Trot Insider has learned that the two stakes administrators that required stallions to race at age four in order to have foals eligible to their stakes races have made decisions to drop the requirement.
Representatives with the Hambletonian Society and Woodbine Entertainment Group confirmed the decision on Thursday, essentially impacting Standardbreds bred in 2016.
"Our 2015 conditions state that Woodbine does not take a position in regards to the stallion restriction on open stakes for the 2016 breeding season," Jamie Martin, Executive Vice-President, Racing for Woodbine Entertainment Group told Trot Insider. "As for a reason, I would say it was a number of factors, but primarily we would prefer to focus on incentives to encourage participation rather than to force it through rules."
Martin cited the addition of revised and rejuvenated Confederation Cup as a new four-year-old event for 2015, and stated that WEG will "work to add four-year-old events to the 2016 stakes calendar."
The news was disappointing for Jeff Gural, who crafted the rule in 2011 in order to try to keep harness racing's stars on the racetrack. He feels the breeders of horses will be the ones that lose most from this decision.
"My biggest disappointment is that you would think the people who benefited the most from my decision to step in at the eleventh hour (and save The Meadowlands) -- obviously, the breeders -- would do everything they could to help me survive without the benefit of slots," stated Gural. "In the end they are the big losers because they need to find new people to buy their yearlings and it won't happen if you don't give these people a reason to get involved by making the product the best it can be."
Gural went on to state he plans to shift his stallion eligibility rule to his three racetracks -- Meadowlands Racetrack, Tioga Downs and Vernon Downs -- for all racing that isn't a Sire Stake or Hambletonian Society-sponsored event. That includes overnight races, baby races and qualifiers.
"Since I own the only non-half mile tracks in New York and New Jersey, those horses better like racing on small tracks," continued Gural.
"I think we need a good product if we have any chance of making new customers. They could have waited to see how the Father Patrick experiment and the new Graduate series worked. I am killing myself, the weather has killed us, I don't have enough horses to race even two nights a week...everyone just wants to race here in the winter and with stakes horses and baby race."