The actions taken yesterday by Jeffrey Gural in barring harness racing champion mare Lady Shadow from The Golden Girls is both unprecedented and shows how vindictive an individual he is.
Lady Shadow had a clenbuterol average of 2.9 Pica grams, or parts per billion.
This is a trace amount of a therapeutic medication routinely used by Horseman. It certainly had no performance-enhancing effect on the horse, specially at that level.
Gural clearly has a personal agenda against Lady Shadow who he has repeatedly attempted to bar from the Meadowlands.
Obviously he has an agenda against me as well for the mere fact that I exercised my constitutional right to sue him an attempt to force him to honor his contractual obligations.
Obviously the owners of Lady Shadow are extremely disappointed and will do whatever they can within their legal rights to have the mare race on Saturday.
It should be pointed out that the matter remains under appeal and we are contesting the positive and any penalty in Pennsylvania.
There simply is no rule in the state of New Jersey or even under Gural rules which would allow for him two bar a horse based upon a pending positive under appeal and Stay.
Gural repeatedly makes rules up as he goes along and then changes and breaks them as he sees fit.
There are many horses currently racing at The Meadowlands who also had positives pending but they were allowed to race without complaint.
Mr. Gural is a first class bully and unfairly creates rules to allow him to do what he wants when he wants.
It's his ball and he feels that he can take it and leave when somebody doesn't kiss his ring.
It must stop at some point for the good of the sport.
Howard Taylor