Alan Leavitt – Biography

Alan Leavitt is chairman of USTA District 6 at large and president and general manager of Walnut Hall Ltd., Lexington, KY, which is owned by his wife, Meg Jewett.

A graduate of Andover and Harvard, he has been in the business for more than 50 years. He is a director of the Hambletonian Society and president of the Kentucky Standardbred Breeders Association. Also a recipient of the U.S. Harness Writers Proximity Award, the President’s Award, the Kentucky Harness Horsemen’s Association’s Achievement Award, twice named USTA Breeder of the Year, and in 2008, was elected to the Harness Racing Hall of Fame.

He is associated with a number of top horses including Mack Lobell, whom he bred, the immortal Speedy Crown, whom he developed and managed throughout his breeding career, and the 2008 Hambletonian winner Deweycheatumnhowe.

Alan Leavitt – Candidate’s Platform

To My Fellow USTA Directors,

I am a candidate for the Vice Chairmanship of the USTA, and I am writing to ask for your vote when we meet in Las Vegas.

Harness racing has been my life, and I have always been an activist. As a USTA representative to the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium (RMTC), I was the first person to notify the president and executive committee, and then the harness racing industry, that the RMTC was creating new drug rules that ignored the realities of our sport. A glaring example was a new withdrawal time of 10 days for clenbuterol, an essential drug to treat throat congestion, and it was put in to effect without any consideration for the fact that our horses race on a weekly basis.

Phil Langley and the executive committee responded by withdrawing the USTA from the RMTC, and thereby saving $75,000 a year that was essentially being thrown to the wind.

My wife and I have worked tirelessly to end horse slaughter, a cause to which we have contributed tens of thousands of dollars. At this moment, there are 14 Standardbreds living out their lives in peace and comfort at Walnut Hall Limited, and every one of them was rescued from a kill pen, where they would have died in pain and terror.

While serving eight years on the Kentucky Racing Commission, I was instrumental in passing a ban on one handed whipping. That was made possible by the unanimous approval of the 18 member board of directors of the Kentucky Harness Horseman’s Association. Our rule has become the template for several other jurisdictions, and in view of whips being banned entirely in all of Australia, and Norway, a similar ban on one handed whipping in our industry should stop the efforts of those who seek a total ban. I have seen the whipless racing in Norway, and I can assure you it is a disaster that we must avoid.

These are some, but not all of my activities apart from breeding and racing horses as a life-time profession. For the future, I intend to fight hard to eliminate the high costs that have been imposed on the most essential members of our sport, the owners and the breeders. It is past time to unburden the owners and breeders from paying for other, non-essential USTA activities.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me about anything on your mind regarding the USTA and our great sport.

See you in Las Vegas!