Harrisburg, PA - USHWA has also elected racing official and administrator Judy Davis-Wilson and writer/editor Debbie Little to the pinnacles of their professions, membership in the Communicators Hall Of Fame.
Robert Boni’s parents took him to Yonkers Raceway as a youth, and upon his graduation from high school, he embarked on a harness racing career that has taken him through increasingly responsible stints with Pine Hollow Stud, International Standardbred, the Wall Street Stable with principal Lou Guida, Dreamaire Stud, and his present operation of his Northwood Bloodstock Company, which combines bloodstock agency, sales consultancy and breeding expertise. Along the way, Boni pioneered the usage of video as a marketing tool for selling top racehorses, dating back to 1978 and the Liberty Bell Sale.

Among the many great horses with whom Boni has been associated are Horse of the Year Nihilator, world champion Always B Miki, Pershing Square and Caressable; he has been a part of six Breeders Crown championships. For Dreamaire, Boni assembled a broodmare band that contained 20 mares with 1:55 records, at a time when no one else owned two such mares.

Boni’s impact has been greatly felt in the upper echelons of harness racing’s premier guiding associations. Boni is a trustee of the Harness Racing Museum, has written several timely and pertinent articles on major issues of the day, and is Chairman of USHWA’s Breeder, Sire, and Broodmare Awards Committee. In his capacity of vice president of the SBOA of New Jersey, Boni played a primary role in securing appropriation funding that helped revitalize racing and breeding in the Garden State.

Aldrich, Boni, Ryder, Davis-Wilson and Little will be honored in two upcoming ceremonies. They will receive their first formal recognition at the U.S. Harness Writers Association’s Dan Patch Awards Banquet, to be held at the Rosen Centre, in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 23, 2025. The second event will, of course, be their formal introductions to their Halls at Goshen on the first Sunday of July 2025.

The United States Harness Writers Association (USHWA) is the leading group of communicators about the Standardbred horse. USHWA conducts the official annual balloting for the sport’s most prestigious honors: induction into the Hall Of Fame and Communicators Hall Of Fame, along with the selection of the Horse of the Year, Trotter and Pacer of the Year, and the leading divisional horses of each season.

Each year, USHWA holds the Dan Patch Awards Banquet, honoring the best and brightest performers in North American harness racing. This banquet is the association’s principal source of funding, and with generous financial support from the harness racing and breeding industry, USHWA is able to host the banquet at a world-class facility in a world-class manner.

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