Born in Montclair, NJ in 1931, Alan Prince knew from a young age that he wanted to be a journalist. In 1947 he began his first job at a weekly newspaper, reporting sports statistics for local teams. Following his graduation from New York University, Prince was drafted into the Army to fight in the Korean War. After his tour of duty, ended, he began work for a publishing company. It didn’t last more than a year, because it wasn’t what he wanted. He engineered his dismissal and went back to newspapering because that’s where he knew he belonged.

 Though Prince was certain about his career in journalism, it wasn’t until 1959, when he took a vacation to the Catskills, that he realized his true calling as a harness writer. It was on that trip that he saw his first Standardbred race at Monticello Raceway and immediately fell in love with the sport of harness racing. At the time he was working as a sports editor

for The Union Leader, a weekly newspaper based in New Jersey. When Prince returned to work, he added harness coverage to his responsibilities and joined the New York City chapter of the USHWA.

In 1961, after hearing word of a new harness track being built in southern Florida, Prince applied for an editorial position at the Miami Herald. He was hired as a news editor, with an agreement that once Pompano Park opened they would consider making him the paper’s harness writer. However, once the track opened in 1964, the Herald didn’t consider the track to be of enough interest to warrant redirecting Prince’s attention from the news desk. 

During the 25 years Prince spent at the Miami Herald, he assumed many different job titles, including assistant photo editor, special sections editor, editor of the international edition and travel editor. Despite this array of responsibilities, his devotion to harness racing remained strong. He continued to request permission to report on Pompano Park, and eventually was rewarded with a few additional hours a week to act as the paper’s harness handicapper and writer. Knowing the Herald would never agree to pay him for covering out-of-town races, Prince used his annual vacation time to visit principal tracks, including Kentucky’s Red Mile for the Kentucky Futurity and the DuQuoin (IL) State Fair for the Hambletonian. The articles he would write from his observations would then appear in the Miami Herald. 

In November 1964, Prince founded the Florida chapter of USHWA, which he served as president during the late 1960s. He currently serves as secretary-treasurer, a position he has held for the last 44 years. At the USHWA national dinner in 1970, held at Roosevelt Raceway, Prince was elected treasurer for USHWA National, a position he has held for the last 37 years. He received the USHWAn of the Year award in 1986 and the first Joseph A. Vaccaro Memorial Award in 2007. 

When Prince left the Miami Herald in 1987, he was teaching part-time at the University of Miami. With his newly acquired free time, he took on a larger role at the school, teaching and lecturing in the department of journalism. In 2003, he accepted a position at a second institution, teaching News and News Reporting at Florida Atlantic University.

Aside from his success with journalism and teaching, Prince is also a talented magician. He is a member of the Society of American Magicians, the International Brotherhood of Magicians and the International Magicians’ Society.