The February issue of Hoof Beats is the magazine’s annual Driver & Trainer Report, highlighting the top horsepeople in North America and celebrating their accomplishments in 2025.
From the time he was a teenager, Marcus Melander was focused on a career in harness racing. Growing up in Sweden, he raced ponies until he was 16 years old, at which point he left school to work for his uncle, Hambletonian winner and future Swedish Trotting Hall of Famer Stefan Melander, and began to make his own name in the sport.
aving turned the calendar to 2026, it feels like an appropriate moment to take a breath, look back at where we’ve been, and talk honestly about where we’re headed. To begin with, in racing, we know skepticism comes with the territory. We question initiatives. We question new ideas. Sometimes, we even question the intent.
The January issue of Hoof Beats explores remnants of harness racing’s rich past while also profiling some key individuals moving the sport forward into 2026 and beyond.
Over a decade ago, I voiced my longstanding concerns about what I called “the cartels”— the term I assigned to computer-assisted wagering entities (CAWs), which first raised danger flags for me when one or more began operating at the Meadowlands.
Dependable but not spectacular. A hard-nosed racer who shuns hard work. A horse who makes his connections happy but isn’t too jovial himself. That’s what you get with 11-year-old Mississippi Storm.
When I started in my position at the USTA nearly 18 years ago, I was struck by the size of the association’s Board of Directors. At the time, it numbered 60, which mirrored exactly the number of full-time employees on staff at the time. Both groups have shrunk since then — especially the latter — but, at the end of this year, the USTA board still will be comprised of 58 directors, an unusually large quantity for an organization of the USTA’s size. Back in 2008, my most immediate thought was this: How will anything get done?
By all counts, Ronnie Wrenn Jr. has long established himself as one of the Midwest’s most sought-after drivers. After all, Wrenn has over 8,800 wins to his credit, has driven the winners of over $75 million, and won more races than any other reinsman in North America in both the 2013 and 2014 seasons. But it has been Wrenn’s association with a single horse over the past year and a half that has propelled him to the next level: Louprint.
