Odds On Racing - Harness Racing

Odds On Racing's

Personality of the Month
for January 2008

Dean Hoffman

Dean Hoffman is one of harness racing's most widely read and respected journalists involved in the sport today.

Hoffman has been an intricale part of racing for the last four decades, and his writings have appeared in publications in Sweden, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Norway, Denmark and New Zealand. As well, he has been a guest speaker on harness racing in the U.S., Australia, Norway, Sweden and Great Britain.

Dean Hoffman

He served as the executive editor of Hoof Beats magazine for 25 years and is one of the world’s most respected authorities on harness racing, earning him the 2005 Harness Tracks of America’s highest honor, the Stan Bergstein Messenger Award.

Hoffman is the author of four books and of hundreds of articles on the leading personalities – human and equine – in world harness racing. A guest lecturer at the University of Arizona Race Track Industry Program for 25 years and a member of the board of directors of American Horse Publications for the lst decade, Hoffman has won numerous writing awards in national competitions, including HTA’s Dan Patch award in 2003 "for his immense contributions to the literature of harness racing," and Harness Horsemen International’s Media Award in 1999.

A 1971 cum laude bachelor of science graduate in journalism at Ohio University, Hoffman went to work that fall as publicity director for the fall Grand Circuit meeting at the historic Red Mile in Lexington under Biff Lowry. That was the year of Steady Star’s world record of 1:52 for a mile for Joe O’Brien, the back-to-back miles in 1:54.4 by Albatross for Stanley Dancer, Speedy Crown’s record trotting mile for Howard Beissinger, and the then record sales price of the yearling Good Humor Man.

Those events and immortals of the sport would have been enough to set any young enthusiast on a lifetime course in the sport, but Hoffman had started well before that. As a high school and college student, he worked as a groom for two summers at Walnut Hall Farm and two for the great Ohio owner Samuel Huttenbauer. For two years after graduation from college Dean was assistant to the manager of Stoner Creek Stud, Norman Woolworth’s and David Johnston’s great nursery in Paris, KY, and he worked as a summer intern and in the track department of USTA.

For eight years, from 1973 to 1981, Hoffman worked for advertising and public relations companies in Cincinnati and Columbus, winding up as director of public information for investor-owned companies with the Ohio Electric Utility Institute in Columbus. Then, in 1981, he joined USTA to start the brilliant career that has made him an international harness racing celebrity in Europe and Australia.