by Jerry Connors, secretary, USHWA

Harrisburg, PA — The United States Harness Writers Association recently conducted its two days of annual meetings in conjunction with the annual Dan Patch Awards banquet at the Marriott North in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

USHWA, a 200-plus collection of the major communicators in the sport of harness racing, is a group constantly in change, and often ahead of the harness racing curve. For example, in picking two finalists for the ballot of its Communicators Hall of Fame, it selected two outstanding women — Jean Emerson, the feisty former editor of the Northeast Harness News who still helps drive many USHWA projects, and Moira Fanning, the dynamic top executive of the Breeders Crown series and Hambletonian Society, who herself was honored as USHWA’s Member of the Year during the awards banquet.

The Dan Patch Awards banquet, annually presented by USHWA, brought together 400 people in the Marriott ballroom — and countless others via the first-ever video webstreaming of the banquet. The connections of Rock N Roll Heaven, champion 3-year-old pacing colt looking forward to a bright future at stud, were involved in no fewer than six awards, including the most-coveted of all, the E. Roland Harriman Dan Patch Harness Horse of the Year trophy.

As is natural, the Horse of the Year presentations came at the end of the banquet; the banquet opened with the presenting of an USHWA Hall of Fame ring to Murray Janoff, 96 years young, who recently had had his original prize possession stolen by domestic help. USHWA had a “no-brainer” to give the only surviving founding member from its 1947 origins the memento that he so richly deserves.

During their business meetings, USHWA heard reports from all 16 of the committees put together by ambitious president Jason Settlemoir (Tioga Downs/Vernon Downs) in an effort to keep USHWA on the cutting edge. Perhaps the most eagerly-watched group, the By-Laws Revision Committee, was represented by co-chair Leon Zimmerman, who unveiled a new mission statement for USHWA, promised focus on financial questions and Hall of Fame voting as the immediate next focuses of the group, and held two meetings during the weekend.

The end of the business meetings also honored a veteran, as Alan Prince, 40-plus years USHWA treasurer and as financial a hawk and (growling) watchdog as ever a group could hope to have, finally allowed himself to retire, only to be voted into the newly-created position of executive treasurer, and then gave an excellent peroration of his time with USHWA, past, present, and (hopefully a long) future. Former USHWA president Judy Davis-Wilson will now take over treasurer duties.

“The weekend went about as well, maybe better, than anyone could expect,” exulted USHWA president Settlemoir afterwards. “USHWA recognizes its duties in these roller-coaster times for harness racing and plans to make its maximum contribution for the continued viability of the sport. And those who attended the dinner raved about all aspects of it, which is directly due to the work of Steve Wolf and his dinner committee crew. We did so well here, we may come back to Florida for our 2012 meetings and dinner!”