from the Meadowlands Media Relations Department

East Rutherford, NJ — The draw for the opening night card at the Meadowlands will be delayed with the entry box remaining open until 9 a.m. Wednesday morning (Nov. 20) 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 opening, 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.”

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.