from Team Valor International

Team Valor International is pleased to announce Bill Plaschke, Billy Reed, Jeff Siegel and Ray Kerrison as the judges for the second annual Stan Bergstein Writing Award.

Initiated by Team Valor CEO Barry Irwin to foster the type of writing Bergstein embodied with his influential voice as a columnist for Daily Racing Form and many other publications, the award is open to any story on the subject of horse racing from a North American publication or website from Nov. 2, 2012 to Nov. 1, 2013.

The judges will vote in November and the award will be presented at the University of Arizona Race Track Industry Program’s Global Symposium on Racing and Gaming in December in Tucson.

Plaschke has written for the Los Angeles Times since 1987 and was the Associated Press national sports columnist of the year four times between 2000 and 2007. A nominee for the Pulitzer Prize in 2004, he is a regular panelist on ESPN’s Around the Horn program.

Reed, a three-time Eclipse Award winner, is a former senior writer for Sports Illustrated and longtime writer and columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal and Lexington Herald-Leader. He was the keynote speaker at the first Bergstein Writing Award presentation in 2012.

Siegel co-founded and owned Clover Racing Stable and Team Valor with Irwin and has been a respected racing analyst and handicapper for more than 30 years. Siegel sold his stake in Team Valor to Irwin in 2007 and currently is a prominent host and analyst for HRTV.

Kerrison has written for the New York Post since 1977. As a columnist, he has addressed a wide array of topics, including local issues in New York, national politics and pop culture, but some of his most insightful work has been on horse racing.

Team Valor encourages writers and editors to submit stories for consideration for the award to Jeff Lowe at jeff@teamvalor.com by Nov. 1.