A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by eight harness owners who were banned at the tracks owned by Jeff Gural due to their ties with indicted trainer Rene Allard. Gural owns the Meadowlands in New Jersey and Tioga Downs and Vernon Downs in New York.
The case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning the plaintiffs may file a subsequent suit on the same grounds.
Despite the allegations against Allard, he had been cleared by the U.S. Department of Justice to train horses at a South Florida training center, as long as the horses under his care were not preparing to race. On Mar. 6, Gural announced that any owners who had horses with Allard would be banned at his tracks and their horses would be ineligible to race there. He also announced a ban against anyone who continued to have horses in partnership with the eight owners.
“To learn that people actually give this guy horses to train after what was discovered by the Federal investigation boggles the mind,” Gural said at the time. The owners, Kap Singh, Lawrence Dumain, Ira Wallach, Brian Wallach, Yves Sarrazin, Erin Hill, Bruce Soulsby and Allen Weisenberg filed suit, alleging violations of federal antitrust laws and state competition laws. The group alleged that Gural was attempting to “sanitize their illegal actions by attempting to smear Plaintiffs with the misdeeds of Rene Allard.”
United States District Judge Lawrence Khan disagreed, upholding the ban. “Judge Kahn clearly saw that this antitrust theory has no legs and did the right thing by dismissing the whole case,” Gural said in a statement. “This lawsuit and its outcome have only reinforced my resolve to purge PEDs from our industry even if it means defending baseless lawsuits like this or initiating my own legal actions against those who pose obstacles to our efforts, should I have to. Our industry requires, in my view, owners to be beyond reproach and held accountable for the training decisions they make.”
More so than any other track owner or manager in either Harness or Thoroughbred racing, Gural has been vigilant in his efforts to keep alleged dopers out of his tracks. Several of the Harness horsemen who were indicted in March, 2020 for their alleged involvement in a widespread scheme to dope racehorses had already been banned at the Gural tracks. Allard had been banned at the Meadowlands since 2013.
He has 4,570 career wins and his horses have earned over $53 million.
Allard, 36, was charged with misbranding and drug alteration, which carries a maximum sentence of five years. He continues to fight the charges.
During its investigation of Allard, the FBI intercepted a disturbing phone conversation between Ross Cohen and Louis Grasso, two others under indictment, discussing the deaths of horses trained by Allard who died after being given illegal drugs. Cohen referred to Allard's operation as the “Allard death camp.”
According to a deposition given by FBI agent Bruce Turpin, a raid of Allard's barn produced multiple empty syringes, the drug Glycopyrrolate, epinephrine and vials labeled “Thymosine Beta” and “for researching purposes only.”
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