You go by the Twitter handle @InsideThePylons. Do you care to reveal your true identity? No, there is no reason to. I'm not selling or promoting anything. Plenty of people know who I am. If not, why do you keep your identity hidden? Winning bettors get banned from books for winning. You see it a lot now with sports being legal. It was bad with sports and horses before it was legal and will be bad with horses once fixed odds is legal and widespread in the future. No need to make it easy for them. Also people equate gambling with cash and think winners have lots of it. This is totally untrue today as everything I do, especially with racing, is cashless. So no reason to give anybody any ideas to do something stupid. Lots of racing industry people are thin-skinned and vindictive. If anything is said negative about them by anybody in industry, they are immediately on the phone with their boss demanding they be fired. Since I don't have a boss there is no telling what some might do. What kind of car do you drive? GMC Yukon Favorite dinner meal? Snack? Rigatoni Bolognese; Parmesan Garlic Chips What is your favorite all-time track to visit? Why? Blackfoot Idaho Fair. I've only been there once but it was the most fun and best time I've ever had at a racetrack anywhere. What is your favorite big event in racing (TB or Harness)? Why? The Red Mile during the Lexington Sale. Lots of great racing and a great sale. What is your favorite sport to watch? Team? Hockey -- Las Vegas Golden Knights What is one word that describes harness racing for you? Immersive. How did harness racing enter your life? My Grandparents started taking me to Hollywood Park harness racing when I was around 12 years old. Then I started going to Los Alamitos as much as I could after that as I lived about 5 minutes away. Going every night I got to be friends with owners, trainers and drivers. Then I jogged my first horse and I was hooked. You mention jogging horses. What other direct involvement have you had in the sport outside of betting? I've been an owner, breeder, and I'm still a licensed trainer with the USTA. Can you provide a brief timeline of your journey through when you became a professional bettor? As I stated earlier, I started going and betting young. I spent a lot of time when I was a kid figuring things out on the betting side. I went to college while in high school - my guidance counselor told me I could take two college courses per semester as a Junior and Senior to replace two high school classes - strictly so I could get out of High School at 11:30 in time to make it to Santa Anita or Hollywood Park for the races. When I skipped my college finals to fly to Golden Gate for a Pick 6 carryover, I knew it was time to stop the charade and just focus on betting. How much time do you spend wagering on harness racing vs. Thoroughbred and how has that changed over the years? Back in the day, I spent way more time on harness racing than Thoroughbreds. Now it's the complete opposite. Product deterioration is the most notable reason for it. There are other reasons but a little too complicated to discuss here. Back in the day at the Big M you could make a legitimate case for a 10/15/20-1 shot in almost every race and there would be five moves before the half. Now you are lucky if there are two moves and there are always holes for every main driver. That obviously increases the chances for the logicals and decreases the chances for the prices. I've completely removed them from my wagering pad because there are so many better options on Friday/Saturday. I wager on harness mostly on nights where it's pretty much the only product, like The Pomp [Pompano Park] and a couple nights of Hoosier and Northfield. Plus I'm always in for any decent carryover at any track. You are very critical about horse racing in general through Twitter. Why do you care so much? It's been my life. I see so many things done wrong and to see it in the shape it's in today being totally dependent on slot welfare sickens me. The worst thing is nobody cares as long as that slot welfare keeps coming in. What I can't believe is that the people who have let this happen are still making the decisions. What was your favorite moment involving harness racing? Flying on a FedEx plane across country with my horses. I loaded my horses on a pallet shipping stall on a FedEx jet and hopped on with them. I got to spend time in cockpit flying over the Rockies, etc. throughout the flight. It was from LAX to Newark. What is the best advice you've ever gotten about harness racing? Standardbreds are tough! What is the best advice you could give a current handicapper? Stop spending your time learning/refining your handicapping and spend that time figuring out and learning how to bet properly. What is the best piece of betting advice you could provide for racing? Hire somebody who knows everything there is to know about gambling and wagering. Racing is a gambling game and it employs nobody who has any competent understanding of the wagering ecosystem and its competition. How hard is it to make a living betting horses? Almost impossible. The learning curve is steep, the takeout is deadly and there is nobody or nothing out there to help people get to the next level. You have to figure it out for yourself, which is costly and ends up in failure for the vast majority. We often hear that the model for racing in general is broken. Can it be fixed? Yes, the model can be fixed. No, the model can't be fixed by anybody currently in the position to fix it. If you were given the reigns to make harness racing better, what three things would you do? Change it from its current state as a slot welfare distribution vehicle back to a gambling game. Get as many tracks on board as possible to create a team of tracks that will work together to accomplish this goal to ensure its future and leave the ones who won't behind. Get rid of everybody who is just doing nothing and cashing their status quo slot welfare paycheck. There is a huge difference between handicapping and betting. Why don't most people realize this? Because they are taught that handicapping and picking winners is what you need to do. They are taught this by the tracks, analysts and other losers. Nobody tells them that this is completely wrong. You get on public handicappers for posting wide multi-race tickets. Why? Because they always include all chalk. If they were wide with no/little chalk then that would be fine. Do you see a possible struggle as a public handicapper between giving out a ticket that has a better chance to cash today and one that makes the most sense as a long-term strategy? There should be no struggle between teaching your customers how to assuredly lose vs. possibly win. Racing has been teaching its customers to lose forever, now more than ever. How's that working out so far for racing? You can be pretty harsh on Twitter. Are there ever times when you look back and think you've taken it too far? I always try to be fair and I think I do a good job of that. I've been trying to get things changed for over three decades. I started off nice. That definitely didn't work. I've gotten way more things done being the way I am now. Do you think your Twitter criticism is constructive or destructive? It's constructive if you explain things . . . which I try to do on every major point I ever make. You don't miss much when it comes to horse racing. What type of setup do you have at home to watch? Computer, IPad and six TV's with both Dish/RTN and DirectTV. Approximately how many people do you think have blocked you on social media? The over/under is 98.5. I'd bet the under cause I only block everybody that comes up on my timeline that has me blocked and it's currently at 62. How much time do you spend handicapping/studying each week? Very little . . . probably less than 5% of most people. I look at races for one or two minutes tops. I spend a little more time handicapping a P-X sequence cause I have to figure out what everybody else is going to play in the sequence. How are you able to properly handicap a race in just two minutes? Doesn't that set you up for missing things? Two minutes is plenty for me. Would it be better to watch a replay of every horse's last 5 races? Sure, but my two minutes looking at a race strictly to figure out if I can find a way to extract money from it somehow is much better than somebody spending an hour on it trying to pick a winner. Apart from the normal doom and gloom, how do you view the future of harness racing? I think there will be serious contraction and it will survive, hopefully thrive, in a couple of states. I have no idea what those will be except they will be the ones that are the last to still receive slot welfare and get their act together on increasing handle/wagering. Time for the stretch drive: Best Horse You Ever Saw?: Somebeachsomewhere Best Driver Ever?: Career: John Campbell 5-10 year window: Luc Ouellette Favorite TV Show?: The Sopranos Trotters or Pacers?: Pacers