate in the fight to allow video lottery terminals, which are similar to slot machines, at New York racetracks. Shortly after they were approved in 2005, Gural purchased two racetracks that had fallen into bankruptcy — Tioga Downs in Nichols near the Pennsylvania border and Vernon Downs, near Syracuse.
A few years later, Gural says Tioga Downs is a profitable business, and while Vernon Downs has not broken into the black, he said its losses are offset by the other racetrack.
Though he is pleased with his success, he says reviving the Meadowlands could reshape the entire industry.
"Racing, nationwide, is in a downward spiral. The current business model isn’t going to last forever. At some point there won’t be enough people to make it worth turning on the lights," he said. "It’s one thing to succeed at Tioga. But if we can turn this thing around (in New Jersey), it might create a model for other tracks across the country."
Were the Meadowlands to close, the consequences would be far-reaching.
According to the Rutgers Equine Science Center, the horse racing industry — which includes state-run Meadowlands and Monmouth Park as well as privately-owned Freehold Raceway and the Atlantic City Race Course — contributes a $780 million in annual economic impact in New Jersey, a major portion of which comes from the Meadowlands. Karyn Malinowski, the center’s director, said a large portion of the 56,000 acres of farmland housing breeding and training facilities, only a fraction of which is protected under open-space laws, could be sold and developed. And Malinowski said thousands of the more than 7,000 jobs tied to the horse racing industry in New Jersey are linked to harness racing in some way.
"The ripple-down effect will be tremendous," Malinowski said. "If harness racing has a savior in Gural, he’s doing it because he loves harness racing."
Turning around the Meadowlands Racetrack, however, will require a lot of work, according to those who called the track home for years.
John Campbell has been a harness racing driver at the Meadowlands since 1978. Now 56, the River Vale resident left his native Ontario for a shot at the big purses and top competition that could be found only at the New Jersey track.
"The crowds were bigger. The racing at that time attracted the top horses and drivers from everywhere in North America. It was a place of excellence," said Campbell, considered by many to be the greatest driver in harness-racing history.
But all of that has changed now.
When it opened in 1976, more than 16,500 packed the stands daily, attendance figures show. Gural estimates the track draws less than 20 percent of that now, around 3,000 on race nights.
"You could see it happening," Campbell said. "When you don’t put money back into a facility like this, it’s going to deteriorate. And it accelerated over time. Every aspect of what (harness racing at the Meadowlands) once was has diminished a little bit."
New Jersey is also falling behind neighboring states like Pennsylvania and New York when it comes to breeding and purse money, according to the Rutgers University Equine Science Center.
Tom Fanning, a standardbred horse trainer at Gateway Farm on the Freehold-Manalapan Border, said he rarely buys New Jersey-bred horses.
"New Jersey was the bedrock of harness racing. When you looked to buy horses you’d buy Jersey-bred horses," said Fanning, a Jackson resident who has worked in New Jersey for more than three decades. "Now we buy Pennsylvania-bred or New York-bred horses because I can’t in good conscience tell my clients to make that investment when there might not be harness racing here in two years."
In his office overlooking Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, Gural shuffled through photos of Tioga Downs, its grandstand packed to the brim.
"Up there, we’ve made racing a big deal again," he said. "Now we just have to see if the same marketing tools will work down here. I think I have a shot. I wouldn’t get involved with this if I didn’t think I could do it."
Gural said the Meadowlands was built for another era, and reinventing it requires understanding the reality of harness racing today.
Since January, he said he has raised $100 million to reshape the track’s identity. Much of that will go toward a new grandstand, one much smaller than what exists today and could be completed by 2013.
"You look at the Meadowlands now, it could hold 40,000 if it wanted to, but they’re bringing in three (thousand)," he said. "We want to have five, six thousand."
The funding will also pay for the construction of four off-track wagering facilities, including one in nearby Bayonne, Gural said will complement rather than compete with the racetrack. New food vendors will be brought in. Gural said he is also working on simplifying the racing program, which can be complex for a first time attendee.
He also sees limiting the racing schedule as an inevitable part of the Meadowlands’ future. Last year, Monmouth Park, which caters to thoroughbred racing, reduced its racing schedule dramatically, a move that boosted purse sizes and attendance according to the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. But the key, Gural said, will be marketing, which he said has been integral to the success of Tioga Downs.
"It’s all based around marketing. The cost of most professional sports now is prohibitive. Here, you pay no admission, parking is free, all you need is a program," he said. "We need to make racing fun again. Our audience is getting older; we need to get younger. We need to attract families, we need to make the racetrack a fun experience for kids and adults."
Not unlike how minor league baseball markets its game to families, Gural said family-friendly activities like fireworks, bouncy castles and daily entertainment will all be part of the new Meadowlands Racetrack. Gural said he knows how much is riding on his plan. Those the Meadowlands Racetrack support know, too.
"This is our Yankee Stadium. But the current model doesn’t work anymore," said Anthony Perretti, general manager at Perretti Farms, the largest standardbred horse breeder in New Jersey. "Jeff has the résumé to make this work, and we have full confidence in him. Something has to change. You can’t keep raising ticket prices at Yankee Stadium if you don’t have an audience."