Happy New Year! All of us at Harness Racing Update send our deep gratitude to our advertisers, readers and contributors for the support in 2017.

We are proud to announce we have added more than 900 new subscribers in 2017 as we continue to post steady growth. In 2015, HRU had 114,265 visitors to its website. That number nearly doubled in 2016 to 200,455 and, through Dec. 30, that number had increased to 229,065. Keep in mind that in 2016 HRU added the option to directly download issues from emails and the subscribers that choose that option are not included in the visitor totals when they access the publication that way.

In 2016, we listed our Top 5 stories by the number of shares they received.

For 2017, our production guru Brian Fuller did one better and calculated the most read HRU stories of the year using stats gathered as of 5 pm EST on Dec. 30.

Here are our most read stories of 2017:

1. Allard horse receives positive for Codeine and Morphine at Woodbine | April 7 (6,398 views)

2. Why Takter is planning his exit  | Oct. 5 (6,197 views)

3. Somebeachsomewhere undergoing chemotherapy to battle cancer | Nov. 19 (5,000 views)

4. Campbell’s last drive promises to be legendary | March 19 (4,030 views)

5. Brett Pelling returning to the U.S. to resume training career | Jan. 8 (3,846 views)