What kind of car do you drive? 2019 F350 Diesel. Favorite dinner meal? Snack? It’s a toss-up between Chicken Parmigiana and Spaghetti with Italian Sausage. For snack, mandarin oranges. What is your favorite track to race at? Cal Expo is my home, but Running Aces is pretty nice. It’s between those two. That’s been my routine, back and forth to those two tracks for a while. I used to love Sportsman’s Park when it was open. I worked for Joe Anderson there. Los Alamitos was a good place to race, too. What is your favorite event in racing? Probably the Jug. I was there years ago when Cam’s Card Shark (1994) won. I plan to go again this year after Running Aces. My wife (trainer Kathy Plested) has never been there. I plan to take her and do more things together while this (cancer) is going on. I want to spend as much time together as we can. How often is racing on your mind? 24/7. That’s the hard part right now. I went from working at 6am to whenever I quit to doing nothing now. What is your favorite thing to do outside of racing? My wife always says I need to find a hobby. If we do anything, sometimes we play the slots at the casino. What is your favorite sport to watch? Team? Football – Indianapolis Colts. What is one thing about you most fans/bettors don’t know? That I just like to have cookouts, hang out and have a good time. What is one word that describes harness racing for you? My life. How did you get started in the sport? My grandfather and father were in the sport, and my uncle for a little while. I was basically raised in it. I left home when I was young, worked my way up and established a name for myself. Where did you start out? When I was young, we moved to California in 1975 and then my mom and dad divorced. My mom, brother and I stayed here. In 1982 or 1983, my mom passed away and I moved back to Canada to stay with my dad and I worked with him for a few years. Then I came back to California because you know how it is working for family. Then I started working for Timmy and Denise Maier. What is the best advice you’ve ever gotten about harness racing? There is always another day. What was your favorite moment in harness racing? Winning the Shelly Goudreau final with Gold Deuce (March 2013), a horse my wife bought for $3,000 at the Delaware sale. The final went for like $20,000. The look on her face when he won. She picked that little horse out and I was like, “what did you buy?” Which is the best horse you’ve ever driven? I qualified Pacific Flight N ($508,454) when she first came over, but I’m partial to my own. We’ve had a lot of nice horses. Pridecrest (38 wins in 150 starts) for trotters and for pacers a mare named Party Hangover Two. She was a like a Thoroughbred. She raced 16 starts a year and made like $40,000 every year. What was the most interesting thing to happen to you on the track? One night behind the starting gate we were leaving out of there and half of one of the wings broke. That was different. The gate had just let us go and we all just watched looking for the car to get out of the way. Another time we were leaving the gate and a toe weight came off a trotter and  cracked me right under my glasses below the eye. You recently were diagnosed with cancer. Were you surprised by the outpouring of support from the racing community? It’s been unbelievable. It’s phenomenal. It’s crazy. That’s what keeps me going every day. That and my family. If I stop now I’d get stampeded by all these people behind me. [EDITOR'S NOTE: You can see the GoFundMe page set up for Steve Wiseman here.] Are you willing to share your prognosis? I have colon cancer and it spread to my liver. I started my first round of Chemo last Wednesday (March 11). I go back on the 23rd of March to get my blood drawn and then on the 25th I do my second round. I’m very lucky to have my wife, I have Bridget Desomer, Robin Clements and also Kim Hankins has been a huge help. You take it day by day. Did you have any symptoms? Was the prognosis a huge shock? When I went to the hospital that night, it was the last thing I was expecting to hear. I was just constipated. When they did the CAT scan and my wife and daughter showed up, the look on their faces, I knew it wasn’t good. I just had to be strong. I was dealt a bad hand. What are you going to do. With the Coronavirus going around, are you confined to the house? I wish I could be down at the barn helping, but with the coronavirus going on and my immune system, I can’t jeopardize it. I’ve never been one of those guys to play Xbox or Play Station but I’m about ready to buy one. I have to have something to do. I can help my wife clean the house or go out and take a walk, but that is about it. Can you talk about the support you’ve gotten from your wife? She is unbelievable. Now she has this to deal with me and she has to take over my position at the barn. We’ve been a team for over 20 years. She did her stuff and I did my stuff at the barn. Now she has to do it all. She has a great support system. She has owners that come down and help her out. We have a good crew. The people on the backside have offered to help her in any way. What is it like to be a horseman at Cal Expo? For myself it is home. I’m the only one that really hasn’t left and stayed out east. Lou Pena and Ed Hensley went and never came back. I kind of stayed behind. I’ve been other places but always came back. You can’t beat the weather. It’s just a shame we can’t get more racing. They’ve been saying California harness is done forever and it keeps going. The people out here are survivors. Being a trainer/driver is a bit of a lost art but you’ve managed over 3,000 wins in the bike and 850 as trainer. Are you proud of those numbers? Pretty proud for a kid that started out from nothing and just kept working at it. My wife and I have built everything we have and my daughter (Tyler) is a big support to us. I kind of told (my wife) when I hit 3,000 wins I would slow down a little bit, but now I kind of wish I didn’t say that. I want to be out there as much as anyone else does but with my current situation, I can’t. I plan on driving down the road. I’d like to. Right now we are just trying to pick the right driver for the right horse and we’ve been having good success. When you watch others driving your horses, how frustrating is it? I’m better than I used to be. I used to get really aggravated. I’ve calmed down a lot. I think it has a lot to do with (Cancer) because it is what it is. There is always another day. How do you view the future of harness racing? Horsemen are survivors. The casinos have helped a lot but tracks like us out here have survived without it. We get a lot of support from the Canadians coming down. We (at Cal Expo) are due for something good to happen in the future. The future of racing, as long as we are supported by slots things should be good. Look at Michigan and Illinois, back in the day those were the places to be. I remember Hawthorne’s winter meet with doubleheaders was just as good as the winter meet at The Meadowlands if not better. I think if people get together, like with my situation. Why can’t everyone in the sport come together this way? I know they can. When someone has a barn fire, everyone is right there to help. If you had one wish in life, what would you wish for? Just for this situation I’m in to be a bad dream. What’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Best Horse Ever?: I’m partial to Cam Fella. Best Trainer Ever?: How can you choose between Stanley Dancer, Del Miller, Billy Haughton and Joe O’Brien? They were probably some of the best of their time. Lasix – Yes or No?: Yes to a minimum of 5 ccs. Otherwise we are going to hurt the horses in the long run. Best race you ever saw?:  Wiggle It Jiggleit winning the Little Brown Jug. Best place to eat near Cal Expo?: Texas Roadhouse. My daughter would eat there every night if she could.