What kind of car do you drive? Pick-up truck. That is where I feel most comfortable. Favorite dinner meal? Snack?     Toss-up between bushel of steamed crabs from Maryland or a Peter Luger's porterhouse for two. What is your favorite track to race at? Meadowlands. I live in New Jersey and it is my home track. I feel lucky to be able to race there and compete. What is your favorite big event in racing? Hambletonian. To me it is the most prestigious event we have in our sport. It is a hard race to win whether they go heats or not. How often is racing on your mind? Just about every day of the year. Every day we go in we are working towards a goal with each horse based on their abilities. I don't watch the races every day, but when it comes to stakes season, I like to know what the competition is like and how my horses are going to fit. What is your favorite thing to do outside of racing? I like to get out on a salt-water fishing boat or just be on the water. What is your favorite sport to watch? Team? Golf – I'm a Rickie Fowler fan. What is one thing about you most fans/bettors don't know? I don't think fans or bettors know much of anything about me. I'm pretty quiet and in the shadows, and I like staying there. I don't like the spotlight. My grandfather (Charles "King Kong" Keller) played for the New York Yankees and he was the same way. Was life growing up any different for you having a grandfather who was a successful MLB player? I would say not because he never talked about it. We knew he was somewhat famous to baseball fans, but he never talked about it around us. It was never a big deal. It was a bigger deal to just be working next to him and making sure you did things right, because you'd get your ass chewed out if you weren't. Were horses your grandfather's passion? He took more pride in his achievement breeding horses than what he did on the ball field. What is one word that describes harness racing for you? Disarray. We just have not kept up with the times. We got left behind. To me, we don't cater to our spectators or to the public. We could make our sport an event to come watch, but we don't. We still have exciting racing, but you go to the track and get insulted by the meal you get served, by the service you get, by the treatment. If you have a fan that comes to the track, serve them a good meal. We were just talking about Peter Luger's, if you give someone a good meal, they'll come back. The racing is exciting, especially if you know a little about the sport. We have some great match-ups now, trotting mares and pacing colts. I just think we insult the public. Maybe insulting might be the right word.  I probably should be more positive, but I get disappointed with our sport sometimes. How did you get started in the sport? Obviously I was born into it. I worked on the farm and loved horses as a kid. I prepped yearlings at the farm and enjoyed the horses more than painting the fence and picking up the rocks in the hayfield. My brother stayed on the farm and did the breeding end of it. My cousin Chaz stayed on the farm. I kind of wanted to be with the horses and the training end of it. You started training around 1989? Yeah, I graduated from UK (University of Kentucky) and started training right after that. Yankeeland Farms closed in 2006 but the tradition continues through Yankeeland Partners. Can you tell me about that? Yankeeland Partners is myself, my brother Dan Bittle, Chaz Keller and uncle Charlie Keller. They did the breeding end of it and I trained when Yankeeland was still breeding horses. We still had interest in the horses. Our farm was getting swallowed up by Frederick City because the land became too valuable to race horses on. We made the decision to sell the mares and develop the land. But we still had passion for the horses, especially my uncle Charlie, he's very passionate about it. He wanted to continue the legacy of it. We are just doing things in a different capacity now. We still have some mares and we are breeding. We got to the sale and buy fillies that we think could have some residual value on the breeding end. We race them and if they are good performers, we keep them around and eventually breed them. I think we are selling five yearlings this year and next year maybe it will be 10. So you are breeding, just on a smaller scale? Yeah, and those guys do'’t have to be there on a day-to-day basis because we keep the mares at Hanover Shoe Farms. They take care of things and we just write the checks. How many horses do you have in training? We started with 5 yearlings and we have 10 total horses. How does one make a living as a trainer with only about 100 starts a year? You can't really. I shoe my own. I ship my own. I don’t have a big labor bill with only one employee for the 10 horses. I'm also fortunate to have some outside income other than training, so that helps, for sure. What is the best harness racing advice you've ever gotten? Have thick skin. I’m pretty good friends with Chuck Sylvester and he's like a duck. He can have bad luck and more bad luck and it just runs off of him. He just keeps believing and dreaming. What was your favorite moment in harness racing? Probably winning the Hambletonian Oaks (Windylane Hanover, 2002). My kids were with me that day. Which is the best horse you've ever trained? Windylane Hanover. She was good for a lot of years. She won the Oaks at 3 and was a world-record holder at 4, I think. She just raced at a high level for a long time. She was also my only millionaire. I have a son of hers that is 8 years old (Muscle Diamond) that is at about $800,000. He's as fast as her but not as durable. She's pretty special to me. Which horse is/was your all-time favorite? Typically with a trainer they'll tell you the all-time favorite is the one that made them the most money, and that would be Windylane Hanover. I raced five horses this weekend and four of them won. The one that didn't get a check was actually my favorite horse all winter, just because she has a great personality and just wants to do right. Her name is Showmethetanlines. What's the one race that you most want to win? Hambletonian. It will be hard for me to win because I don't really train colts, though it looks like you don't need a colt to win it anymore. I'll just keep dreaming. You train and co-own recent Jim Doherty winner Darlene Hanover. Is she a 'skies the limit' type? Possibly. I thought the effort she put in Saturday (Doherty on 8/8) was huge, not seeing the rail and marching up uncovered. Andy (McCarthy, driver) did a great job of just being patient with her, easing up during the race and believing in her. She's got size. Her heart rate is unbelievable for recovery. If she stays healthy and sound, she could be a life-changer. What schedule do you have outlined for Darlene Hanover? She has Kentucky Sire Stakes races in Lexington. We'll probably skip the first one and hit the next two, hopefully followed by the final. She has Breeders Crown (Hoosier Park) on her card and the Goldsmith Maid (The Meadowlands).I didn't stake her up in Canada, but it looks like that would've been a pain with the virus restrictions. If you could choose any horse in history to train, which horse would it be and why? Muscles Yankee, because it was a horse we bred. Although a great family friend (Chuck Sylvester) trained him, it would've been special to have taken that horse to the Hambletonian. How has COVID-19 affected your life and business? Just the anxiety of not knowing if we were going to be racing. People in the racing game are somewhat lucky in that we are racing and can conduct business. I would think the racehorse guys are getting hurt worse than the stakes guys, because we have scheduled racing opportunities. Being raised on a farm, I just know that if you get a virus in the herd, you are not getting rid of it until it is gone or your body simply adjusts to it. There is not a lot you can do. By the time you know it is there, it is already going through the barn, or the country. If you had the power to change one thing in the sport, what would it be? How we treat our customers. How do you view the future of harness racing? There is no question we have troubles, but I think we have a chance to survive if we decide to listen to our customers and be innovative. We have a viable sport and if we decide to wake up and do the right things, we can survive. Time for the stretch drive: Best Horse You Ever Saw: Secretariat. Best Driver Ever: John Campbell – I've always thought he was the greatest. That being said, Walter Case could keep a horse alive as long as anyone I've ever seen. Lasix – Yes or No?: Yes - for the benefit of the horse. Bleeding is a syndrome that happens when horses get chased in the wild or on the racetrack. It is just how they are made. If you want to help them do less damage, it should be allowed. Favorite TV Show?: I don’t watch a lot of TV. Maybe Wicked Tuna. Trotters or Pacers?: Trotters. Getting a good trotter is not easy to do, so when you get one it is a little more special.