Two of harness racing’s most dynamic young achievers, driver Braxten Boyd and communicator John Rallis, have been selected to receive Dan Patch Awards in voting by the United States Harness Writers Association, who is also recognizing two of the sport’s “favorite” people of a slightly more-seasoned vintage: driver Wally Hennessey and horse sale hospitality manager Lillie Brown.
Braxten Boyd, 25, has been selected for the Rising Star Award, which features a developing horseman aged 30 or under. Braxten entered the sport in his native Michigan, in the path of his father Brett, an accomplished horseman and one of the most influential people in the state’s harness-related politics, but he has quickly carved his own bright way. In 2025 Boyd will have his best earnings year ever and is neck-and-neck for $5 million in money-winning, and at press time he was four wins short of his previous year’s lifetime best of 337 victories in a year.
Boyd has been the leading driver at Tioga Downs the last two years, and at his base track of Pocono he was fifth in the standings – no mean feat when the four veterans above him have a combined 29,587 lifetime trips to Victory Lane. But Boyd achieved this year's award largely on the strength of his recent ability to step up his game and race well in the very best stakes company, as in 2025 with the sophomore pacer Madden Oaks, who was placed first in the $656,000 Meadowlands Pace and who was a desperate head behind sophomore leader Louprint in the $740,000 North America Cup. He also drove Black Gold to victory in a 2024 Indiana Super Final, with the horse paying $260.20 for a $2 win ticket.
Covering Boyd and Madden Oaks in both of this year’s showcase events and many other top races throughout North America was 30-year-old John Rallis, the winner of the Breakthrough Award, the front-side equivalent of the Rising Star. A harness fan since a youth, Rallis provides pre- and post-race analysis for Woodbine Mohawk Park regularly, along with notable coverage for The Meadowlands, The Red Mile, Scioto, the USTA and Daily Racing Form, and he is associate editor for TROT magazine.
From early on the well-traveled Rallis put in a large amount of hours doing all the analysis and background study he could in preparation for a broadcast, especially watching replays. He combines sharp handicapping, informed and engaging storytelling, and incisive interviewing to give his watchers the most information they can have to inform their own forming of opinions about the racing.
Like Proximity Award winner Bill O’Donnell, Wally Hennessey, the winner of the Good Guy Award, is a native of Maritime Canada, and like O’Donnell he first made his U.S. mark at Saratoga Harness. Hennessey has won many titles at both the central New York track and at Pompano Park, late of Florida, and he stands tenth on the all-time list of winning drivers with 12,103 victories, while winning 21.3% of his starts and not having a year-end UDR below .300 in 24 years.
As would benefit a Good Guy Award winner, though, it is Hennessey’s gracious, easy pleasantness, and willingness to cooperate for the good of racing and its fans, that has made him a standout favorite among patrons and horsemen alike – as his nominating biography said, “There is a never a time when visiting Wally Hennessey that he does not have a smile on his face and a cheerful hello to greet you.” When Steven Tyler of the rock group Aerosmith once visited Pompano, it was Hennessey who was there with a horse, a sulky – and a smile.
Always greeting people with a smile and warm friendliness is Lillie Brown, who worked in the publicity Office at The Meadowlands before joining up with Preferred Equine Marketing, which was the perfect setting for the talents that would help her win USHWA’s Unsung Hero Award.
She was called the “heart and soul” of the Preferred Equine’s sales office at all of the major sales, providing every manner of services to customers and potential customers who needed assistance. She always did so in a winning manner and with a natural style of conversation with those from all walks of the racing life. “An army runs on its stomach,” it is said, and Lillie showed her talents in this area as well, helping the “troops” at a sale keep going through exhausting hours with her excellent skills as a barista. Now retired from the sales office but still in hospitality at the sales, Lillie Brown is the only one of the 2025 USHWA award winners to have a voter put an exclamation point behind her name to show how much she is valued – in fact, her name showed up as Lillie Brown! twice!
Boyd, Brown, Hennessey, and Rallis will all be recognized at the 2026 Dan Patch Awards Banquet, presented by Caesars Entertainment, which will honor the best of the best of harness racing, both human and equine. The Banquet will be held on Sunday, February 22, 2026 at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando, Florida. Sponsorship information for the Banquet can be obtained from Shawn Wiles at swiles@rwcatskills.com; advertising in the souvenir Journal can be arranged through Kim Rinker at trotrink@aol.com; tickets through Judy Davis-Wilson, zoe8874@aol.com; for room reservations, click on this hotel link. More information about the Banquet and associated USHWA meetings that weekend will soon be available at www.usharnesswriters.com.
-edited release (U.S. Harness Writers Association)