John Butenschoen has been around harness racing for nearly 50 years and seen his share of success. The 61-year-old has trained 1,930 winners and sent out over 13,000 starters since the USTA started keeping records in 1991. Butenschoen's latest success story is R Melina, one of the favorites in Saturday's $525,000 Hambletonian Oaks at the Meadowlands. The Illinois native found time in his schedule that saw him travel from New Jersey to Kentucky and back on Hambletonian week to discuss his path in the sport and perhaps vent just a bit about where the industry has gone astray. Sit back, relax and enjoy!   How did you get started in harness racing? My dad got drunk and decided he wanted to own a racehorse so he went and claimed a horse with one of his buddies in 1975. The fellow that was his trainer is Robert Welch whose son Roger Welch is the same age is me. We grew up together in Illinois. He went to work for Jack Ackerman one winter in Florida and was in the same shedrow as Delvin Miller. My dad asked if I was serious about the business and I ended up going down and working four winters at Pompano working for Delvin, until I met my wife, who grew up on his original home farm. Was there ever a chance that harness racing wouldn't be your path in life? Probably not. I had an opportunity to go to vet school, but at that point I was an owner and making money as a young kid. I liked the glory of racing, and Chicago at that time was the same as New York in the late 70's. When I went to work for Delvin and Meadowlands was rolling – I think the first time I was there was in 1982 – it was just amazing. By the time things started going south one way or another I was too into it. Your son Tyler is also involved in harness racing. Do you envision him taking your place at some point? We talk about that quite a bit. I have three great second trainers that work for me – Tyler, a great gal from Iowa named Lindsay Rueckart who does a great job, and Todd Crone; his whole family is in the business and him and his wife work for me. His sister is Meg Crone from Canada. I'd like to find a way where I can train these things down and have more of a managerial role rather than a hands-on day-to-day job. I'm going to play it by ear. With the expenses it is hard to just turn someone loose on their own. We grew this stable from zero and if my son was to take over I really can't afford to give him all the trucks and equipment, and by the same token it is cost probative to go out and buy that all yourself to get started. It's a work in progress to figure out how I can step back. Some 40 years into your career as a trainer, have things gone the way you expected when you started? There was an article written when I first started in the early 1980's and built an 18-stall barn. I said back then that I didn't want to have too many horses and I wanted to enjoy life; go fishing when I want. Unfortunately I got caught up in it like everyone else and grew the business. At one point it got to where I wasn't running the business, the business was running me. That is not a good thing. We still have a fair number of horses – we had 30 down in Florida and are still rolling with them – but I've been able to cut it down a bit the last few years. I'm just a dumb Illinois farm boy who has been able to win some big races. We won the Maple Leaf Trot, finished second in the Little Brown Jug, second in the million-dollar aged Breeders Crown. I've had a lot of luck and I probably couldn't have envisioned being in those races when I started with $5,000 claimers. It has provided us a nice living – a house in Florida and one in Pennsylvania. Did you ever expect that winning over 1,900 career races was possible? I didn't even know I had that many. I've never targeted a race. Like some people say ‘my goal is to win the Hambletonian' and they buy all the horses to do that. My goal is to have the horses ready for whatever race they have coming up next, whether it is an overnight or a stake. We want to manage horses towards that goal but I've never felt an impulse to concentrate my efforts on winning a specific race. I try to go to the sale and buy horses that fit mine and my owners' needs and budget. We've probably hit a lot of singles and doubles, got lucky with a few triples and once in a while hit a home run. We are not trying for a grand slam every time we step in the box. What is your favorite track to race at? Why? The old Sportsman Park, just because of the era and everything that was going on at that time. I don't really have a favorite now because of the way the business is. It is always fun to win a race in Kentucky or the Meadowlands or up in Canada, but the business has evolved so much that you don't get to enjoy it. We raced at Meadowlands on Saturday in the Oaks elimination, got home at 1:00 (AM), got out of bed at 3:30 (AM) to get to Kentucky to race. It just becomes a whirlwind where you don't get a chance to catch your breath. Springfield and Du Quoin always had a special place in our heart. There was comradery, all of the horsemen were there. There probably isn't a more picturesque place to race than Du Quoin. That might be my favorite place to have raced at. What is your favorite thing to do outside of harness racing? Golf and tell lies [laughing], and try to keep my wife happy, which is very hard to do at times [laughing]. What is one thing about you most fans/bettors don't know? I may look serious and grumpy but I'm usually thinking a lot of the times. I probably like to have fun more than people realize. What is one word that describes harness racing for you? Right now it is a word I don't like – business. There just isn't as much fun like it used to be going to the fairs or the tracks. Harness racing has become a business. What is the best advice you've ever gotten or given about harness racing? Just keep going. I'm sure I got something from Aime Choquette. I can't remember any advice but just watching him and his teachings when I worked for Delvin were probably insurmountable. If I had to give someone advice I'd probably tell them to get out; get a real job and a real life [laughing]. What was your best moment in harness racing? I've had quite a few of them. Maybe watching Tyler win his first pari-mutuel drive. You enjoy everything as it comes along. Obviously I enjoyed when Plesac won the Maple Leaf Trot but I also enjoy finishing second sometimes. I get as much joy out of training colts as I do out of the racing end of end; just because of the business side of it. Which is the best horse you've ever trained? Probably Plesac. Funknwaffles was a great horse. We've had a lot of nice race horses. Plesac was a horse that secretly went out and made two and a half million dollars and no one ever heard of him. Could your Hambletonian Oaks starter R Melina get into that conversation with a win on Saturday? It would put her up there. If she can put that notch on her résumé I would feel happier for the owners than for myself, because they have invested heavily in the business and need some spark to keep going. M&L of Delaware has put a lot of money in and they are heavily invested, so them winning would make me feel good. R Melina has been super in her two Meadowlands starts leading up to the Oaks. How confident are you that she can win? It is going to come down to the trip. There are three trainers who won eliminations the other day that probably if you put a line on it beforehand no one would've guessed Annie [Stoebe], Vernon [Beachy] or me. But all three of the winners were tough horses who will have the advantage of an inside post. It will come down to some grittiness on the fillies' part. I think we've got as good a shot as anyone and I'm confident in her ability. Which horses scare you most in the field? Do you view it as a wide-open race? All of them. Do you have any idea why she was making breaks before the start from post one? I think a lot of it had to do with the rail and we were trying to time the gate a little with her. I also had her rigged up a little different this year because she was getting kind of hot. She got grabbier and grabbier and I think I just had her pissed off. It was nothing that Todd [McCarthy] was doing. We changed some stuff and schooled her up; changed how we were approaching the gate and not timing it. Regardless of where we draw now we just put her nose on the gate. There is always a concern because she did run twice. We'll be holding our breath but she hasn't had any anxious moments the last two starts so that takes some of the worry away. You've been in the Hambletonian final with multiple horses before. Have you made it to the Oaks final previously? Fine Tuned Lady made it. I've been in some other eliminations but I don't recall if we made it to the final or not. ► Sign up for our FREE DRF Harness Digest Newsletter You do work for the horse partnership VIP Internet Stable. What is that relationship like? It has been a long-standing relationship for about 20 years. Sometimes I'll have one or two from them in the barn and sometimes eight or nine. I deal with only young horses for them. If you had the power to change one thing in the sport, what would it be? There is more than one thing to change [laughing]. The problem with our sport is that we are fragmented; everybody protects their own little niche market – whether it is licensing, drug regulation, racetracks and cooperating to set up cohesive schedules for racing and simulcasting, or the fan experience. If you took a legislator and went to any racinos – maybe not Jeff's at the Meadowlands – and said let's spend a night in the casino at the racetrack, they don't really give two shits about us. They do everything in their power to not attract new customers to the track. We need to figure out a way to attract new customers. One simple example is the pylon rule. In the NBA if your foot is on the three point line, it only counts for two points. In harness racing, if you go inside two or three consecutive pylons you are disqualified, but the pylons are all placed in different intervals at every tracks. That would be like saying every NBA team has the ability to put a three point arc wherever they want. We can't get Lasix rules the same from state to state. We can't get the rules for adding or removing hobbles the same. If you are trying to attract new customers, they have to not only be gamblers but also casual fans and we do nothing to accomplish that. Right now we are two miles from the University of Kentucky and [Red Mile] could have dollar hot dog and beer nights while giving away $5 vouchers. You may not generate a fan but each person that comes will watch at least one horse race because they'll have something invested. There could be promotions with casinos that if you bet a certain amount at the track you get a free meal. Or buy a certain number of meals and get a free betting voucher. There are so many things that aren't being done that can be done. How do you view the future of harness racing? I'm cautiously optimistic and sometimes very pessimistic because you can't get people to work together. Everybody is still protecting their own little area. I grew up with my father and uncle who were farming corn, soy beans and wheat. What if all the farmers got together? Whether it is dairy or grain or poultry – they could control the world. But they could never agree on things. We are in the same boat. They always say we need a commissioner but nobody wants to relinquish their rights or power. Harness racing will always survive at some level and it just comes down to whether it will be economically feasible. We are going to price ourselves out of business. As a trainer I have to charge a certain amount to cover my expenses and they are constantly rising. Every time the fuel goes up, the feed goes up, the insurance comp goes up, I have to pass that along. At some point the owners – if they don't have unlimited funds – can no longer afford to stay in, and I think that is why you see so many partnerships. It isn't the cost to buy the horses but the cost of training a horse. You have a few positives for medication infractions on your record. Is it just inevitable that trainers will get positives? I can't say it is inevitable but it is always a concern. Every one of my positives I can explain except one. I can explain where it came from and how it got there. There was a timing mistake on a therapeutic medication. I got one Bute positive in Springfield, Illinois several years ago. You had to be in the paddock two hours ahead of time. You had the blood drawn an hour and a half after your horse raced. They told me that the level in the blood plasma of the Bute would have to have been administered 30 minutes prior to the horse having his blood drawn. There is no plausible explanation for that positive. Every other one, they switched Hydroxypromazine testing from regular testing to the ELISA test, which extended the withdrawal time on Promazine. Instead of giving the horse an injection I was feeding the horse granules in her feed and it showed up six days later. A Banamine positive was a groom's problem. I wanted a horse to get some Poly and Banamine at 24 hours. They forgot and in the qualifier ran to the vet and didn't tell them the horse was in-to-go. He gave the horse Banamine before the qualifier and he lost his job. The Clenbuterol, it was three-one thousandths of a nanogram or three pictograms over the allowable level, but no one could possibly give you the pharmacological effect of 25 versus 28 picograms of Clenbuterol in a horse's system. There are going to be mistakes made and if they have zero tolerance, you can't have a zero-sum game.  It is a concern going forward as the testing gets more sophisticated. Their way of doing things, they do not take into account for environment or use any substantive analysis to show what it is. If you are clearing at nanograms and go to picograms just because they can find it, you need to show the pharmacological effect on why it is bad. There are no studies saying why it helps or hurts a horse. They also need to get away from the term performance enhancing. Everything that I do is performance enhancing. Nobody gives me a horse to make that horse's performance go backwards; I don't care if it is shoeing, Gastrogaurd, my training methods or anything. It is all performance enhancing. It would be foolish to think otherwise. If a horse is sick you give them antibiotics. Did that enhance their performance? Sure it did, because the horse will perform better when you take away its sickness. They need to come up with a different term or policy for dealing with stuff like this. Time for the stretch drive. Best Horse you ever saw:  I don't put much credence into sports heroes or horse heroes because it all changes. When Nihilator was racing I was a groom for Delvin Miller down in Florida and I thought he was the greatest. I watched Muscle Hill and I thought he was the greatest. I watched Somebeachsomewhere and I thought he was the greatest. It is very generational. Lasix – Yes or No: Yes, unequivocally. Favorite TV Show: I don't watch much TV. Maybe Netflix stuff. My wife likes Yellowstone. I watched all the seasons of Suits. Trotters or Pacers:  Trotters, and it isn't even close.