Driver David Miller and breeder William Weaver will be on this summer’s ballot for election to the Living Hall of Fame, the U.S. Harness Writers Association announced Monday.
Veteran writers on a screening committee, after discussion with an advisory committee of Hall of Famers, take nominations sent in by USHWA chapters and select nominees to go before the voters. Nominees must receive 75 percent approval from the voters, which are qualified members of USHWA and Living Hall of Fame members, to be elected to the Hall of Fame.
Miller ranks fourth in harness racing history for purses, with $169.5 million, and eighth in wins, with 10,723. The 48-year-old Ohio native has won at least $10 million in purses in a year a record 11 times.
In 2003, Miller drove No Pan Intended to the Pacing Triple Crown and was named Driver of the Year by the U.S. Harness Writers Association. He has won a total of 11 Triple Crown races (trotting and pacing) and 12 Breeders Crown events. He is a three-time winner of the Little Brown Jug and in 2011 joined Billy Haughton as the only drivers to win the Little Brown Jug and Jugette in the same year.
Miller dominated racing in Ohio before moving to the East Coast in 1999. He was the leading driver at Scioto Downs for eight consecutive years (1991-98) and on the Ohio Sire Stakes circuit for seven consecutive years (1992-98). He also has won driving titles at Freehold Raceway, the Meadowlands and Garden State Park.
Weaver has owned horses since the late 1960s, finishing second with The Prophet in the 1969 Hambletonian, but made his mark as a breeder beginning in 1988 when his Valley Victory won the Breeders Crown and the Dan Patch Award for best 2-year-old male trotter. Undefeated in seven races at age 3, Valley Victory was retired because of illness and began his career as a stallion. He produced three Hambletonian winners: Victory Dream, the filly Continentalvictory and Muscles Yankee.
Valley Victory’s sons Victory Dream and Yankee Glide sired Hambletonian winners Self Possessed and Glidemaster, who captured the 2006 Trotting Triple Crown. Muscles Yankee sired three consecutive Hambletonian winners in Deweycheatumnhowe, Muscle Hill and Muscle Massive.
Other top horses sired by Valley Victory include Lookout Victory, Rum Boogie, Lindy Lane, Donerail, Southwind Allaire, Armbro Monarch, Act Of Grace, Bullville Victory and Must Be Victory.
Weaver’s Valley High Stable is listed as the breeder of only 346 horses, but has produced a number of big-money earners. His credits of horses with at least $500,000 in earnings include Chocolatier, Laddie, Fun And Strokes, Sugar Trader, Was It A Dream, Juliets Fate (a rare pacing Breeders Crown winner), Quick Credit, Count The Goal, China Princess, and Elusive Desire.
In 2012, Weaver-bred colt trotter Wheeling N Dealin and filly trotter To Dream On were Breeders Crown winners and U.S. divisional two-year-old champions, a feat last accomplished 22 years ago. Overall, Weaver has bred five Breeders Crown champions and four second-place finishers and ranks No. 12 among all breeders in Crown earnings.
Miller and Weaver will be joined on the ballot by two veterans of the U.S. Trotting Association, Carol Cramer and John Pawlak, for election to the Communicators Hall of Fame. The election results are traditionally announced just after Labor Day, with the honorees feted first at the annual USHWA awards banquet, to be held at Dover Downs on Feb. 23 of next year, and then formally inducted into the Hall of Fame on the Sunday of Fourth of July weekend.
(USHWA)