Siegelman is Unstoppable; Lyons Steel wins Dennis Watson Memorial

Posted 229 days

Austin Siegelman continues to dominate at Freehold Raceway. Today (April 6), he earned a driving triple for the fourth consecutive race-card at Freehold. He went back-to-back in races two and three with Shrimp And Grits and Albert A’ Scootin.

His third win of the day came in race ten with 20-1 shot, Vasari N. The 11-year-old gelding got away seventh from post seven. At the half he joined the outer flow into the fourth-over position. It didn’t take long for Siegelman to see that his cover was going nowhere so he boldly pulled three-wide in the third turn and began to trek to the front. Before the pack reached the three-quarter pole, he got shuffled out four-wide which is where the duo stayed all the way into the stretch. Despite the incredibly tough trip, Vasari still had more to give and paced on to pass them all to win by a nose and maintain Siegelman’s driving triple streak. Siegelman currently leads the Freehold driver standings list with 50 wins.

Those who watched this race noticed a new voice in harness racing; aspiring announcer Joseph Romanelli called his first-ever race today in race three and did so well that he was given the mic in races ten and eleven as well. Joseph is 25-years-old and spent the day learning pointers from Edison Hatter. Romanelli has been practicing calling races from his living room at home but got a chance to do it for real today and did a great job.

Today’s most notable win was achieved by Mark Herschberger, who steered Lyons Steel to victory in the Dennis Watson Memorial race. The race was in honor a longtime driver/trainer at Freehold who passed away on March 4, at the age of 74. Lyons Steel went wire-to-wire and put up fast fractions of :26.4, :55.2, 1:24.2, and 1:54.2 to win by seven lengths in the feature race.

Those who knew Dennis knew that Lyons Steel was a signature horse in his barn since 2018. On the day of Dennis’ funeral service, March 16, 2024, Herschberger and Lyons Steel teamed up to win with many of Dennis’ family members and grandchildren there to cheer him on after coming to watch him race following  the service. It is almost as if the presence of the Watson family gives Lyons Steel some extra go, because he was determined to make it to the winner’s circle today to join the friends and family of his former trainer who the race was in honor of. Lyons Steel is now trained by Jose Ramos and is owned by Bd Racing LLC.

Racing at Freehold Raceway resumes on Friday and Saturday starting at 12:30pm.