Meadowlands: Gural Rule revised to allow 4-year-olds by excluded stallions

The Meadowlands is announcing a revision to the Stallion Restriction Condition (SRC) aka the "Gural Rule" that is effective immediately. From 2022 forward, horses 4 years of age and older that are sired by horses excluded from stakes by the SRC will be eligible for nomination to those stakes.

The language has been changed by adding a 6th clause to the existing text as highlighted below: Beginning with foals of 2018 and continuing thereafter, all foals conceived by a sire less than 5 years of age WILL NOT BE ELIGIBLE to be nominated to or race in any stakes in which this Stallion Restriction Condition (SRC) is in effect unless the sire (or nominated horse) is exempted from this condition by the Sponsors by meeting one or more of the following exemptions: . . . (6) The nominated horse is 4 years old and older

"The spirit of the rule is to try and keep our stars racing, so excluding older horses from our stakes was not our intention," Meadowlands President Jeff Gural explained. "There are some horse returning to the races from age 3 to 4 this year that are of the quality that we'd like to see continue to race. This had not previously been considered and needs to be corrected rather than exclude those horses by the SRC.

"The rule remains intact for the 2- and 3-year-old stakes but we are modifying it to give the horses that do come back after 3 the opportunity to race in our stakes."

The revised version may be found on the web.

Nomination forms for Meadowlands stakes may be found on the track website.These are the affected stallions and stakes:

TROT/PACE	CASHMAN MEMORIAL	DOROTHY HAUGHTON MEM.
ARTSPEAK (foals of 2017)	CRAWFORD FARMS	GRADUATE SERIES
	CUTLER MEMORIAL	LADY LIBERTY
BAR HOPPING (foals of 2018)	GRADUATE SERIES	MCKEE MEMORIAL
	MISS VERSATILITY	PERFECT STING
RACING HILL (foals of 2018)	SIX PACK	ROLL WITH JOE
	STEELE MEMORIAL TVG SERIES	TVG SERIES WR HAUGHTON MEM.

-edited release (Meadowlands)