9/29/09

2/13/09

CLICK HERE TO VIEW 2009-2010 HARNESS TRACKS OF AMERICA SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT AND ADS

1/8/09

Western Pennsylvania’s perennial driving champion Dave Palone and record-setting driver Tim Tetrick have finished in a tie for harness racing’s highest honor for drivers, the Harness Tracks of America Driver of the Year Award.

The award, the most difficult in harness racing to win, requires a driver to finish in the top 25 in North America in money won, races won, and driver percentage (UDRS) standings. Points are awarded from 25 points down to 1 point for 25th, with a 25-point bonus for finishing in the top 25 in all three categories. Only 5 drivers, out of 4,321 who drove in at least one purse race last year, were able to accomplish that feat. Based on Palone’s and Tetrick’s performances, the North American title wound up a tie for only the third time in the 41 years the award has been presented by HTA, an association of 38 major harness racing organizations in the U.S. and Canada.

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Palone, who has won the HTA award four times before (in 1999, 2000, 2003 and 2004) finished first in UDRS with a .447 "slugging average," third in wins with 887, and sixth in money won with $10,104,572. With the 25-point bonus, Palone finished with 93 points.

Tetrick, who won the 2007 award in a year in which he won more races and purse money in a single season than anyone in history, finished first in money earnings with $19,752,066, eclipsing last year’s record total of $18,342,367, second in wins with 903, and seventh in UDRS. The addition of the 25-point bonus gives Tetrick 93 total points.

The World in Harness, the World Wide Web online presentation of Harness Tracks of America, will be heard as an Internet feature 52 weeks a year in 2009.

The show, which can be accessed at www.harnesstracks.com on HTA’s home page, features interviews by HTA executive vice president Stan Bergstein with major harness racing newsmakers. All shows are archived permanently, and can be heard at any time, day or night, indefinitely, on the Web.

The first of the new series, which appeared online Christmas week, is an interview with Greg Peck, the dual career professional who trains Fortune 500 company personnel in media relations and also trains the early 2009 Hambletonian favorite, the champion 2-year-old trotter Muscle Hill, winner of $817,301 this year in his first season of racing.

Marc A. Smith, Chief Social Scientist for Telligent Systems and former Senior Research Sociologist and founder of Microsoft Research Community Technologies, will be a featured speaker at the fifth Racing Congress, scheduled for Bellagio in Las Vegas Feb. 2-6, 2009.

Smith, 43, an internationally recognized authority in his field, will discuss coming phone technology and the implications of social networking for horse racing. Holder of three degrees, a Bachelor’s from Drexel University in Philadelphia, a Masters from Cambridge University in England and a Ph.D. from UCLA, he has authored or co-authored more than 100 papers on social interaction and is co-editor of "Communities in Cyberspace," a collection of essays on interaction in online groups.

Following Smith’s presentation a panel moderated by William Shanklin, a professor in the business school at the University of Akron and a longtime observer and analyst of racing, will discuss Web 2.0 computer technology and its applications to racing. The panel will consist of Jack Schibrowsky, professor of marketing at the University of Nevada Las Vegas; Tim Capps, a longtime racing editor and lecturer at the University of Louisville Equine Industry Program; Steve May, a graduate student and blogger in his final year of studies at the University of Arizona Race Track Industry Program; and Andrew MacDonald, Woodbine Entertainment’s vice president of marketing and communications. There also will be audience participation.

The Racing Congress includes members of Harness Tracks of America, the United States Trotting Association, Thoroughbred Racing Associations, Harness Horsemen International, the U.S. Harness Writers Association, the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium and other affiliated groups and interested individuals. Registration and room reservations can be made through Jennifer Foley at HTA.

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2008 "Groom of the Year" Award. The award, sponsored annually by Harness Tracks of America and Hanover Shoe Farms, recognizes the unsung heroes of the sport, the grooms who maintain the health and welfare of the sport’s horses.

All that is needed to nominate a groom for the 27th annual "Groom of the Year" award is a letter from an individual or group to Harness Tracks of America detailing the skills and special qualities of the groom. The winning groom receives an oil painting of himself or herself with the horse of their choice. All individuals nominated for the award receive a certificate of excellence and the first 50 grooms nominated also receive an embroidered jacket as a groom of the year nominee.

The "Groom of the Year" Award was founded in 1982 after Delvin Miller, addressing attendees at the annual HTA meeting as its Messenger award winner for that year, noted the sport gave no recognition to its grooms, its unsung stars. The 2007 "Groom of the Year" was Fia Svensson.