All Ya Gotta See is Jack E Lee!
The roots of Freehold Raceway, date back to 1853, that's ten years before Saratoga Race Course opened in Upstate New York. Since it's beginnings the track has seen a few owners, and had a few rebuilds. In 1970 the grandstand was enclosed to accommodate year round racing, only to be destroyed in a devastating blaze that leveled the plant
On May 5th soon after the
start of the 1984 season, an electrical fire broke out and burnt the
grandstand to the ground. Amazingly the meet went on with betting
conducted under tents. For the next few years part of the meet was moved
to Atlantic City, while some was held at Freehold under plastic bubbles.
In October of 1986 the new Freehold held it's grand re-opening, and
continues on today.
The new Freehold is a totally enclosed all weather facility. The grandstand seats 1,000, the clubhouse the same, with parking for 2,800 cars. Freehold seems like it should have been on a Monopoly Board, going from Baltic Avenue to Boardwalk. In 1941, the owner who was against gambling sold the track for $65,000, before pari-mutual wagering started. The new owner sold it twenty five years later for eight million dollars, that's a nice profit. Over the years it was sold and resold, before todays owners Penn Gaming paid forty six million for the facility.
One of the amazing facts about Freehold Raceway is that it has never raced at night, in fact lighting has never been installed. That's quite remarkable for a sport that has traditionally been a evening event. Another has been the fact that it has continued to provide a high caliber of racing without the aide racino style gaming, but a lot of what made it great were the guys in the announcers booth.
They are often overlooked, but the track announcer is a big part of the personality of a venue, and Freehold has had a couple of the best. The first was the great Jack E Lee, who used to call races at Roosevelt Raceway before it closed. His famous finish line calls "all ya gotta say is Herve" or "All ya gotta know is Jackie Mo", along with a line for about every other driver at Freehold, were legend. When Jack E Lee hung up his binoculars, He was replaced by Larry Lederman, who had been entertaining the fans at Garden State and Atlantic City. If you ever heard him call a race, you wouldn't confuse him with any other announcer. Unfortunately for Lederman he was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2011, and has given up race calling on a regular basis. Lederman did recover and returned to race calling.
I've been to Freehold, a few times but I'll never forget my first. It was in the early seventies, I was accompanying a friend on a motorcycle trip to visit an old Navy buddy of his who lived near Freehold. For going I was promised an afternoon of racing, which I thought was Monmouth Park. It started getting late and we hadn't left yet, so I thought I should ask and was told we were going to Freehold. That was OK, I'd been to Monmouth and could check Freehold off my list. When we finally left and started nearing the track, we were traveling on side streets and I start noticing all these people in their yards gardening and cutting grass, what was wrong with these people it's almost post time. Guess I was a little obsessed. That was the old Freehold, I got stuck working in Jersey in the late nineties for a few months and made it out to the new Freehold quite a few times.
If you do a search for Freehold Raceway your more likely to find more information about the Freehold Raceway Mall, across the street then about the track. The two have something in common, the builder of the mall owned the track at the time and they are both dying. The track is far from it's glory days when Jack E Lee called the races, Ellie Sarama reported from the apron, and drivers like Herve, The Cat Man, Jackie Mo, Rockin Ronnie and other notables were on the track. Having no casino there last chance is sports betting and they have already dropped the ball on that one, so hopefully they will survive covid-19 and race goers can return, so if you've never been you can make it before it disappears. .