Meadowlands Racetrack announced on Monday, May 12 that it will be reinstating post time drag after eliminating the practice for the start of its Championship Meet earlier this month.

Beginning with this weekend's live harness racing on Friday, May 16 and Saturday, May 17, The Meadowlands will revert back to the formula of sending the horses onto the track at zero minutes to post and going to the gate approximately seven minutes later.

Heeding customer complaints regarding the practice of dragging post time out and going off at zero minutes to post resulted in a sharp decline in export handle. 

"Among the lessons learned was that our CAW customers could not adjust, resulting in a large percentage of the lost handle," said a statement from The Meadowlands. "This experiment also reinforced the fact we will need a significant marketing budget to accomplish our goal of getting young people to become customers. Should we succeed in getting a casino, we would use those revenues to properly market the on-track experience, in turn raising the on-track handle."

(With files from Meadowlands Racetrack)