Driver Vinny Ginsburg won the two-day Rosecroft-Freehold Driving Challenge, reclaiming the lead in the point standings with a victory in the final race following a strong start to the competition.
This week, Rosecroft Raceway and Freehold Raceway hosted a driving challenge, which featured four drivers from each track facing off against each other to earn points based on where they finished. They faced each other four times at Rosecroft and four times at Freehold. Each driver had each post position one time throughout the challenge and the horses that they drove were random. The Rosecroft representatives were William Carter, Eric Davis, Declan Donoway and Trae Porter. The Freehold representatives were Johnathan Ahle, Vinny Ginsburg, Mark Herschberger and Tyler Miller.
Ginsburg had a strong start at the Rosecroft leg on Thursday, Dec. 14 as he had two wins, a fifth-place finish and a sixth. He earned 109 points from his first four drives in leg one while Porter was only one point behind him.
The remainder of the challenge took place at Freehold on Saturday, Dec. 16. Ginsburg didn’t start the day as successfully as he did with his opening win for the Rosecroft leg. Instead he placed fourth and fifth in the first two challenge races of the day. Pressure was growing for Ginsburg as he still led with 122 points but Ahle, Porter and Miller were close behind with 114, 113 and 100 points, respectively. With only two races left in the challenge, there was no time to finish anything but strong.
Ginsburg did just that. In the second-to-last challenge race, he steered Needless To Say from post eight for trainer Pauline McDonald. Despite getting away last, Ginsburg managed to turn things around. With a gutsy move in the final turn, going three-wide around the field and closing hard, he passed all but one horse in the tightly-packed field and managed to get a second-place finish for 25 more points. Miller placed first with Stews Watching and overtook Ginsburg by three points (150-147).
Heading into the final challenge race, Miller, Ginsburg, Ahle and Porter were all in contention for the win with more than 100 points each. Ginsburg left from post two with Vel Big Bruiser for trainer Anthony Romano Jr. and captured the early lead after a brief duel with Porter and Its Above Me Now, who eventually settled in second behind them. He continued to set the pace, putting up fractions of :28, :58.1 and 1:27.3, and continued to lead the way to the wire in 1:56.3. Ginsburg won the race and won the challenge with a total of 197 points to take home a $1,000 prize in addition to his purse earnings.
The final standings and point totals were as follows:
1. Vinny Ginsburg - 197
2. Tyler Miller - 162
3. Trae Porter - 143
4. Johnathan Ahle - 134
5. Eric Davis - 93
6. Mark Herschberger - 79
7. Declan Donoway - 52
8. William Carter - 30
Ginsburg continued his winning ways with two more victories in the card's late double.
Freehold Raceway would like to thank Rosecroft Raceway for co-hosting this challenge and all of the drivers for participating.
Live harness racing returns to Freehold on Friday and Saturday, starting at 12:30 p.m.
(With files from Freehold Raceway)