Harrisburg, PA — Marcus Melander, “to the manor born” in terms of personal harness racing pedigree, went out in 2018 and made great accomplishments with a small but talented collection of trotters. They included the two dominant two-year-old colts in the division, Gimpanzee and Green Manlishi S in the process of earning the Rising Star award.

Marcus Melander culminated a fantastic 2018, earning the Rising Star Award from USHWA. USTA Photo.

Marcus Melander came from a rich trotting heritage in his native Sweden, with perhaps the best-known of his family being his uncle Stefan Melander, the Hambletonian, Prix d’Amerique, and International Trot winner, and also noted for his photography as “Foto Tarzan.” Upon coming to the United States, Marcus worked for Jimmy Takter, an addition to a resume anyone would want, and then went out on his own.

2018 was the current peak of what is likely to be many more high points in Marcus’s career. His 1-2 punch in the baby trotting colt ranks were Gimpanzee, the undefeated New York Sire Stakes champion who then won his Breeders Crown and divisional honors, and Green Manalishi S, second in the Crown and like his stablemate a winner of over $500,000 in his freshman campaign. (Other members in Melander’s 2019 sophomore arsenal may be Demon On The Hill, who showed great potential, mostly in Pennsylvania, and Greenshoe, a $330,000 yearling who showed promise in a brief freshman campaign.)

It’s not often that anybody wins a $1,000,000 race, especially a 26-year-old sending a horse out for the first time, but that’s just what Melander did. He received Cruzado Dela Noche from uncle Stefan before the International Trot and then beating a group of the world’s elite trotters. In another big FFA win, Crazy Wow, also recently added to the barn, turned in a 31-1 upset in the Maple Leaf Trot Final.

Melander will be honored at USHWA’s annual Dan Patch Awards Banquet, celebrating the best and brightest of harness racing in the past year. The banquet honoring the champions of 2018 will be held on Sunday, February 24, 2019 at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando FL, the climax of a weekend that also finds USHWA holding its annual national meetings.

Tickets for the Dan Patch Awards Banquet are $175, with a filet mignon dinner featured; “post times” on February 24 are cocktails at 6 p.m. and dinner at 7 p.m. Tickets, and other Banquet-related information, can be obtained through Dinner Planning Committee Chair Judy Davis-Wilson, at zoe8874@aol.com or 302 359 3630.

Reservations for those attending can be made through USHWA’s website, www.ushwa.org; a link to the hotel’s computer is on the front page of the website. Those who would like to take out congratulatory ads for award winners in the always-popular Dan Patch Awards Journal can do so by contacting Kim Rinker at trotrink@aol.com (the 2018 journal is online at the writers’ website). Information about purchasing tickets for the dinner will become available and be posted shortly.