Catherine Stearns Medich of Lawrenceville is the new chair of the New Jersey Sire Stakes Board of Trustees for 2010

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Stearns Medich succeeds Thomas A. D’Altrui as head of the Board, which oversees the lucrative State Department of Agriculture harness racing program for two- and three-year-old state-sired pacers and trotters at The Meadowlands and Freehold Raceway.

Stearns Medich, who holds master’s degrees in history and library services from Rutgers University, is assistant head of reference services for the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton. She also is a graduate of Dickinson College.

She has had an extensive background in the standardbred horse industry, including administrative assistant at the Hambletonian Society and an assistant to two major horse sales companies handling stakes entry management, researching eligibility of horses to stakes races and organizing video and photographic archives.

Dr. David A. Meirs II, VMD, founder of one of New Jersey’s most prestigious standardbred horse breeding farms, was selected vice chair. He is the president of Walnridge Farm located on 300 acres in Cream Ridge, Meirs also founded the Walnridge Equine Clinic, which is now operated by his son, Dr. Richard S. Meirs, VMD.

D’Altrui, a standardbred breeder from Hillsborough, continues as a member of the Board, along with Anthony Perretti, general manager of his family’s Perretti Farms in Cream Ridge, and New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture Douglas H. Fisher.

(NJSS)