Sigler family coming to terms with loss

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Back a few years, when Winning Move Stable was the leading owner in wins on this circuit, few people enjoyed the operation’s success more that Adam Sigler, son of the stable’s managing partner, Steve Sigler.

Though Adam Sigler did not own any of the horses, he was a constant presence at the track.

“He’s in every win picture I have,” Steve Sigler said Friday. “He just loved the pure beauty of the sport, he loved the horses, he loved the competition, he loved the winning and being in the winner’s circle. He loved meeting the jockeys, he loved talking strategy, he loved all the aspects of the sport, and for the right reasons.”

Racing lost a big fan, and Steve Sigler and his wife, Connie, lost a child on Nov. 12, when Adam Sigler died after suffering a brain hemorrhage on the morning of Nov. 7 at his New York City apartment. Adam Sigler was 41.

Sigler’s death made for a difficult Thanksgiving, though Steve Sigler said his family – which includes Sigler’s son, Brian, and daughter, Jamie-Lynn, and their children – were all together Thursday. Also at Thanksgiving dinner was Danielle Piro, Adam’s fiancée, and her family.

“I emphasize to everybody that it’s not a closed chapter,” Steve Sigler said. “He’s here – you have to believe that. His fiancée was good until the end and had a difficult time, but her family was around her to help her through it.”

An overflow crowd of more than 600 mourners filled Gutterman’s Funeral Home in Woodbury, N.Y., on Nov. 16 for a memorial service for Adam Sigler.

“It was so crowded because he really touched a lot of people,” Steve Sigler said. “Adam was very unassuming but just had a brightness to him, and I think that people could detect there was no negativity to him.”

Winning Move is not as big as it used to be when it was the leading owner in wins on the New York Racing Association circuit from 2006 through 2008. Sigler said the stable is down to 16 or 17 horses. On Nov. 15, three days after Adam’s death, Winning Move won a race at Aqueduct by a nose with Moe Man.

Steve Sigler said that in the win photo from that race “there’s a beam of light coming down from the sky behind the winner’s circle.”

Sigler said that in lieu of flowers, the family had asked that contributions be made in Adam’s name to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation. He said almost $5,000 was donated to the TRF in Adam Sigler’s name.

Though he lived in New York City and worked as a financial analyst in New Jersey, Adam Sigler would visit his parents every weekend, which usually meant trips to the track.

“In regard to racing, it’s rare that you find someone like that who just sees the beauty in racing, cares about the horses, loved to go to the barn, loved to give them carrots, loved to pet them,” Steve Sigler said. “He had a passion for the sport.”