Harness Tracks of America is introducing a major new addition and a new sales date for its 28th annual harness racing art auction in Lexington, KY, next fall.

The 2004 auction will, as usual, benefit the HTA College Scholarship Fund for children of participants in the sport, or participants themselves, but it will be held in Tattersalls on Wednesday, Oct. 6, between the conclusion of the Kentucky Standardbred yearling auction on Tuesday night and the beginning of the Tattersalls yearling sale on Thursday night, rather than in its traditional Sunday morning setting.

One hundred original harness racing paintings, bronzes and woodcarvings, as usual, will be on display in Tattersalls for three days before the auction, rather than in the Red Mile clubhouse as previously, but there will be another special feature added to this year’s auction.

HTA is assembling, in addition to its original artwork, a spectacular collection of original large folio Currier & Ives lithographs of trotting scenes.

The exhibit and sale, named ""The Best of the Best of Original Currier & Ives Trotting Lithographs" will feature at least 25 large folios to be sold along with the contemporary art.

HTA executive vice president Stan Bergstein, a longtime collector and auctioneer of Currier & Ives, says the offering will be the most significant Currier & Ives trotting sale since Delvin Miller’s collection was sold at the Meadowlands 25 years ago.

Chris McErlean of the Meadowlands, president of HTA, says the new alignment of the yearling sales in Lexington presents a unique opportunity to turn the HTA art auction into an evening gala. "With hundreds of major players gathered in Lexington for the week of the yearling sales, and the Kentucky Futurity on Saturday of that week, we plan to turn the art auction into a very special night on the Lexington scene that week," McErlean said.