Goshen, NY – Joe Morris will be the recipient of the United States Harness Writers Association (USHWA) Monticello-Goshen Chapter’s Lifetime Achievement Award at its annual awards banquet in Campbell Hall, N.Y., which is presented by the New York Sire Stakes, and will be dedicated to John Manzi.
Hailing from a family that is rich in harness racing tradition, Joe Morris was born in Maine and grew up on the oldest continually run family farm in the Pine Tree State. Morris, alongside his cousins Mike Graffam and Bruce Ranger, learned the business from the ground up while breeding mares, raising foals and jogging the next generation of colts on their half-mile track.
Known as the Norton Farm, and established in the 1700s, the 70-plus acre spread is located near Cumberland, Maine, and is now operated by Graffam and his grown children Nick and Bethany.
From humble beginnings Morris has risen to the top echelon of our sport and is currently the Senior Vice President of Racing for Caesars Entertainment, which owns both Eldorado Scioto Downs and Harrah’s Hoosier Park. In addition, Morris oversees racing operations at the casino empire’s many racetracks across the country, which also includes Harrah’s Philadelphia, and Thoroughbred facilities Horseshoe Indianapolis and the company’s soon-to-open Harrah’s Columbus Racing & Casino in Nebraska.
During the early 1980s, Morris obtained business and finance degrees from the University of Maine and then went to work at Hinsdale and Foxboro. Derick Giwner of DRF Harness interviewed Morris shortly after the Breeders Crown announced that Scioto Downs would host the 2026 championship series in Ohio.
Giwner inquired about his first management position in harness racing, to which Morris stated, “There was a guy named Tom Sheehan there. He had been a longtime racing executive. I stopped in to have lunch with Loring Norton one day and he said, ‘You’re out of college now and need a job. Talk to this guy.’
“He dialed up Tom and he said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow at Hinsdale for work.’ I started there and worked my way through the racing office. I was the assistant clerk of the course and program charter. I ended up at Foxboro which is where I kind of got my MBA. I was General Manager at Foxboro in 1985 and 1986 when I was 25 years old. I was the youngest racetrack GM in the country.”
Before landing at Caesars, Morris also held influential positions at the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Santa Anita, the Stronach Group, and was the publisher of the Thoroughbred Times.
Very approachable and down to earth, his pleasant demeanor and vast knowledge of the sport have earned him friends and admirers from coast to coast, and in all three racing breeds. But ask him, and he will be quick to note that his heart is with the pacers. He currently lives on a small farm in Lexington, adjacent to Keeneland, and on Sundays can be found cleaning stalls and scrubbing water buckets.
When the Monticello-Goshen USHWA Chapter holds its 67th annual Awards Banquet, presented by the New York Sire Stakes, on Sunday, Dec. 6, Morris will receive the chapter’s highest honor, their Lifetime Achievement Award.
As part of the annual festivities, the chapter will convey all of this season’s New York Sire Stakes and U.S. Trotting District 8 Awards, which will be presented in addition to the year-end awards for horses and horsepeople from the local tracks.
The Monticello-Goshen chapter will also honor Max J. Hempt (John Manzi Leadership Award); Wanda Polisseni (Excelsior Award); Chris Coyle (John Gilmour Good Guy Award); Rebecca Howard (Amy Bull Crist Distinguished Service Award); Elizabeth Lewis-House (Phil Pines Award); Winbak Farm (Cradle of the Trotter Breeders Award); William Carter (Rising Star); and Kristin Hopkins (Mighty M Award of Appreciation).
Funds raised through the banquet and souvenir journal have allowed the Monticello-Goshen Chapter to give well over $165,000 to Goshen Historic Track and the Harness Racing Museum & Hall of Fame over the last two decades. The Track and the Museum are two separate and distinct entities that share the same hallowed ground and a mutual purpose of preserving and promoting harness racing.
The practice of raising money and donating funds to Historic Track and the Hall of Fame began in the mid-1970s with Monticello Raceway publicity icon John Manzi and has continued ever since. This year’s banquet and souvenir journal will be dedicated to the late John Manzi for his decades of tireless promoting and supporting harness racing in our region, who passed away on Oct. 28 at the age of 82.
Tickets for the gala event at The Country Club at Otterkill, Campbell Hall, N.Y., can be reserved by contacting Shawn Wiles at 845-798-4074, or Email: swiles@rwcatskills.com.
To place a congratulatory ad, or a John Manzi remembrance ad in the souvenir journal, please contact Chris Tully at 845-807-7538, or Email: tullytrot@yahoo.com.