The
following statement is issued by Meadowlands Chairman Jeffrey Gural:
Although I
am currently on vacation, I have been made aware that apparently several
trainers at Yonkers Raceway including Julie Miller and Ron Burke have had
horses test positive for glaucine. As you know, Ms. Miller trains several
horses for me and Mr. Burke trains Gural Hanover, a horse of which I am a
part-owner. Both trainers have already called me and vigorously denied the
accusations.
At this
point, I am unaware if any official action has been taken by the New York Gaming
Commission (NYGC) or Yonkers Raceway. I have reached out to officials at the
NYGC in an effort to receive more information about the nature of the tests so
that we can do our own analysis and draw our own conclusions. I want to be
clear; we plan to see what actions, if any, are taken by the NYGC and Yonkers
Raceway before we do anything.
In
addition, representatives of the Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association
of New Jersey (SBOANJ) contacted me and have strongly suggested that all of the
trainers involved be given their due process rights before any action is taken
by my racetracks. The SBOANJ re-affirmed their support for our strong stance on
integrity.
As such,
until an official announcement has been made by the NYGC, Ms. Miller, Mr.
Burke, and other trainers whose horses received positive tests that are
otherwise in good standing at our three facilities, will be able to race their
horses at the Meadowlands.
I have
directed our own investigator to immediately reach out to Dr. Wan in Hong Kong
to see if we can have the many samples we have previously taken from horses
trained by Mr. Burke and horses I own that were trained by Ms. Miller to see if
glaucine was present in any of those samples. I believe that New York will make
the methods used to test for glaucine available to Hong Kong. We are also
waiting to see if any other horses in New York test positive for glaucine to
see if there is any common element involved, such as the same veterinarians,
same feed, same shavings, or the same legitimate feed supplements.
