Oldford, of Croswell, Mich., has been named USHWA's 2013 Amateur Driver of the Year and it is hard to come up with a more stellar list of accomplishments than those he has achieved this year.
He is this year's Billings overall point champion as well as the points champ in the Billings midwest region and a winner of one of the Billings Series finals. The Billings Amateur Driving Championship has emerged as the biggest and most notable amateur driving series on the continent.
Besides his prowess this year in the Billings Series, Oldford is a member of many other amateur driving clubs and has won at least one race in the Great Lakes Club, the Florida Club, the North American Amateur Drivers Association, and the Catskill Club.
He also was a division winner of the Hambletonian Amateur Trots and he organized the amateur driving portion of the USTA Driving School which was held in New York this past summer.
Few, if any, are more enthusiastic about amateur racing than Oldford and when told he was named USHWA’s Amateur Driver of the Year he said happily, “It’s (amateur racing) a lot of fun and I’ll go anywhere to drive a harness horse.
It wasn’t until 2006 that he earnestly began serious participation in amateur racing. However, since then Oldford has recorded 83 driving victories and is a force to be reckoned with every time he’s on the racetrack. And as a great supporter of amateur racing there have been many times that he has supplied an extra horse that was needed to fill an amateur event.
Over the years Steve has been a three-time winner of the Harness Racing Museum and Hall of Fame Amateur Driver of the Year Award; Michigan Amateur Driver of the Year; US representative to international amateur driving challenges in Europe and New Zealand; founder and president of GLADA; vice president of the C.K.G. Billings Harness Driving Series; and recently was named a trustee at the Harness Racing Museum and Hall of Fame.
Oldford is also active in USTA affairs as a member of the Board of Directors representing Michigan.