HTA announces honors

Carol Cramer and Ray Brienza, two veteran contributors to harness racing, have been named the 2007 recipients of Harness Tracks of America’s Distinguished Service Award and Dan Patch Award, respectively.

Cramer, editor of the U.S. Trotting Association’s annual Stakes Guide, one of the sport’s most valuable publications for horsemen, was co-founder of that guide in 1968 and has been its sole editor for 39 years.

Brienza began writing harness racing for the old Newark Evening News in 1953 as a copy boy still in college. He began full time at the News two years later, switched to the Newark Star-Ledger when the News folded in 1972, and has written for New Jersey’s largest newspaper ever since. He has covered the sport from the press box of the Meadowlands since the flagship track of the sport opened in 1976.

Cramer joined the staff of the USTA in 1965, fresh from a racing career in Michigan, and was assigned to editing USTA’s best-selling Care and Training of the Trotter and Pacer. A year later, when Delvin Miller suggested to HTA executive director Stan Bergstein, then also serving as vice president of publicity and PR at USTA, that a stakes guide would be a valuable tool for horsemen in the sport, Cramer was tapped to compile the reference work.

The first meeting was held in Columbus, Ohio, followed by others in Chicago, Toronto and Montreal before the Guide became a reality. One of Cramer’s first improvements and inspirations was to move the frequent December meetings of racing secretaries to Florida, where it has become an annual feature and where the sport’s stakes schedules are worked on by the racing secretaries. The book then is compiled and edited by Cramer, and is a must-have item for stakes schedulers and harness horse owners everywhere. She has produced the Guide ever since, adding improvements and updates almost annually. Some 20 years ago she developed a Yearling Nomination book, then an Events Calendar, both popular features in the sport today.

Cramer has been a Grand Circuit steward for 25 years, and secretary of that historic organization for the last 10 years. She also is a 15-year member of the Equine Science and Management Advisory Committee for the Laurel Oaks Equine School; assists in her local Fayette county fair in Ohio, working in the race office and as an associate judge; and ministers to the needs of her two trotters, who have been racing at The Meadows these days.

Cramer and Brienza will receive their awards at HTA’s annual Nova Awards Dinner at the Diplomat Country Club in Hollywood, Fla., Sunday night, March 11. Owners of the champion harness horses of 2006, and other dignitaries of the sport, will be honored by HTA at the dinner. (HTA press release)

« Back