Jeff Gural and The Big Dealsboanj.com/pictures/jg.pdfThe famed Flatiron Building is as important to Jeff Gural and his family as it is to New York City. Built in 1902, the Flatiron

Jeff Gural and

The Big DealJeff Gural and









The Big Deal

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4 T H E C A N A D I A N S P O R T S M A N MARCH 17, 2011

in focus by Elizabeth Bick

History Entwined

The famed Flatiron Building is

as important to Jeff Gural and

his family as it is to New York

City. Built in 1902, the Flatiron

Building is not only one of the

city’s first skyscrapers, it has

become an architectural treas-

ure. The landmark structure

located at the intersection of

Broadway and 5th Avenue has

long been in the Gural family,

so to speak. Jeff’s great

uncles Aaron, Maurice and

Leon Rabinowitz operated the

Spear company, which later

merged with Harry Helmsley to

form Helmsley-Spear, which

owned the Flatiron Building

starting in 1946. Jeff’s father,

Aaron Gural, worked for his

uncles at the Spear company

before joining Newmark and

Company in 1953. Under the

leadership of Jeff Gural,

Newmark Knight Frank

purchased the Flatiron building

in 1997, selling a majority inter-

est in it to the Italian company

Sorgente Group in 2009. The

building is a National Historic

Landmark (bestowed in 1989),

on the National Register of

Historic Places (1979) and is

recognized as a New York City

landmark (1966).

The corner office with the ostentatious Manhattan address says lessabout Jeff Gural than the trinkets lining the walls and filling virtu-ally every inch of the wide windowsills. Here in this pragmatic space

overlooking the heady juncture of Park Avenue and 42nd Street, the per-sonal effects are a testament to Gural’s deepest passions: children, horses,charity, skyscrapers and politics, mostly, with a little bit of Mets and Jetsthrown in for good measure.

Gural takes periodic swigs from a bottle of water as Jules Felix-Coutan’s huge clock sculpture looms at eye level to his right across 42ndSt. on the facade of the Grand Central Terminal. The 50-foot sculpture fea-tures the Roman Gods of strength, speed and wisdom. Gural could use allthree in his quest to acquire the Meadowlands Racetrack from the state ofNew Jersey.

The 68-year-old bearded mogul calls the venture the biggest challengeof his life. That’s saying plenty given the headaches Gural’s had owningVernon Downs, leading the successful charge to bring slot machines to race-tracks in New York and being at the forefront of the growth of NewmarkKnight Frank into one of New York’s elite real estate powers.

It is the morning after the Super Bowl and Gural is already quarterbackinga two-minute drill with the better part of two months to go until March 31when his rights to negotiate a deal to lease the Meadowlands from the stateof New Jersey are set to expire.

“It’s really the first time I’ve ever tackled something where I didn’t knowwhat the end result was going to be,” Gural said. “In the past, I pretty muchknew I would get to the finish line, because I’d find a way to borrow themoney or I’d sign personally. But this, I’m not signing personally. I don’t have$75 million (later upped to $100 million) of my own money to put into this.I would have to sell buildings and my wife is not letting me do that. It’s areal challenge.”

Gural is the chairman of Newmark Knight Frank, reportedly thelargest property manager and/or leasing agent in New York City with nearly50 million square feet in its portfolio. In New York, the company manages

Accidental SaviourAs the deadline looms for JEFF GURAL to complete

a deal to acquire the Meadowlands Racetrack from the state

of New Jersey, a day in the life of the Manhattan real estate mogul

reveals who he is and why the hell he’s bothering.

by Dave Briggs

The


On the roof of the famed

Flatiron Building.

When Jeff Gural was asked to be the vice-president of the StarlightFoundation of New York, he was told the president was fullyentrenched as the head of the charity that aids seriously ill chil-

dren. Fine by Jeff. He was happy to help, but he had plenty on his platealready. A few months later, the president resigned. “I think that’s over 20years ago,” Eric Gural said. Jeff has been president ever since.

“Starlight has really become a passion for him... That organization hasgrown substantially and their mission has developed even further. The scopeof what they do is much better. It’s really been incredibly successful. I remem-ber when there used to be maybe 20 tables or 40 tables (at fundraisers). Now,you’re talking about 1,000 people in the room. It’s really an amazing event.”

Many of the photos in Jeff’s office are of him with children from theStarlight Foundation. “It’s not just financial. He personally gets involvedin a lot of charity work that he does. That really says a lot about him,” Ericsaid.

Through the I Have A Dream Foundation, Jeff has sponsored not one,but two groups of underprivileged children — mentoring, tutoring, coun-seling and supporting them from elementary school through college. Beyondcontributing nearly half of the $3.2 million needed to help steer the cur-rent crop of some 80 Grade 7 and 8 students to a college education, Jeff getspersonally involved with the kids’ lives.

He’s involved with about 20 other philanthropic efforts, including The

Broadway Association — Jeff’s a theatre lover — and The New School, a lib-eral arts university in New York. On the day he’s being shadowed by areporter, Jeff attends a board of governor’s meeting at the university locatedin Greenwich Village. The mandate of the school is to bring “positive changeto the world,” which is in line with Jeff’s thinking.

Walking out of the school, stepping over snow banks on the way to hiscar as dusk envelops the city, Jeff speaks passionately of the responsibilityand moral obligation people with wealth have to help others.

Eric said his father has established an incredible climate of giving atNewmark Knight Frank.

“He gets right into it,” Eric said. “He shows up and gives back. I thinkthat’s something that’s very important. He’s instilled that in a lot of the peo-ple here. We continue to rent space to charities and participate in some oftheir fundraising. That’s very important to him.”

Philanthropy is a running theme in Jeff’s life that also speaks to his otherpassions.

“A lot of it has to do with kids and education and helping kids. I thinkthat’s a very important thing to him,” Eric said. “He certainly doesn’t do itto be well known. That’s not his goal. You’ll never see him hiring a PR agencyto do any kind of promotions on him personally, obviously, outside of pro-moting harness racing. He certainly does that, but he doesn’t really doanything to promote himself.”

some 150 buildings, owning about 40 of them. Worldwide, Newmark KnightFrank employs over 7,000.

A world-class multi-tasker, Gural deftly juggles business, philanthropy,politics and — more than anything else in his inbox these days — harnessracing. His schedule would make many younger men cry “no mas.”

But he couldn’t do it without Theresa Marino and Marianne Marcucci,his two personal assistants a short bellow away from his open office dooror in constant communication via cell phone when he’s on the move.

Beyond virtually scheduling Gural’s every move, Marino and Marcucciprint out the emails and steadily place them on Gural’s desk throughout theday. Despite the deluge, he’s a stickler for trying to return every phone calland answer every email by either jotting down a quick response on eachprintout, or dictating longer ones to be fired back. In the midst of a mod-erately-hectic day of meetings, appointments, phone calls and fires to putout — Marino insists it’s “a slow day” — Gural has the presence of mindto dictate a frank message to the industry. The point of the memo is toencourage horsepeople to make their Feb. 15 stakes payments despite alsomentioning the sobering fact the Meadowlands handle was off 20 per centat that point (it’s been much better, of late).

The docket on this day includes: meeting with a group wishing to be hiredto help Gural lobby the New York State legislature, a meeting with repre-sentatives of a tote company Gural is hoping will invest in the Meadowlands,a brief meeting with a real estate partner, playing peacemaker in an intra-office squabble over which employee gets which office and a number ofphone calls, including one with a U.S. Senator from Florida.

For lunch, Gural dashes off to a restaurant in a swanky New York hotelto meet with Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, the Minority Leaderof the House. Until the Republicans regained control of the House in theNovember 2010 elections, Pelosi was the Speaker of the House, second inline to the presidency and the highest ranking female politician in U.S. his-tory. After lunch, Pelosi, a Baltimore native, even spends a momentspinning warm memories of her father’s fondness for going to Rosecroft andOcean Downs in his later years despite deploring gambling as a younger man.

Her father, Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., was a U.S. Congressman and then mayorof Baltimore from 1947 to 1959.

Gural, a Democrat, is something of a political junkie. In his office arepictures of him with Pelosi, him with President Barrack Obama, him withformer President Bill Clinton. A photo of New York Governor AndrewCuomo is one of a few indications Gural is a friend, making the idea of hir-ing lobbyists to work the government halls in Albany seem unnecessary.

“This is my favourite picture in the whole office,” Gural said with a glintin his eye, beckoning his visitor to look closely at a small frame on the wallnear his desk. It’s a shot of Gural seated behind the desk in the Oval Office.Such photos are a big no-no, Gural said.

“Which administration?” he’s asked.“Clinton.”Until very recently, Gural was much less connected in New Jersey.When he contacted Governor Chris Christie’s office in hopes of help-

ing the Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association of New Jersey(SBOANJ) secure the rights to the Meadowlands, Gural was told he couldindeed talk about a possible deal, so long as he could get to Trenton, NJimmediately with a cheque for $3 million to cover potential losses at thetrack until March 31. Otherwise, he was told, the closure of the track wouldbe announced that night. A short time later, an embarrassed staffer who obvi-ously checked into Gural’s background, called back to apologize and tellGural that Governor Christie would be delighted to meet with him the nextmorning. No cheque was necessary. The next day, not long after they met,Gural and Christie held a joint press conference to announce Gural’s inten-tion to work with the SBOANJ to secure the rights to the track.

Just like that, Jeff Gural became what he calls “an accidental saviour.”His son, Eric Gural, the executive managing director at Newmark Knight

Frank, said his father’s interest in politics has a practical and noble goal.“He wants to help the world... He wants to be bigger than his one vote,”

Eric said. “He has a lot of contact with people who aren’t as fortunate ashim. He understands their lives are harder than his. He tries his best to helpthem. I think that’s how he sees it.”


25MARCH 17, 2011 T H E C A N A D I A N S P O R T S M A N

Jeff Gural may hobnob with the political and business elite, but that’smore a function of the job. The man carries few pretensions. People inharness racing know this best, where Jeff can be lovably scruffy.“He may have tremendous stature and political clout in Manhattan, but

when he takes the suit and tie off, he’s just a regular guy,” said Bob Marks,marketing director for Perretti Farms in New Jersey and a man who hasknown Jeff for about 25 years. “Just the other day I saw Jeff Gural walkingaround Sunshine Meadows (training centre in Florida) in a pair of shortsjust the way he always is. He’s very unassuming.”

Dave Stolz was in Grade 7 when he moved from the Bronx to Long Islandand met Jeff Gural. That was nearly 60 years ago and the two are still closefriends. Stolz said Jeff hasn’t changed at all in that time. It’s a statement con-firmed by another close friend, Art Geiger, and just about anyone who hasknown Jeff for even a modest amount of time.

“Jeff Gural has always been the same person no matter who talks to him.He’s never changed,” said Anthony Perretti, manager of his father’s PerrettiFarms and a man who has seen Jeff in action a lot lately in conjunction withthe SBOANJ. “When he walks in the governor’s office, it’s the same direct-ness as if he’s talking to the horsemen or talking as a breeder or sitting downin the OTW... Everybody can always rely on the fact that he’ll tell you howhe feels, he’ll tell you directly and he’ll absorb the information and try toget a collaborative effort with everybody in the industry.”

Jeff surrounds himself with people with an abundance of character.Conversely, he abhors cheaters, bullcrap artists, the selfish or greedy. It does-n’t take much to get him ranting about those exhibiting some or all of thosequalities in the harness racing game.

Yet, “he’s very fair and his word is his bond,” said son Eric. “The won-derful thing is those are things people can count on... He’s accountable. Whenhe tells you he’s going to do something, he does it.”

It is one of many lessons Jeff learned from his father, Aaron, who joinedNewmark and Company in 1953 and worked his way to the top (the com-pany merged with London, UK-based Knight Frank in 2006). Aaron Guraldied in March of 2009. He was 92.

On the beam that intersects the windows fittingly overlooking the primereal estate of Park Avenue and 42nd Street in Jeff’s office, Aaron’s lengthy

obituary in the New York Times hangs in a simple black frame facing northdown Park Avenue.

Jason Settlemoir can attest to Jeff being true to his word. When he washired five years ago at the age of 28 to run Jeff’s two New York racetracks— Vernon Downs and Tioga Downs — he asked if Jeff would sign a con-tract. Jeff, who seldom signs for anything personally — it’s another lessonhe learned from his father — declined.

“He said, ‘I’m not going to sign a contract, but I’ll promise you some-thing, If you come to work for me and things work out, you’ll never haveto worry about anything. I came to work for Jeff in January of 2006 and fromthat point forward, Jeff has been true to his word in shaking my hand andsaying this to me,” Settlemoir said. “He’s taken great care of my family andI. Jeff is one of those people that you can trust and there’s not too many peo-ple that you find like that.”

Jeff is also tremendously loyal, said a long string of friends and associates.“I tell you what kind of a guy he is: He’s had one trainer (Bob Bencal)

for 35 years,” said Hall of Famer Bill O’Donnell. “That’s pretty rare in thisday and age.”

Jeff used to own horses with famed New York restaurateur Arthur Cutler.In 1997, Cutler died in his sleep of a heart attack at age 53. About three weekslater, a two-year-old trotting filly Cutler owned with Jeff and Geiger namedCyclone Annie pulled off a 9-1 upset in a $100,000 New Jersey Sires Stakesfinal at the Meadowlands. It was the only race Cyclone Annie ever won. Manyof Cutler’s family and friends were at the race that night. “That was sucha weird moment because everybody was standing there crying. Everybodywas upset, but happy. It was just a very powerful moment,” Geiger said.“From that moment on, Arty (Cutler’s) wife, Alice, and Jeff decided to makea race for Arty at the Meadowlands, which is the Arthur Cutler. It was a very,very poignant moment in all of our lives.”

Jeff even helped fund the race. Fourteen years later, it’s an annual can’t-miss event for Jeff, Geiger, the Cutler family and many friends.

“Jeff has been a wonderful friend,” Geiger said. “He’d do anything in theworld for you and he’s just a straight up guy that cares about his friends andthe things he’s after.”

MICHAEL LISA PHOTO


Jeff Gural hasn’t changed his personality or his tune. He still insists, ashe has for many moons, that harness racing is going to die unless there’sa radical change to how business is done, which is extremely unlikely.

How could one conclude otherwise given the sharp decline in handle, atten-dance and the dearth of young people at the track?

“Maybe our customers are really dying off fast. It’s entirely possible whenyou read these statistics that a thousand World War II veterans die everyday,” Jeff said.

Perhaps harness racing has 20 years left as things stand, he reasons. Buttake the Meadowlands out of the equation and Jeff believes the industry diesmuch, much faster. What’s to stop other governors and premiers from fol-lowing Governor Chris Christie’s lead or the example of Quebec premierJean Charest? Saving the Meadowlands is the one issue that has galvanizedthe industry and reached nearly-unanimous consensus.

“Everybody agrees we’ve got to try to save it. There’s no question aboutthat. It’s probably the only thing the industry does agree on,” Jeff said,explaining the Meadowlands is basically the only track left with large enoughpools to attract big bettors.

Can he pull it off? He honestly doesn’t know, especially with no guar-antee of expanded gaming at the site, or a cut of the revenue if the state everdid decide to build a casino there. His assumptions are all being made onthe track having to stand on its own, though his hunch is slots will cometo the Meadowlands at some point, especially if table games end up in raci-nos in New York, which is likely.

Regardless, he’ll have to make good on his plan to tear down the exist-ing grandstand and build a smaller, modern facility on the opposite side ofthe mile track.

The cost, so far, is around $100 million. On March 9, he issued a mildly-optimistic press release saying there were interested investors, yet, “we wouldstill have to raise $40-$50 million in debt over and above the same amountof equity which I think may be doable. Any deal we make, however, is sub-ject to obtaining concessions from the unions, as well as concessions from thestate and I expect to have those discussions sometime (the week of March 14).”

Those who know Jeff best won’t bet against him in his quest to acquirethe track.

“If there’s one person in our industry that can get the job done at theMeadowlands it’s Jeffrey Gural,” Jason Settlemoir said.

“I know what he went through with the legislation in New York State,”Geiger said. He saved all the tracks in New York State. They wouldn’t bethere right now. The Batavias of the world and Buffalo, they were out of busi-ness. As long as they had (slots), they were able to survive. He’s got a shot(to get the Meadowlands), because I know what he went through puttingthat together. I think if anybody can do it, it’s Jeff.”

“I think he’s the right guy to steer this ship,” said Perretti’s Bob Marks,who, like Jeff, is a realist about harness racing’s long-term prospects. “I don’thave much confidence we’re going to be able to turn this tide. Basically, there’sno other track that can make any money except maybe the Meadowlandson a much more streamlined budget, a smaller grandstand. Maybe it couldactually be profitable. I don’t know. Unless the industry changes, I don’t seewhy new people are suddenly going to embrace this. The major problemsare still there. Basically, thank God that a guy like Jeff Gural seems to be will-ing to accept the challenge. I certainly have every confidence that he’sprobably as good a guy as you could possibly have and is well-versed in somany facets of the industry.”

Beyond being a track owner, Jeff is a horse owner, breeder and, most ofall, fan of the sport. When asked whether he wanted to take a crack at acquir-ing thoroughbred’s Monmouth Park, too, Jeff replied, “Nah, I’m a harness guy.”

“He’s one of the guys that can speak on the horsemen’s end and the breed-ers’ end and the owner’s end and bridge the gap, so to speak, andunderstand all aspects of it,” Anthony Perretti said. “The governor’s office,if they turn this guy down then they’re not legitimately interested in mak-ing this work.”

If Jeff does make it work, expect some big changes at the Big M (see LastCall, p. 56.) Though, he insists he has no interest in micromanaging oper-ations at the Meadowlands.

“The truth of the matter is, I really enjoy going to Tioga. The horsemenare great and the people are great. I have a beautiful house there,” said Jeff,admitting he was, at first, against his wife Paula’s ambitions for the houseon a hill, which came in at almost three times the original budget.

Though, despite appearances, owning two tracks with slot machines hasnot proven to be the financial windfall many assume.

“I’ve lost a fortune in Vernon and Tioga, mainly Vernon, but I’ve learnedfrom my mistakes... I’ve probably lost $25 million of real money,” Jeff said.

Most people break in their license by going on a date. Jeff Guralloaded seven friends into a 1955 Chrysler and went to RooseveltRacetrack. Dave Stolz was one of them. “The Chrysler was a big

car, but there wasn’t enough room for eight guys. At any rate, we went thereand we immediately lost all of our money,” Stolz said.

They had just enough money left to buy pretzels on the way out.Invariably, the group was losers much more than they were winners at thewindows. From that first night on, the parting pretzel became known as theeat-your-heart-out pretzel.

“They’d let you in for the last two races for free, if you didn’t want topay the $2. Someone would give you a program for free,” Jeff said. “So, wewere guys that were going to the track with $10. We saved the $2 to get in,the $2 to park and we saved the $2 for a program. So, to us, by going forjust two races, we were $6 ahead. I would bet a $4 combo. If I won, I beta $10 combo in the last race and we’d go home. We would have nothingbut fun. We would have a ball. We’d sit in the car, bulls_ _ _, eat our heartsout on a pretzel.”

Perretti Farms’ Bob Marks didn’t know Jeff Gural then, but he has nodoubt they unknowingly crossed paths in the days when harness racingplayed to massive crowds nightly in New York City. “Jeff comes from ourschool, if you want to use the term. The old Roosevelt and Yonkers school...He knows precisely what racing should be,” Marks said.

Geiger was from the old Roosevelt and Yonkers school, too, but he becamea friend of Stolz and Jeff’s later when he met Jeff in the late-1960s in a bun-galow colony in the Catskills when Monticello Raceway had become the

their track of choice.Sadly, their wives and children didn’t take to the races with the same

enthusiasm. “Our wives have had more than enough of harness racing, ashave our kids,” Geiger said.

Eric Gural doesn’t argue. “One of the best things that ever happened tome as a kid is when they put a playground in at Monticello, because thatmeant I didn’t have to watch all 10 races. I got a chance to go on the swings,”Eric said, despite insisting he has much more interest in harness racing thanhis brother Roger and sister Aileen.

Yet, to this day, Jeff, Stolz and Geiger still frequently meet up at TiogaDowns — “It’s like you’re at summer camp,” Stolz said — and make anannual trip to the Little Brown Jug. They stay with Stolz, who lives inColumbus, OH. As much as anything, the Jug trip is a commemoration oftheir endearingly-degenerate youths.

“When we went to Yonkers and Roosevelt as kids, it was mobbed. If youwanted to get a good seat in the dining room as we got older, you had tohave reservations a week in advance and a big tip for the maitre d’. Nowyou can walk into any of these places any time and no one’s there,” Geigersaid. “So, the Jug sort of preserves the crowd. Just the idea of going aroundand enjoying the atmosphere and eating food that our wives would kill usif they knew what we were eating.”

Though they had all moved on in life by the time Roosevelt closed in 1988and insist the death of one of harness racing’s greatest venues wasn’t the leastbit traumatic, Jeff Gural, Dave Stolz and Art Geiger are adamant about onething: “We certainly don’t want to see it happen again,” Geiger said.

27MARCH 17, 2011 T H E C A N A D I A N S P O R T S M A N

Given all that, why on earth would Jeff Gural want to add theMeadowlands to his long list of holdings and projects?

He’s not a young man and it’s not like he needs a hobby.Sure, the closure of the Meadowlands would have a negative impact on

Tioga and Vernon — along with every harness track in North America. Butit goes much, much deeper than self-interest.

The project absorbs at least 50 per cent of his time in a schedule that wasalready busier than most. That’s unlikely to change even if his bid is suc-cessful and he turns the daily operations over to others.

“I can tell you that we made a little wager when he got into Tioga andVernon. I bet him that within a year he was going to be spending almostevery weekend at one of them and operating it. He told me I was crazy. Let’sjust say I won the bet,” Eric Gural said, laughing.

Jeff said his involvement in the Meadowlands truly is accidental.“It was a total fluke. It wasn’t like I was saying to myself, ‘Gee, I should

get involved in the Meadowlands. It looks like a great opportunity.’ It wasthe furthest thing from my mind. I just assumed like most people that it wasjust going to open,” Jeff said. “Truthfully, I think it’s a challenge to see if Icould come up with a model that gets people to come to a racetrack, becausethe assumption is, you can’t. I’ve succeeded at Tioga, but I haven’t succeededin getting them to bet.”

Making money is not the prime motivator, especially in a depressedmarket.

“I don’t think Jeff is doing it for monetary reasons,” Anthony Perretti said.“He’s really doing it for the business.”

“He truly does love this business,” Settlemoir confirmed. “It’s not about

money to him. It’s about the passion he has for the horse racing industry.He doesn’t have to be doing any of this to help the industry.”

“He wants to save the things he loves and harness racing is one of them,”Geiger said.

In many ways, perhaps this is what Jeff Gural was born to do, said son Eric.“This is what he has always wanted to do. He’s watched harness racing’s

popularity dwindle. His interest in it and his love for it has never changed.It’s probably gotten stronger,” Eric said. “I think he’s always wanted to seeit come back to the forefront and be a sustainable and popular sport.”

As much as anything, the Meadowlands venture goes straight to Jeff’saltruistic heart, encompassing a lifetime of his deepest passions.

“His personality definitely changes around horses and around the trackand around kids,” Eric said.

“Those who are influential have a moral obligation to try to save the sportand not let it just go down the drain. There are young people who devotedfive or 10 years of their lives to this, they’re 30 years old and they have nofuture,” Jeff said. “I feel an obligation to try to do the right thing for theseyoung people. Tim Tetrick and Yannick (Gingras), they’re screwed, and theysort of know it.”

What’s the biggest message he’d like to send to the industry? “That I’mreally working hard at this, because I’m really working hard at it,” Jeff said.“You saw who I met with... You saw all the emails dealing with this.”

Beyond garnering as much industry support as can be mustered, he hasonly one request: “If it fails, I don’t want to be criticized, ‘Ah, Gural, big whiteknight. He was full of s_ _ _.’

“It’s very difficult.”No matter where your office is and how many presidents you know.

CLAUS ANDERSEN

In the power of positive thinkingdepartment, it’s a useful exercise toimagine what a new MeadowlandsRacetrack would look like with JeffGural in control.

With two weeks left on the clockfor Gural to orchestrate a deal tolease the track from the state of NewJersey, it’s a long way from a lock. ButI shudder to think of the alternative,which is, most likely, the death of themost important harness racing trackin North America and the resultingdominos that would fall.

Changes at the Big M underGural would go far beyond a new,smaller, high-tech grandstandlocated on the opposite of where thecurrent behemoth stands today.

Perretti Farms’ marketing direc-tor Bob Marks believes Gural wouldtake a page from the successful play-book Gural and Jason Settlemoirhave employed at Tioga Downs inNichols, NY.

“I think Jeff Gural represents theinterests of the fan. He knows whatit should be and I think he representsthe interests of the industry. I’m notso sure he represents the interest ofthe status quo,” Marks said. “I thinkthat’s wonderful.”

Higher integrity would be at theforefront. As a state-owned facility,the Meadowlands cannot evoke pri-vate property rights to ban undesiredparticipants. Gural said he is tryingto negotiate the right of refusal intoany Meadowlands lease deal with thestate of New Jersey and GovernorChris Christie.

“The good thing about Christie,I think, is he’s a law and order guy.”Gural said. “If I come to him and say,‘You’ve got to help me. You’ve gotguys here that are clearly usingdrugs.’ The only way we’re going tocatch them is through surveillance— 24-hour surveillance. You putcameras in. You just set it up so thatanybody that walks into that barnhas to have their picture taken andthey’re not allowed in a stall thatdoesn’t have a camera on it.”

Sharply critical of some of har-

ness racing’s perceived cheaters, Jeffshakes his head in disbelief as he listsa string of some of the sport’s morecelebrated names, many of whom hebelieves should be exposed andostracized, not feted.

“You would see integrity builtback into the racetrack,” Settlemoirsaid with conviction, adding you’dalso see almost an obsessive level ofcustomer service.

As for marketing the Meadowlands,Gural believes one can’t do any worse.

“One of the good things is it’s nothard to improve much on the mar-keting of a racetrack. When I first gotinto Tioga, I really got involvedbecause I said, ‘I can’t believe youcan’t get people to come to a race-track, if you race 57 days.’ Make itfun,” Jeff said.

Also, appeal to younger people.“There are ideas out there like thisBetfair and I’ve talked to the peopleat Cantor Gaming. They have someideas. There are people that believethat you can get young people intoit if you did it their way,” Gural said.

On the track, Gural promisesyou’d see the end of the countryclub, the return of the long-goneMeadowlands shuffle where driversare more aggressive and punish oth-ers’ mistakes. You’d also see anemphasis on keeping the sport’sstar horses racing longer. It’s an ini-tiative Gural has pushed strongly inrecent years, mostly in vain.

Gural has pulled his hair outwatching a string of the sport’sbiggest stars and drawing cards —S o m e b e a c h s o m e w h e r e ,Deweycheatumnhowe, DonatoHanover, Muscle Hill — head forstud careers at the end of theirthree-year-old campaigns.

“I begged the people who ownMuscle Hill to race this horse. I lit-erally begged them. I owned a share.You get an answer of, ‘You’re 100 percent right. It would be good for thesport to race Muscle Hill. I’m notgoing to do it, but you’re 100 percent right, Jeff. We should do it.’ I’mnot that kind of person. I just wish

that I had a good horse. I wouldn’teven think twice. It’s just the stu-pidest thing. These people take themoney and buy 10 yearlings that areall pieces of s_ _ _,” Gural said.

In 2009, Gural proposed eligi-bility for major stakes be limited tostallions five or older at the time ofa horse’s conception, thus making ita disincentive for stars to rush off tothe breeding shed at the end oftheir three-year-old year.

“The truth of the matter is, it wasWEG (the Woodbine EntertainmentGroup) that really dropped the ball,because I had the Meadowlands onboard. Had I gotten WEG, that wasit. WEG’s board wouldn’t do it,”Gural said. “Somebeachsomewhere,every time this horse appeared at aWEG track, attendance was triple. Isaid to them, ‘I need you to do this.We’ll force Somebeach to race nextyear.’ They said, ‘No.’”

Though he’s also a horse ownerand breeder, Gural said track oper-ators need to focus on what’s best fortheir business, not other segments ofthe industry.

“Why would a racetrack ownerhave any interest in worrying aboutthe breeders? That’s not their busi-ness. The breeder isn’t worried aboutme,” Gural said.

At Tioga Downs, Gural did whathe could to keep the stars racinglonger by establishing the BettorsDelight stakes event for older pacers.

Above all, after a lifetime in NewYork’s competitive real estate busi-ness, Gural has proven to be at hisbest managing a facility.

“One thing about us, is we’reoperators,” said Gural’s son, Eric,who works with his father atNewmark Frank Knight. “A lot oftimes people look at real estate peo-ple and call them investors. That’snot what we are. Certainly, we investin our own ability to operate, but atthe end of the day, we’re good atwhat happens in the game.”

For everyone’s sake, let’s hope JeffGural gets to the plate.


last call by Dave Briggs

Imagining a new Meadowlands with Gural at the helm

Belore Trailers ________________33

Blue Chip Farm ____17, back cover

Canadian Road Horse Assoc. ____38

Canadian Sportsman ____________6

Emerald Ridge Farm____________19

Fashion Farms ____________21, 31

Hanover Raceway __________20, 51

Mac Lilley Farm________________35

New Image Media______________34

New York Sire Stakes __________43

Ontario Sires Stakes ________3, 47

Park Insurance ________________48

Racehorsephoto ______________32

SBOA of Ontario ______________53

Seelster Farms ____________28, 29

Source ______________________55

Tara Hills Stud________5, 7, 9, 11, 13, inside back

Walnut Hall Ltd. ________inside front

Winbak Farm ______________17, 37

Winning Key Farms ____________39

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Documents

Jeff Gural and The Big Dealsboanj.com/pictures/jg.pdfThe famed Flatiron Building is as important to Jeff Gural and his family as it is to New York City. Built in 1902, the Flatiron