Gural wins Messenger Award

Jeffrey R. Gural, who persevered for more than two years to return Vernon Downs to life, and built Tioga Downs, a shining new small track for harness racing near Binghamton, N.Y., is the winner of Harness Tracks of America’s Stan Bergstein Messenger Award for 2006.

The Messenger, HTA’s highest honor, goes annually to an individual or organization for exceptionally outstanding and meritorious service to the sport. It is named for the English Thoroughbred who founded the harness breed in America.

HTA’s longtime executive vice president, Stan Bergstein, said Gural fulfills all of the qualities sought by the association of harness tracks in selecting major contributors to harness racing, noting Gural’s dedication and huge personal investment in resurrecting Vernon and building Tioga.

“He overcame every obstacle thrown in his way,” Bergstein said, “and they were frequent and plentiful. He succeeded in both projects by persistence and by expending a huge amount of his personal fortune in restoring Vernon to live racing, and creating a model small track in Tioga.”

Construction of the harness operation, which has won wide acclaim for creative design and customer service, exemplified Gural’s belief that the sport must create a fan base catering to young and new fans.

Gural, a longtime owner and breeder in harness racing, is of Newmark Knight Frank, a full service commercial and industrial real estate management firm that manages some 150 buildings in the New York metropolitan area, and has an ownership interest in 41 of them. He is chairman of a host of charitable organizations, including the New York chapter of The Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation, and a board member if more than 15 other philanthropic groups. (HTA)

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