Harrisburg, PA – Dave Briggs, a member of the harness racing Communicators Hall of Fame as selected by the U.S. Harness Writers Association (USHWA) and also voted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame, has been appointed to a four-year term on USHWA’s Screening Committee, which selects North American luminaries of the sport to be considered for enshrinement in the Goshen, N.Y., Hall of Fame.
Briggs, 56 and a resident of Port Stanley, Ontario, brings more than 30 years of reporting on the Standardbred sport to the Committee, earning a well-deserved reputation for credibility, high standards, dedication, and fairness in his coverage of the sport.
Briggs, a graduate of Windsor University (B.A.) and Western University (M.A.), is the editor of Harness Racing Update, which provides online in-depth coverage of the Standardbred sport on a basic twice-a-week schedule. Prior to joining HRU, he spent almost two decades at the Canadian Sportsman magazine, working his way up to the editor of the respected journal. Briggs has written for many of harness racing’s leading publications, and he also has knowledgeably contributed to a number of Thoroughbred media outlets.
As noted, Briggs has been inducted into Halls of Fame on both sides of the border, earning selection by USHWA for the Communicators Hall in 2017 and being named to the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2025.
Briggs is the all-time leader in communications awards given annually by USHWA, with all 12 of his honors in the John Hervey Award writing categories – four for news/commentary and eight for features. Among his nearly 30 awards for writing about horse racing are also four Standardbred Canada O’Brien Media Excellence Awards.
“I’m thrilled about appointing Dave Briggs to USHWA’s Screening Committee,” said Heather Vitale, president of USHWA. “He knows the sport inside and out, cares about its history, and brings a thoughtful and honest perspective to the table – exactly what you want when it comes to honoring the best in harness racing.”
Chapters of USHWA nominate candidates for the Hall of Fame each spring, and those nominees are reviewed on the first Sunday in July during meetings at the Goshen Hall, when Briggs will be seated. One nominee in the Veteran category is named to the Hall directly from these meetings; active participants in the sport are evaluated and then a select group is named by the Committee to appear on a summer ballot, where they require 75% of the yes-no vote from electors to become the newest class of the Hall. The term of Screening Committee members was changed from six to four years at February’s annual USHWA meetings, to constantly bring fresh perspectives to the Committee.
The United States Harness Writers Association is the leading group of communicators about the Standardbred horse. USHWA conducts the official annual balloting for the sport’s most prestigious honors: induction to the Hall of Fame and Communicators Hall of Fame, along with the selection of the Horse of the Year, Trotter and Pacer of the Year, and the leading divisional horses of each season. Each year USHWA hosts the Dan Patch Awards Banquet, honoring the best and brightest performers in North American harness racing. This banquet is the Association’s principal source of funding, and with support from the harness racing and breeding industries, USHWA is able to host the banquet at a world-class facility in a world-class manner.