Team Valor announces Stanley Bergstein Writing Award

The Stanley Bergstein Writing Award has been instituted by Team Valor

International in order to foster the type of writing engaged in by the

recently-deceased horse racing giant and author of hard-hitting racing

journalism.

CEO Barry Irwin, a former turf writer who greatly admired Mr. Bergstein's

Daily Racing Form columns, will select the winner from a list of stories

chosen for consideration by a group of five panelists to be named next year.

Four panelists will be appointed each year by Jeff Lowe, who was an

award-winning turf writer prior to joining Team Valor as media director. Lowe

will serve as the fifth panelist.

Writers may also submit their own pieces for consideration. There are no

restrictions as to where the pieces are published, whether in print or on-line,

in newspapers, magazines or blogs. More information is available at

www.teamvalor.com.

Stanley Bergstein passed away earlier this month in his adopted home of

Tucson, Arizona. He was an influential Op/Ed writer on important issues facing

horse racing.

Team Valor will announce the winner at 11 a.m. (EST) on December 4, 2012, in

Lexington, Kentucky at a luncheon in the Thoroughbred Club of America adjacent

to Keeneland, where the recipient will receive a trophy commemorating the

achievement, as well as a check in the amount of $25,000.

Irwin began in racing as a writer with The Blood-Horse, later editor of The

Thoroughbred of California and wrote a syndicated column for Daily Racing Form.

The past 15 years he has contributed editorial pieces to The Blood-Horse,

Thoroughbred Daily News and the Paulick Report.

In explaining his desire to reward turf writers for journalistic excellence,

Irwin said "There was a time in the 1990s when I felt singularly alone in

tackling some of the sport's most daunting issues. When Mr. Bergstein began to

write his columns for Daily Racing Form and Andy Beyer wrote similarly in the

Washington Post, I was relieved and I greatly appreciated their content.

"In the current climate of a drastically shrinking amount of space devoted to

coverage of racing in the print media, I think it is important to lend support

to those writers still plying their trade, by establishing a path for them to

take on the important issues facing the sport, in hopes that by doing so they

will move racing's participants to effect positive changes.

"Not all writers and publications seem interested in this sort of thing. Now

that Mr. Bergstein has departed the scene, I want to do something to encourage

turf writers to pick up where he left off and establish a trend.

"Hopefully, the Stanley Bergstein Writing Award will encourage turf writers

to branch out and take a different look at what is going on in racing that

requires some attention in the press."