Meadowlands | Horse Racing Free Tips

Harness Owner Howard Taylor Sues Jeff Gural for Defamation

On Nov. 3, Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural announced that the track was banning 33 trainers and owners, including Howard Taylor, after claiming that evidence and exhibits track officials were able to retain from the doping trials that had taken place over the previous months revealed a list of individuals who had purchased banned substances. An email sent to TDN listed Taylor as being among those who had allegedly purchased EPO.

On Tuesday, Taylor fired back. According to an email from Tilden Katz of Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies, Taylor has sued Gural alleging defamation and related crimes for his accusations that Taylor was purchasing EPO, which, Gural implied, he was supplying to his trainers.

Katz said that the statements Gural had made were untrue. “No facts, in either the Meadowlands press release or the article, supported the claim that Taylor ever gave Epogen to any of his trainers or that Taylor ever instructed any trainer to use Epogen on his horses,” Katz said.

The lawsuit, Howard Taylor v. Jeffrey Gural, was filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Taylor is a lawyer based in Philadelphia who specializes in equine and horse racing related issues. He has one of the largest stables in the sport of harness racing, one that normally has about 170 horses.

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After Document Review, Meadowlands Bans 33 Owners/Trainers

Effective Dec. 1, the Meadowlands will ban 33 harness horsemen after evidence and exhibits track officials acquired from the U.S. Attorney's Office revealed the names of trainers and owners who had purchased banned substances from individuals who were charged with manufacturing and selling performance-enhancing drugs.

The delay in imposing the ban was put in place in order to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest because many of the trainers are pointing horses to races run at the Meadowlands during November in which they could meet horses owned by Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural. The delay will also give owners time to transfer their horses to new barns.

The Meadowlands requested access to evidence presented during the trials of Dr. Seth Fishman and one of his assistants, Lisa Giannelli. Fishman was sentenced to 11 years in prison and Giannelli was given a sentence of 42 months. They were among more than 30 people charged with crimes related to the use of performance-enhancing drugs on horses after a widespread investigation by the FBI and others.

Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural said that he has so far received information only from the Giannelli trial and predicted that when information from the Fishman trial is released far more names could be involved.

According to a press release issued Friday by the Meadowlands, the evidence obtained by the track revealed the identity of persons who had purchased prohibited substances Epogen and Thymosyn.

Those who will be excluded for the alleged use of EPO are Dylan Davis, Nick Devita, Gareth Dowse, Jeff Gillis, Brian Malone, John Mungillo, Eric Prevost, Richard Silverman, Leroy Slabaugh and Howard Taylor.

Those who will be excluded for the alleged use of Thymosyn are Ryan Bellamy, Anthony Buttitta, Franck Chick, Jamen Davidovich, Eddie Dennis, Brady Galliers, Rick Howles, Anthony Lake, Betty Jean Davis Lare, Kevin Lare, John Leggio, Gregg McNair, Cynthia Milano, Anthony Napolitano, Howard Savage, Arthur Stafford and Trevor Stafford.

Additionally and according to the Meadowlands press release, the Federal government conducted its own collection of blood and urine samples from racehorses, both post-race and from out of competition testing, during its investigation. Six individuals allegedly had horses test poistive for banned substances and also will be excluded from the Meadowlands. The following is a list of those individuals and the drugs their horses allegeldy tested positive for: Al Annunziata (Propantheline); Jenn Bongiorno (Ethamsylate); Bob Bongiorno (Ethamsylate); Scott DiDomenico (Ethamsylate); Jeff Gillis (Ethamsylate); Nick Sodano Sr. (Cobalt).

The 33 could face even more penalties as the information uncovered by the Meadowlands will be turned over to the various state racing commissions covering the tracks where the individuals compete.

Asked why there were no thoroughbred horsemen among the names uncovered by the Meadowlands, Gural speculated that Giannelli's clients were primarily Standardbred horsemen and that once names linked to Fishman are released they could involve thoroughbred trainers and owners.

Fishman, a Florida veterinarian, was sentenced for what United States Attorney Damian Williams said was due to “his role at the helm of an approximately twenty-year scheme to manufacture, market, and sell to racehorse trainers and others in the racehorse industry 'untestable' performance enhancing drugs for use in professional horseracing.”

While the evidence against Fishman was enough for him to be sentenced to 11 years in prison, the government's case didn't shed much light on who was buying what from Fishman and his company. The one exception was Jorge Navarro, who was directly linked to Fishman. In a Department of Justice press release it was revealed that “Fishman aided Navarro in doping XY Jet, a thoroughbred horse that won the 2019 Golden Shaheen race in Dubai before dying of sudden heart attack in January 2020. As established at trial, Fishman sold tens of thousands of dollars' worth of PEDs to Navarro over the course of several years, and Navarro specifically credited Fishman for XY Jet's performance at the Golden Shaheen.”

“The whole thing is terrible,” Gural said. “It's unfortunate. They lucked out that I kept the Meadowlands open, but their luck ran out because I am honest. We spent $2.5 million of our own money on this investigation. It's sad because there are people who had no choice but to cheat. They felt they had to feed their family and they couldn't win a race. What's really sad is Howard Taylor. He's not a trainer, he's an owner. He had to be giving EPO to his trainers to use and not a single trainer picked up the phone and said I have an owner who wants me to use EPO on his horses. He has 150 horses and he uses a lot of trainers. You would have thought at least one trainer would have picked up the phone and told us what's going on.”

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New Venture to Bring Team Concept to Horse Racing, Launch Labor Day Weekend

Some two years ago, Randall Lane, the chief content officer for Forbes, and Bob Daugherty, an investor and educator, met for dinner and the conversation turned to horse racing. Both are fans of racing and they started to talk about why the sport isn't nearly as popular as the four major sports. The answer, they concluded, is that in baseball, basketball, football and hockey, the sports center around teams, leagues and standings. People fall in love with their teams, they root for them, they pay to see them play, they live and die with every victory and defeat.

That doesn't exist in horse racing, a sport where your rooting interest changes from race to race with each bet you make.

So what if racing could adopt the team concept? Will that help grow the sport?

Lane and Daugherty believe that it will, and that's why they have created the National Thoroughbred League (NTL). Ready to launch on Sept. 2, the league will consist of six teams representing six cities. League races will take place on five weekends, points will be accrued in the races and the team that has the most points when the season ends on Dec. 31 at Tampa Bay Downs will win $1 million.

“The idea is to take what works in pretty much every other sport,” Lane said. “Why not take that and bring it to this great sport, horse racing? It is America's original spectator sport. We're going to create team affinities. There are Yankees fans, Cowboys fans. You love your team and you love the players, the new ones and the returning players. People love those teams because they represent their cities. We want to do the same for horse racing.”

Rick Ross and Nelly will be team owners | Getty Images

The NTL has already attracted an impressive list of investors. Team owners will include rappers Nelly and Rick Ross, NFL star Kayvan Thibodeux, the NBA's Danny Green and retired basketball player Baron Davis. Steve Asmussen, Chad Brown, Mike Smith and Chantal Sutherland have also signed on to be part of the project. Tom Ludt, the former chairman of the Breeders' Cup, has been hired as the league's President of Horse Operations.

The six teams will represent New York, Los Angeles, New Jersey, Seattle, Nashville and Philadelphia. Each team will have a name, a logo and specific silks that will be their uniform. The teams will each consist of six horses. All horses will be owned by the league. They will be assigned to their teams based on a draft, not unlike the ones that take place in other sports.

It will be up to Ludt to find the horses. He said that he will soon start the process of buying 36 horses and will be talking to bloodstock agents to see what is available. Each team will consist of six horses. He said he will use various avenues to find the horses and will aim to make sure they are relatively evenly matched so that the races are competitive.

“I'm going to try to buy 36 horses that would be in that high allowance, small stakes level,” he said. “We're using tools and parameters, like Ragozin and Beyer numbers, to make sure the horses are evenly matched. We want to create competitive fields. We'll try our best to make sure the horses are at the same level.”

The NTL horses will not be allowed to run in non-NTL races.

If more horses are needed due to attrition, they can be acquired through a supplemental draft. The horses will remain members of their team as long as they stay sound and are able to be competitive in the NTL races. Ludt said that for the first year, most of the races will be sprints.

The series will start on Sept. 2 at Kentucky Downs, which will represent the Nashville market. It will then travel to Emerald Downs (Seattle), the Meadowlands (New York and New Jersey) and Los Angeles (Los Alamitos) with the final races held at Tampa Bay Downs. There will be three NTL races held at each venue and they will be spread out over two days. Each race will consist of six horses, one from each team. Points will be awarded to the teams based on where their horses finish.

Randall believes that one of the most appealing aspects of the league concept is that no horse will be retired prematurely to cash in on their value as a sire or broodmare prospect.

“We want to create stars,” he said. “In every other sport, when you become a star, you don't retire. You go on to have an even-higher profile. In racing, when horses become famous, they are generally retired because it is in owner's economic interest to do that. Because our horses are going to be owned by the league, you won't be able to do that. If we are ever fortunate enough to have a Flightline or an American Pharoah, those horses will race year after year and that will go a long way toward creating a fan base.”

Ludt said the plan is to expand and he expects more teams to come on board for 2024. He envisions having two divisions, eastern and western conferences.

The NTL is also looking to expand and simplify the wagering menu, where bettors can wager on their team, whether that means in a head-to-head competition with another team, or winning the overall championship.

The NTL team also hopes to bring the type of atmosphere found at racing's biggest events, like the Breeders' Cup and the Kentucky Derby, to their racing weekends. They see each racing day as part of a larger festival that will feature food, fashion, parties and concerts. The New York/New Jersey races will include a trackside celebrity chef competition and will partner with the New York City Wine and Food Festival.

“We want to have the same type of atmosphere they have with Formula 1,” Lane said. “The Preakness, the Kentucky Derby, those are incredible weekends. In the case of the Derby, more than 150,000 people enjoyed it. That's because it's not just a race, it is weekend-long celebration. Once a month, somewhere in America, we want to have an incredible lifestyle weekend centered around the great sport of thoroughbred racing.”

It will be a large undertaking and might need time to get established and grow, but Ludt said he believed the NTL will achieve the goals first set forth when Lane and Daugherty met for dinner.

“We're going to create competitive racing fields, wrapped around a great weekend of entertainment in the city and at the facility,” he said. “This is a concept that is really exciting for an industry that needs that bolt of energy.”

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TIEA Newcomer Finalist Madeline Rowland Rides First Winner At Belmont’s Aqueduct Meet

Madeline Rowland's journey to becoming a jockey reached the next level last Sunday when she scored her first win on the NYRA circuit over the Aqueduct main track.

Still just a teenager and already over the million-dollar mark in earnings, Rowland knew early on that her future was in horses.

“I always grew up around horses,” she said. “My dad trained steeplechase horses before he passed and my mom galloped for a little bit and helped my dad train. When I was 12 or 13, I started pony racing and then I started working for Lizzie Merryman when I was 15 or 16. And ever since then, [I knew] I was going to be jockey.”

Now based around the Mid-Atlantic after a hugely successful winter at Tampa Bay Downs, Rowland enjoys the hustle of riding multiple tracks in the same week.

“After doing pretty good in Tampa [Bay Downs], and coming to ride in the Mid-Atlantic, I definitely had goals and things I had to work for,” said Rowland. “It's awesome though because there's so many tracks around here that you can ride from one hour to six hours away. It's tough here,” she admits. “It was a little hard to get going but I am happy with how it's going now. I've been riding with really great people that have helped me a lot and I've gotten really good opportunities.”

Through the learning process of being an apprentice jockey, Rowland cops to being her own biggest critic. When asked what the hardest part of the journey had been thus far, she said, “Being honest, beating myself up. I really want to do a good job. I do see improvement in my riding but I think because I care so much about the horses, I make it that much harder on myself.”

As fort he most enjoyable part, Rowland said, “Working with the horses and getting paid to do something I would probably do for free! I absolutely love the horses. Winning a race is always the best feeling, especially meaningful wins like the other day [for trainer Michael Dini]. Mike has helped me out so much, [it] was absolutely amazing to win a race in New York.”

Now a finalist in the Newcomer division for the Oct. 14 Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards, Rowland looks to have a big month ahead.

“It's so awesome. Horses have always been such a huge part of my life,” she said. “I don't know where I'd be without them. They have taught me so much about work ethic, discipline, and really how to care of these animals and put them before ourselves. That's what you have to do in this business. And it means so much to be nominated for an award like this to show horsemanship. It's not just about winning races–it's about caring for these amazing animals who are trying so hard for us.”

With a weekend of rides coming up at the Meadowlands, seven entries over both days, Rowland shares the hopes of many of us along the Mid-Atlantic after a week of less-than-ideal weather.

“I just hope we run [on the turf],” she laughed. “We've had so much rain this week. We'll see how it goes. The horses are all in good spots so I'm hopeful [for my chances].”

And once the action slows down up north, Rowland looks forward to returning to her south Florida roots.

“That track [Tampa Bay Downs] will always be my favorite just because I've done so well there. I love their turf and the people there. There's very kind people that want to help you, and the racing is really good and competitive. I'll drive back to down to Tampa [Bay Downs] in the beginning of November for the meet there that starts at the end of the month.”

Click here to view Rowland's TIEA video.

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