What kind of car do you drive? Nissan SUV. Favorite dinner meal? Snack? Favorite cuisine is currently Vietnamese, but it changes. I like to cook and Swordfish/salmon/a fat steak off the grill are my favorites. I am a grazer, so I’m constantly snacking. I like cookies. Anyone who follows you on social media knows that food plays a major role in your life. What is your favorite restaurant? Is it that obvious? In Lexington, Le Deauville . . . French Bistro with wonderful food and very social. I drink more than I eat there. Tony’s is a Steakhouse of the first order. Blue Door Smokehouse for BBQ. In New Jersey, Il Villagio is a fabulous Italian and Continental cuisine place. In Florida, my friends and I love to lunch at Flanigans for the wings. Aruba on the Beach is the quintessential beach bar. El Mar Café has the best breakfast on the beach. What is your favorite all-time track to visit? The Red Mile is a unique experience beyond the finest Grand Circuit racing. The Meadowlands is still the king when the stakes season begins. To be relevant in the business you must operate at Meadowlands. What is your favorite big event in racing? Grand Circuit and The Red Mile. How often is racing on your mind? More than you would expect. What is your favorite thing to do outside of racing? Fun comes first! I feel fortunate to have that perspective. Life is to be lived. What is your favorite sport to watch? Team? I’m not much of a sports guy. I like Aaron Rodgers, he seems smart and cool, so I do root for the Packers to make the playoffs. I got caught up in the Jimmy Butler hype during the NBA finals. I enjoy rooting against Tiger (Woods). What is one thing about you most fans/bettors don’t know? With a few exceptions, I doubt they know who I am or anything about me. What is one word that describes harness racing for you? Way of life and I am grateful. How did you get started in the sport? My father, John, quit his factory job and bought two cheap horses in 1969 (I was 11 and became infatuated). He became a trainer and those two horses did absurdly well, so it became our life. I never considered anything else. You had success as a trainer and driver during your career. Why did you stop each? Training: Overnight racing became largely a horse-doping contest in the 90’s thus I became uncompetitive. As much as I loved the horses, horsemanship came to mean less than a good pre-race and a good line of BS. I got to the point where I just didn’t want to do it anymore. I had the great good fortune to find work within the industry beyond actively racing horses, largely due to Roger Huston, who gave me a chance. Driving: I had a few highlights and was pretty competitive at The Meadows but I was borderline too big to be a catch driver. When I had horses to race in the East there was a fairly long list of guys that were better at it. Can you tell me about all the different jobs have you held in harness racing? Yes, I could, but it is just not that interesting. I will say that having been on both sides of the racetrack gives great perspective and I feel my greatest worth to my employers is borne of that. I have done pretty much all there is to do and I can occasionally take some of the guesswork out of the application. Of those, which is/was your favorite? In my opinion being a Race Secretary is just the worst job there is in racing so I avoid that as much as I can. I enjoy the freedom my current employers afford me. I am unable to stay in any one place for very long and while I thought that might ebb as I grew older, the opposite is true. I’ll say the best part for me is when we create and I am assigned to work out the application, ie, the TVG, Graduate Series and other innovations. What is your official job title right now? Jeff (Gural) christened me “American Racing’s Good Will Ambassador” several years ago. I should have had hats made. What is it like to work for Jeff Gural? Well, it has made me smarter and certainly more objective. I am not a big “drinker of the Kool Aid” and Jeff is a brilliant, complicated man, so it took me years to understand and appreciate him and I’m grateful to have had the chance. Sure, it has been uncomfortable at times as I’m a “Can’t we all get along” guy and he knows that is folly . . . I am slowly getting it. Most of my work-related exchanges are with Jason Settlemoir who has become my close friend and is the perfect foil for Gural. What is the best advice you’ve ever gotten about harness racing? I can’t think of any. I tend to learn by observation. Sadly, as I age, I am far less tolerant of the mundane. What was your favorite moment in harness racing? Lots of fond memories, nothing singular comes to mind. Which is the best horse you’ve ever trained or driven? Ravenova was a $30k purchase at 2 that set a world record at Pompano Park as a 3-year-old gelding in 1982 with me driving, but he was pretty much a speed rat. He may be the only horse to have a winning record against Cam Fella as Ravenova was second in the Los Alamitos Spring Championship final while ‘Cam’ got wiped out by a breaking horse in what was their only meeting. My dad had a really good horse named The Consigliori that I drove. He raced against Niatross in his final race at Pompano in 1980. I think we ran third. Which horse is/was your all-time favorite? Elan Spur. I bought him cheap with my friend Johnny Sokol, who made him better. He made us lots of money and was a kind, smart, beautiful horse. You are often on the road traveling from Florida to New Jersey to New York to Kentucky. How many miles do you put on your car each year? 18,421 Which location would you consider to be home? Each location has its strong points. I describe myself as a drifter. You handled racing secretary duties this year for Tioga. What was that like? Fortune smiled upon me again as although I did not expect to spend the summer there it was far better than being in Jersey. Jeff and Paula (Gural) kindly offered that I stay in their beautiful farmhouse at Allerage PA and that made the summer far more comfortable. It was a difficult year for those racing horses, with less opportunity and reduced purses. You play a major role in setting up the stakes schedule for The Meadowlands, Vernon and Tioga. How difficult is it to make everything work industry-wide? The greatest issue in my opinion is the cannibalization of the Grand Circuit stakes by the various regional programs. Before slots, the Sires Stakes were a fallback position and served nicely as such. Now we lose horses in major Grand Circuit stakes to Sires Stakes when they conflict. That is annoying, but there is no way to avoid all of those. We have a good rapport with the few other tracks that race most of the Grand Circuit stakes and together we try to give owners the best chance to maximize earnings. I thought WEG and The Red Mile did a great job in response to the unique circumstances of 2020 and I’d like to think we made the best of it for those who support our stakes. In a year where many stakes were cancelled or raced for reduced purses, those entities got virtually the full complement of stakes raced for the entire purse as advertised. If you could choose any horse in history to train or drive, which horse would it be and why? I will say Niatross . . . he was a unicorn. How has COVID-19 affected your life? Far less than most. I have gone about my life as usual without consequence. Tested twice, negative. If you had the power to change one thing in the sport, what would it be? We need uniform regulations governed by one entity. It is complicated, I get that. Personally, I am appalled by the USTA stance on the Safety and Integrity Act. That is going to be passed and the Standardbred business is going to be on record as opposed to something that has “Safety & Integrity” right in the title. I am of a mind to not pay the membership dues for my renewal because they are arbitrarily spending hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting it without properly consulting the body of members. I resigned as a Director a few years ago out of frustration with how they operate and no one even bothered to ask why. How do you view the future of harness racing? Concerned, bordering on worried. Time for the stretch drive: Best Horse You Ever Saw?: Niatross Best Driver Ever?: John Campbell Best Trainer Ever?: Jimmy Takter Lasix – Yes or No?: It’s gone, start asking how we’re going to deal with it. Favorite TV Show?: Two and a Half Men. Charlie is my role model. Trotters or Pacers?: Trotters