Harness: Remembering those that helped mold my Hall of Fame career

It's an honor to be welcomed into the Harness Racing Hall of Fame. In addition to announcing the Horse of the Year Sunday in Orlando, the United States Harness Writers will pre-welcome this year's honorees prior to induction in Goshen this July.

The person that started out some 47 years ago with an entry level job at a newspaper, also trying to find its identity, knew something about past performances but very little of the industry and people it represented.

The people met on this journey - influencers in today's lingo - are the primary reason I stayed on this course and fell in love with a sport that would make this vocation feel more like a vacation to me many times along the way.

Perhaps like many out there, I got my job because I already knew someone. Mark Richman, a friend and neighbor on my block in Brooklyn, recommended me for the position. Mark was smarter than me then, as he is today. Mark's intelligence was more than matched by an unbridled enthusiasm for the job and an intense passion for perfection.

While those readers of Sports Eye would see Mark as one of the best professional handicappers, a level he achieved, mind you, by hours upon hours of intense scrutiny of track programs, I saw him as a person dedicated to putting out the highest of quality of information for the public to read. His primary efforts were to read the previous night's charts and scrutinize the accuracy and detail in each race. From Mark I learned that quality was not just job one, but two, three and four as well. The numbers, representing horses on the racetrack, had to be accurate. Sports Eye's reputation would be built on these pillars and since its charts included written commentary, it was vital that all the details were precise from the winner to the horse finishing last. Proofreading was my first job, and thanks to Mark, I learned the value of making sure everything within your control came out right.

Chart calling was the backbone of Sports Eye's arrival on the trotting scene, and the essence of how it garnered a reputation among gamblers. In the mid-70's past performance information was rather limited, and the newspaper and its employees would change that forever. Geoff Stein was more than a mentor to me when it came to understanding how to chart-call and how to describe the action in word form. A language was being born for the first time, and Stein would help craft that. For an upstart like me, it was night school while getting paid. The lessons would last a lifetime, while the money might make it only to the eighth race.

The lessons primarily were invaluable in that Geoff was able to convert me from someone that focused (with binoculars) on a single horse in each race. The idea was to be able to watch every horse and detail their progress throughout the mile. Generally, this was near-impossible to do on the first view and required replay to complete the job. At the time you had to be quick and efficient because pre-internet the replay would only run once after the race and then not again until the next day.

Charlie Singer introduced me to the stopwatch and the value of quality binoculars. Singer, a schoolmate of Stein when they both attended Brandeis University during the day and Rockingham Park at night, was the conduit to the Meadowlands for Sports Eye and will never get the credit he truly deserved for the effort. But those binoculars were military quality and weighed a ton. They were crystal clear and were essential in seeing everything over the one-mile track. Charlie was instrumental in helping me meet the drivers and trainers on the backstretch through his position at the Meadowlands. He had an affinity for New England horsemen, having grown up betting on Jim Doherty and Ted Wing.

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Later in years, Stein and Singer would help me improve as a writer, with the former looking to soften up my stance on many occasions, and the latter cheering me to be more aggressive.

It was that inspiration by Singer that motivated me to call out drivers at times where effort was questionable or lacking all together.

Jack Cohen, the late publisher of Sports Eye, was behind the scenes most of the time but was front and center sticking up for me when I wrote something challenging the establishment. There were political matters at hand that could have swayed him to avoid controversy and stick with the status quo. Cohen heard the complaints about my writing, told me who was offering them, and then continued to support my work. Perhaps it was the fact that his company was an upstart in the racing business, and he didn't mind ruffling some feathers either.

While not influencers, I can't thank Moira Fanning and Tom Charters enough for being influential in the path of my career from the infancy of the Breeders Crown through today. Putting trust in my ability with a morning-line or storyline at a time when there were far more experienced people to choose from was significant towards gaining wider acceptance for what I did.

While I may have made enemies along the way, I'm thankful that many horsemen I have been critical of have come to appreciate what I've written and said on other occasions.

Speaking of horsemen, it goes without saying that without the incredible dedication of those in this industry there would be nothing to write about. That work goes on 24-7 and 365 while my work takes a small fraction of that time.

It has been a tremendous ride that thankfully still continues. You don't plan to reach the Hall of Fame, but sometimes all of the pieces in your life come together to make it happen. Luckily for me, they did.