Hammer named Good Guy

Roger Hammer, the "King of the Pennsylvania County Fairs," who competed against racing's royalty in 2005 with this year's Hambletonian winner, Vivid Photo, has been voted the winner of the W.R. Haughton Memorial Good Guy Award by the U.S. Harness Writers Association.



The down-home Hammer, from Bedford, Pa., certainly has been a superb ambassador for harness racing this summer and fall. He has unstintingly cooperated with the press, whether in victory or defeat, giving insightful, straightforward answers--with a touch of self-deprecating humor thrown in--and he has exhibited his horse before crowds all over the eastern half of the country, including a special non-racing parading of Vivid Photo before the Little Brown Jug crowd in Delaware, Ohio on the classic's raceday.



Hammer, 59, has won 3,200 races and driven the winners of almost $16 million in his 40-year harness racing career, and like his late father, Clay, Roger is a five-time national Universal Driver Rating champion.



Hammer will receive his award at the Night of Stars Awards Dinner during the Harness Racing Congress 2006, to be held at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nev. on Wednesday, Feb. 8.



For information about congratulatory ads in the dinner journal, please call Judy Davis-Wilson at (302) 659-3611 or (302) 233-3047; for further information about dinner tickets, or about the Harness Racing Congress in general, call Harness Tracks of America at (520) 529-2525.

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