Richard Witt
Home: East Windsor, NJ
Age: 53
Occupation: Football and Nascar analyst, New York Post.
Road to the Finals: Qualified fourth in the Reno Hilton Summer Showdown on June 20-21.
Bio: Makes his National Handicapping Championship debut off his strong placement in this year's Reno Hilton Summer Showdown, a contest Witt won in its 2001 inaugural event. A frequent high finisher in selected Thoroughbred tournament forays, Witt also has won such all-star football handicapping competitions as the 1997 Stardust Invitational and the 2000 Don Best/Heritage Invitational. A graduate of Northwestern University. Early freelance ventures included Turf and Sport Digest and American Turf Monthly, where he presented the first extensive public trainer-pattern studies of the modern era. Witt advanced from early feature-writing/desk stints with Chicago's afternoon newspapers to Daily Racing Form's Arlington Park chart crew. This began a lengthy Daly Racing Form career stretching from the Annenberg days to the current administration. Following a six-year stint as chart caller/reporter/columnist, Witt moved to DRFıs New Jersey advertising department in sales/creative roles, eventually becoming the National Advertising Director in the mid-90s. Witt also inaugurated the popular Wildcat football handicapping column in the Racing Form in mid-'90s, moving the consistently successful feature to the New York Post in 1997 where it remains today. Witt also "writes the board" with NFL analysis for the Sunday Post, and inaugurated Post NASCAR analysis in 2003, with eight top-selection winners (at average odds of better than 8-1) in NASCAR's final season under the Winston Cup banner. Maintains thoroughbred industry contacts as sole advertising rep for the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association's monthly publication, "New York Racing". Long-time Las Vegas radio host John Kelly has referred to Witt as "the strongest combination of thoroughbred racing and football handicapping talent of anyone I know."
Photo: Reno Hilton