Turf Writer

Biography: Donnelly inherited the racing bug from his father, racing writer and Chicago racing steward, Russ Harris, who’d take him to the Hialeah backstretch as a young child. As a teenager, the allure of getting paid to pick winners prompted Donnelly to take up professional handicapping. Following in his dad’s footsteps as a writer at the Miami Beach Sun, he was encouraged to change his last name so there’d be no show of favoritism when he was hired. He and his father, now 88 years old, own horses together under the name Silver Lake Stable. Their first homebred, Ann’s Smart Dancer, is a multiple PA-bred stakes winner. One of his sons, Jeffrey, is a trainer at Penn National. Donnelly currently calls charts for Equibase.