Phil Pines dies

Phillip A. Pines, 82, the longtime director of the Harness Racing Museum and Hall of Fame, himself a member of the Communicators' Hall of Fame, died Tuesday in Middletown, N.Y. after a long illness.

For many years Mr. Pines had been the sport’s prime historian. “I acquired the knowledge of the history of harness racing through the extensive research and requests for information that come to the museum,” Mr. Pines once told Hall of Fame writer Joe Goldstein in a 1977 Hoof Beats interview.

Having lived his entire life in the “Cradle of the Trotter,” Goshen, N.Y., where harness racing was part of the local fabric, it was little wonder that Pines would become involved in the sport.

An expert painter, Mr. Pines saw his first Hambletonian at Good Time Park--Goshen’s kite-shaped mile track--in 1935, the year in which the great Greyhound was victorious.

A graduate of the Goshen school system he volunteered as an air cadet at age 17 and at the end of World War II was assigned to the message center at Hickham Field in Hawaii, with his main duty designing posters for the Air Force in the Pacific Theater.

It was through his painting of trotting horses on ties that got him involved in the racing business in his hometown.

When Elliott Emerson was appointed the first director of the Hall of Fame of the Trotter, Mr. Pines was hired to setup the first exhibits. In 1963 Mr. Pines became the director of the Hall, a position he held for more than 35 years.

Through his tenure as director, Mr. Pines became associated with the “Who’s Who” of harness racing, including men such as Tom Murphy, William H. Cane and E. Roland Harriman.

A multiple John Hervey Award winner for writing and broadcasting, Mr. Pines’ famous “Cracker Barrel Sessions” with the famous personalities in the sport are legendary, as is his “Complete Book of Harness Racing,” which has had multiple printings since he first wrote it in the 1970s.

A longtime member of the U.S. Harness Writers’ Association, Mr. Pines was a past president of its Monticello-Goshen Chapter, and served as national USHWA president in 1983-1984.

For years he served as the master of ceremonies at the Hall of Fame banquet on the lawn of the Museum, and he always closed the banquet singing, “And now we say goodbye to all our family…M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E.”

Of utmost importance to Mr. Pines was his family. Up in years when he and his lovely wife Jane had a daughter, Jennie, Mr. Pines--with tongue in cheek--claimed the title of “Aged Stallion of the Year.”

Always involved in the community, he was also a deeply religious man. He served as clerk of session at the First Presbyterian Church of Goshen and later as a lay preacher.

There, arguably, was no greater gentleman, in every sense of the word, than Phil Pines. The racing world is fortunate to have a man of his caliber devote his life to the Standardbred sport.

At press time, not much is known about funeral arrangements, but his wife, Jane, says there will be a memorial service somewhere in Goshen on Jan. 10.--By John Manzi

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