HARRISBURG PA – Derick Giwner, a director of the New York
City Chapter of the United States Harness Writers Association (USHWA), who will
in 2020 celebrate his 25th year with the highly-regarded racing
publication starting life as Sports Eye and now part of the mammoth Daily
Racing Form empire, has been selected as the Member of the Year in USHWA (also
known as USHWAn of the Year) by a blue-ribbon committee headed by the
association’s president Shawn Wiles.
In announcing Giwner’s selection, Wiles said, “Derick’s
passion and hard work over the years has not gone unnoticed by his fellow USHWA
members. His unique and interesting articles are refreshing, and often tailored
to the blood of the industry, the handicappers of the sport.”
Born in Brooklyn and now a resident of Massapequa Park NY,
Giwner, a Hofstra graduate, noted his family “worked in the automobile trade,
which is kind of ironic,” but the change in horsepower to the kind in the sulky
sport began with attendance at Yonkers Raceway as a teen. Later, he would
answer a newspaper ad for an editorial position with Sports Eye, and with the
showing of his abilities came enlarged responsibilities, resulting in his
present position of Editor of DRF Harness for the Daily Racing Form.
Giwner was a major spearhead behind this fall’s innovative
cooperative effort between the DRF and the U.S. Trotting Association in
creating educative handicapping materials, both print and video, around the
time of the Breeders Crown events at Woodbine Mohawk Park, efforts that tried
to both make thoroughbred players take a chance on harness gambling (often by
pointing out the sports’ commonalities) and also give non-racing fans a deeper
understanding of what goes into reading the program and picking a winner.
In USHWA, Giwner has been a Director of the New York City
Chapter for four years. He serves on the Association’s important Integrity and
Budget Committees, and is also on committees for planning of the annual Dan
Patch Banquet and its Journal, and for gathering new USHWA members.
As is virtually everybody who worked for Sports Eye, Giwner
is a top-level handicapper and chartcaller. He also announces, and he recorded
driving victories in three purse races and several others in events for
amateurs.
Derick Giwner will be honored at USHWA’s annual Dan Patch
Awards Banquet, celebrating the best and brightest of harness racing in the
past year. The banquet honoring the champions of 2019 will be held on Sunday,
February 23, 2020 at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando FL, the climax
of a weekend that also finds USHWA holding its annual national meetings. The
Trotter of the Year, Pacer of the Year, and Horse of the Year will be revealed
for the first time at the Banquet.
Tickets for the Dan Patch Awards Banquet are $180, with a
filet mignon dinner featured; “post times” on February 23 are cocktails at 5:30
p.m., with dinner to follow. Tickets, and other Banquet-related information,
can be obtained through Dinner Planning Committee Chair Judy Davis-Wilson, at zoe8874@aol.com or 302 359 3630.
Hotel reservations for those attending can be made through
USHWA’s website, www.ushwa.net; a link to
the hotel’s computer is on the front page of the website. Those who would like
to take out congratulatory ads for awardwinners in the always-popular Dan Patch
Awards Journal can do so by contacting Kim Rinker at trotrink@aol.com or 708 557 2790 (the 2019
journal is online at the writers’ website).
