Ontario-sired pacing colt Tall Dark Stranger was named the 2020 U.S. Horse of the Year as part of the Dan Patch Annual Awards Banquet held virtually on Saturday (Jan. 16).
The United States Harness Writers Association (USHWA), the leading media organization in North American harness racing, has announced the winners of its Dan Patch Awards balloting for excellence exhibited among both equines and humans. The “best of the best” are normally honoured at the writers’ Dan Patch Annual Awards Banquet, but that event was cancelled this year due to the ongoing health crisis, so a special Virtual Awards show was broadcast Saturday.
Before the start of Saturday night’s card at The Meadowlands, driver Dexter Dunn was named the United States Harness Writers Association’s Driver of the Year for a second-consecutive season in a virtual Dan Patch Awards ceremony that the entire sport could view on the internet or at any simulcast venue.
Then Dunn went out and showed why that considerable amount of hardware sits on his mantle.
The 31-year-old New Zealand product, whose 131 wins during 2020 led all Big M drivers, registered four scores on the 15-race program–after winning three on Friday–to seize control of the top of the Meadowlands’ standings with 15 victories in the early stages of the Winter-Spring-Championship Meeting.
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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Association (OHHA) will not hold its annual awards banquet and membership meeting but will instead present a virtual awards show on the OHHA YouTube channel on Saturday, January 16 at 7:00 p.m.
The awards show will feature Ohio’s top equine athletes of 2020. Other Ohio award winners honoured will be the Terry Holton Youth Award, Maynard and Stella Hagemeyer Significant Contribution Award, Ohio Outstanding Groom Award and the Special-Service to Harness Racing Award. In addition, the United States Harness Writers Association – Ohio Chapter annual awards will also be presented as will the Ohio State Racing Commission’s Kaltenbach Awards.
Joe Kyle
HARRISBURG, PA - One came to prominence in the shadow of New York City; the other is a son of the Midwest. One is primarily a writer who also has done much television journalism; the other achieved principal fame as a photographer, but he also wrote often and well.
What links them is their talent in communicating the abilities of the very best in harness racing, and thus Jay Bergman and Joe Kyle were voted in to the Communicators Hall of Fame by the United States Harness Writers Association (USHWA), the sport s leading journalism organization.
Bergman achieved his greatest impact during his 27 years of working at Sports Eye, a daily newspaper which primarily dealt with handicapping (Bergman was one of the key theorists behind the creation of a track variant ) but also offered opinions on the issues of the day - a position, especially after he became editor-in-chief in the 1980s, Bergman did frequently and forcefully, not afraid to offer criticism and call people and orga