What kind of car do you drive? Porsche 911 Turbo. Favorite dinner meal? Snack? Roast chicken on a bed of cabbage; Chocolate or candy. What is your favorite track to race at? The Meadowlands. It is the truest and fairest of all tracks. What is your favorite big event in racing? Meadowlands Pace Night. It always falls around my birthday and we've had a lot of good 3-year-olds pointing to it. I feel that night is a culmination of all the winter's training. To me Meadowlands Pace night is the time where you get a horse as good as he is going to be. Also, Meadowlands is my home track. How often is racing on your mind? Unfortunately all the time. What is your favorite thing to do outside of racing? Spend time with my kids. They are 26, 24 and 14. What is your favorite sport to watch?  It used to be the NBA, but I've totally gone off it. They've just taken the whole Black Lives Matter movement too far as part of the sport. I like F1 (Formula One). I like the technology that goes along with it. I also like the cycling grand tour.  What is one thing about you most fans/bettors don't know? I'm very approachable. Most people don't think that, but I am. I think I'm also a $2 bettor's friend. I understand what they are about, and when my horses head to the track, if they believe he is in a good spot, they'll be as good as they can be. What is one word that describes harness racing for you? Deja vu. The years roll on top of each other and big events come around quickly. The calendar spins around very quickly. I wish we got to have these horses longer like in the European model. I would be a huge fan of having a horse around until they are 4, 5 or 6 years old, but that just isn't the way it is.  How did you get started in the sport?  My step-father was involved. He had already moved to America. I got a job working for a livestock company that was shipping horses with Pan-Am. My first job coming to America was as a horse attendant and I just decided to stay. I got my trainer's license and went on my own in 1988. You returned to North America in 2017 to train again after a decade back home in Australia. Have things gone as expected? I think so overall; initially not. I was hoping to have nice 3-year-olds right off the bat, but I also understood the business had taken a step back with more partnerships involved. The people that had clients were very protective of the clients they had. When I left the U.S. we had 60 horses and another 15 to 20 were always in the peripherals and always available. I had some very good friends that were clients with other people when I came back (from Australia). I was very determined to avoid trying to take anyone's owners. I only like to do things by agreement the right way. It took me a while to build things back up. I was my own biggest owner for the first two years but I'm not anymore, so we're on the right track.  What is the best advice you've ever gotten about harness racing? Never own more than 10% of your barn. Unfortunately when I came back I didn't follow that advice because I couldn't. Most trainers are not wealthy enough to own a lot of horses in their barn and if they do, they get themselves in trouble. What was your favorite moment in harness racing? The year (1998) I went to the Jug and swept the Jug and Jugette elims and finals. I thought it was a massive achievement and difficult to repeat. I look back on it fondly. Browning Blue Chip, Cam Knows Best and Shady Character won the Jug elims (Shady Character won the final) and Armbro Romance (won final) and Pan Yankees in the Jugette. Is racing at the Delaware County Fair special? I think the Jug is pretty awesome. To get to win it is special. We have four Jug trophies in the house here. They went with us to Australia and came back again with us.  Which is the best horse you've ever trained? I have no doubt that the best horse I ever trained was Papi Rob Hanover. I was always in awe of him. He had everything: intelligence, strength, gait, speed. Unfortunately the industry was hurt by the fact that he didn't get to keep racing. It would've been a great battle and something the industry really needed with him against Tall Dark Stranger. Unfortunately he had a freak accident.  How good do you think Papi Rob Hanover could've been? When I see other horses racing and knowing in my mind how dominant he was over them, in my mind he would've broken all the records. He smashed the world record on a five-eighths in 1:47 1/5 and that was just his fourth start of the year. He was very special. If I have one regret, hopefully he'll be a great sire and they'll ask what great sire never raced at The Red Mile. The answer will be Papi Rob Hanover. Which horse is/was your favorite? Back when I was starting out I had a horse named View Field Prince. I bought him myself in 1988 when I was just starting out. He was just a $30,000 claimer but was tough as nails. I'm super appreciative of him. He would just win the hard way. He got me going. He helped me buy a truck and trailer and put a down payment on my first house. He was a really nice, kind horse. He'll always hold a special place in my heart. There are lots of them where you appreciate their personalities. "Papi Rob" has a nice personality. Another very special horse for me was Armbro Operative. He had a lot of problems but one of the owners told me that we raced him nine times for a purse of $100,000 or more and he won every time. He could get up for a big race and was a cool horse. What's the one race that you haven't won but really want to win? Probably the only one is the Hambletonian. I can't think of any others I haven't won. If you asked me the one race I regret, it is also the Hambletonian because we should've won it with Like A Prayer (2002). Ron Pierce made a big mistake at the top of the lane. He was following the winner and he elected to pull back and get behind a horse that was three-wide and go four-wide. If he stayed where he was, he probably wins by two lengths. I think if you ever talk to Pierce he'll say that is the one race he regrets. How many horses do you have in the barn? I have 27 stalls. Within the next two weeks they will be full. I'm trying not to go over that number because we have to have staff to take care of them and I like to keep the same people. I don't want to hire someone for a few months and have to let them go. Even when we don't have 27 horses, the people I have still have jobs. Your son Jack has been driving horses lately. Does he have a future in the sport? He sits good in the bike and horses run for him. When he works out the nuances of the game, I think he'll do well. He's light and drives kind, he's not a rough driver. He's built a lot like Dexter (Dunn) so I told him to watch him and use that style. He sits very still and horses run for him. He only weighs 135 pounds.  If you could choose any horse in history to train, which horse would it be and why? I feel very fortunate to have trained Papi Rob Hanover. Hopefully people look at the horses I have trained and say them. I really can't think of any horses. There has been talk about your conspicuous absence from the Harness Racing Hall of Fame despite stellar statistical achievement. What are your thoughts? There are quite a few things in the business that don't add up. If I don't make the Hall of Fame, I hope there will be a Down Under person eventually because I think the Down Under horsemen and horses, just like the Canadians, have had a true impact on the sport in the States. The Hall of Fame is a true body that recognizes lots of things and it would be fitting and good for New Zealand. I'd be proud to be the first and if I'm not, hopefully another one. There are always stories and innuendo. Unfortunately things are never straightened out if there was a problem in the past. Unfortunately there are still people who accuse others of doing things in the past when in fact it never happened. The people who have the votes, it is very hard to speak for them. Other than a pending Class 4 positive that you are currently appealing from this year, your record is clean dating back 20 years. Do you think that is fair to hold judgements from 1988 or 1999 against you? What did I really do 20 years ago? I can tell you right now that others are in the Hall of Fame with many more positives. We had one of the biggest bullsh** positives of all-time with The Panderosa getting a morphine positive (1999). That horse came back with a reading of less than three nanograms. They couldn't even tell the exact number, just less than three. A nanogram is one part per billion. In New Jersey a horse is allowed to race with 75 nanograms. By the time I got done with the Peter Pan part of that race, it cost me three-quarters of a million dollars. It's things like that which piss me off in this business. There are things as trainers which occur and are beyond our control. Just like that class 4 positive that we are fighting right now. The New Jersey Racing Commission failed to notify the New Jersey Standardbred horsemen - they notified the thoroughbred horsemen - of a change in the ruling with Bute going from 24 to 48 hours. The SBOA is fighting it, not us. There was an error from the Commission and the SBOA has picked up this fight for me and something like 14 others. I think I've had 7,400 starts at The Meadowlands and 7,100 of them have been for horses' 3-year-old and up with all of them having Bute 24 hours before the race. Now all of a sudden the rules have changed. Does that mean I should have a positive on my record? Another thing that happened, and no one really knows this, when I got the positive for morphine in Pennsylvania, and this is why I've always thought the sport needed a czar so someone could take a closer look at things, there were nine positives for morphine that week and I was the last person to go in for a hearing. I knew that the other guys were all locals at The Meadows and they received "time served" because it took between seven and 10 days to have a hearing. I brought a lawyer in with me just in case because I was the leading trainer and they gave me nine months. I gave them an earful. Now we started to fight it with administrative law. They had something going on at the time where you couldn't race in Canada while under appeal, so finally we were actually at Lexington about 22 days before we had to enter for the Breeders Crown (at Mohawk), it was a Friday afternoon. My lawyer said to me, 'will you take 20 days so you can enter for the Breeders Crown?' I said ok. I raced seven horses on the Saturday which were already entered and I get a call from Marc Guilfoil from the Kentucky Racing Commission saying I raced those horses while under suspension. Apparently they agreed to the 20 days effective immediately instead of effective Monday. Those seven horses made like $350,000 and now the Kentucky Racing Commission was looking to hang me. When it was all said and done, we ending up going to race at the Breeders Crown but taking the 20 days, so I took 20 days that I never should've taken so Peter Pan (stable name of owner) could race his horses in the Breeders Crown. It was a great period of time for me in terms of success, but a real blight on the industry that I was the leading trainer in the country and no one backed me up.  In the whole scheme of things, I don't feel like I have a record, but when I fill out my license and it says have you ever been arrested, I have to say yes. I was arrested in 1988 for possession of PLDs. Those are prescription legend drugs. I had a box which had a bottle of Bute, a bottle of Lasix and a bottle of Banamine. I was the leading trainer at Freehold and they searched my barn and found this box. I said, 'What's the problem?' The box was labeled but the medicine wasn't, so I got arrested. Now every time I come into the States via JFK (airport) I get taken into a back room, because it is on an FBI record, to explain something that happened in 1988. I took it to court and the final outcome was 'case dismissed' but I still have to carry that around with me. It is wild. To me there are a few things in this business that have been wrong, but what am I going to do about it? How did COVID-19 affect your life and business? It wasn't too bad. My daughter and her husband live in Brooklyn and came to live with us in Monmouth County. I only live two miles from the barn. I just went to the barn and back home every day. I was very lucky. From a business point of view it was actually a positive to me because I had eight horses I owned myself and I recognized very quickly that there were too many unknowns, so I sold five of them. That ended up being a very good move. If you had the power to change one thing in the sport, what would it be? Get rid of the current race bikes. They've destroyed the business. We need to take a long hard look at how they've changed racing and had a major negative impact. We've become way more speed-oriented than our forefathers ever envisioned. These bikes just make horses go forward. I think it cuts down the lengths of their careers. From a gambling perspective, it is horrendous because horses can't close from the back anymore. The whole model for harness racing has been affected by these bikes. How do you view the future of harness racing? I think it will always be here. We need smart management like WEG has shown. For the product WEG has, they do so much better than we do and someone needs to recognize that. Time for the stretch drive: Best Horse You Ever Saw: Varenne - I got to see him win and it was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Whenever I see the Europeans race and the way they race, I think it is remarkable. They are able to do that because they preserve them when they are younger in life. Best Race you ever saw: From my own selfish point of view, Western ideal beating Dragon Again in the Haughton final (2000). Dragon Again was a stone front runner and we were three deep on the turn, hooked onto his wheel. At the time I thought that was the best race I'd seen. Best Driver ever: John Campbell. Lasix -- Yes or No?: No. Favorite TV Show?: I've watched a lot of Netflix lately - Dexter. Trotters or Pacers?: Pacers, definitely.