When reaching out to someone to do this On The Backstretch feature I never know what type of responses I’m going to get. Everyone has a different comfort level discussing their lives and time in the sport. With that, my hat goes off to trainer Michael Russo for his willingness to speak his mind on a number of topics – good and bad. The 55-year-old Russo has been involved in the sport for decades and arguably has the best horse of his career in the 3-year-old pacing colt Voukefalas, the likely favorite in the New Jersey Sire Stakes final on May 27 at The Meadowlands. Russo took the time from his day to discuss his top sophomore as well as his somewhat rocky journey in the sport. Sit back, relax and enjoy!   How did you get started in harness racing? I kind of stumbled into it. I had no background or family in the business. A friend of my dad’s had a couple of horses and he was trying to get him involved. He didn’t have the kind of money to do it really. I went to the farm with him to see this guy, I was probably 13 at the time, but I immediately connected with the horses. I didn’t have fear of them and I felt good communicating with them. That is kind of how it started. At some point my dad spent a few thousand dollars to get a cheap horse just for kicks. A guy my dad worked with, his son Stephen Oliwa was coming from Pittsburgh to train horses and my dad bought a horse based on his relationship with his dad. Steve and I really got along well. I would go to the farm in my free time and it was a natural organic progression. Who are some of the people who helped you get to where you are today? Stephen played a big part as far as horsemanship. I worked for Jack Baggitt and Dave Mattia. I had a lot of association with guys like Carmine Abbatiello, Herve Filion and Jack Moiseyev just from being at the track a lot. I was like a sponge. Stephen was very social and I’m not that way. He was in the circle with these people and they were all very helpful. As far as ownership, Jay and Betty Tauber were mainstays and friends with my family. When I went off on my own, Stephen had moved to Florida and they invested with me. I don’t have horses with them now but that isn’t for any specific reason. Jay’s a great friend. I’ve had a lot of owners come through the barn. I haven’t developed a large stable, some of it my own fault. When I did have opportunities with more prominent people it just wasn’t the right horse. I had owners with good horses and did really well for them but they pulled them for no reason. I got results and our relationship was fine. It just didn’t last. There are some noticeable gaps in your career from 1993 to 1996 and 2007 to 2012. What happened during those times? I was out of the business. In 2007 I was completely fried. I was running from Gaitway Farm in New Jersey, to Canada to Lexington, Kentucky. When I finally got fed up I was in Virginia at Colonial Downs. I was away from my family and just couldn’t do it anymore. I called my owners and told them they needed to find someplace for their horses. I wasn’t making enough money to be doing what I was doing. Time means nothing, but the effort and travelling . . . when you reach a certain place in your career you can charge whatever you want. I wasn’t in that place at the time. I always tried to be as fiscally responsible to the owners as I could and just assumed it would all work out, but it just didn’t work the way I hoped. There were a couple of times in my career were I was doing awful, but mostly I’ve had between a .250 and .350 batting average [UTRS]. In 1993 I was on my own and I just couldn’t make enough money. The USTA lists you as suspended during those years for “financial reasons.” Was it just a money management issue on your part? I might’ve bounced a check or something. It was an indefinite suspension, but that could be one day, 20 days or whatever. You can knock me all day long for money, but as far as being a horseperson or trainer, there is nothing to knock. At this point people can say anything – not that they are – about me when it comes to money and even if it was untrue they would be forced to believe it because my past has always been ok…ok…ok and then run out of money. I’m not the kind of person to not spend the same amount in my barn. I think I’ll just spend and be in the hole until I come out. When you can’t get out it gets you. Considering all that, would you categorize your 30-plus year career as successful? I don’t know. I would if you look at individual accomplishments. I haven’t had Niatross, obviously, but Riverboat King was my creation. He was a world champion. I’ve raced other horses in stakes races. You are mostly talking about horses that were very inexpensive to buy or homebreds competing against people who have more bullets to fire more spending power from their owners to buy 20 or 50 yearlings. If they don’t pan out the next year their owners stick with them and buy more. They give them that opportunity because they’ve had success. That just hasn’t been my path. The people who were loyal to me and have been loyal, they just haven’t been into young horses. They had money to spend but weren’t looking to give it away in search of finding the next Captaintreacherous or Somebeachsomewhere. They wanted to have fun, go to the track on Saturday night to have dinner and watch the horses race and hopefully take a picture and make money. It is very tough for small trainers to maintain consistency of income when you fluctuate with horse population. I wouldn’t wish that fate on most people. I speak to my daughters all the time – they are all really smart kids – because I really don’t want them to struggle like I’ve had to. I chose this struggle, I’m fine with this struggle, but it is not something I would ever suggest anyone else deal with. ► Sign up for our FREE DRF Harness Digest Newsletter How many horses do you have in the barn and where are you stabled? Right now I’m at Gaitway Farm and I have eight horses. What is your favorite track to race at? Why? I love The Meadowlands and I always have. I’ve been racing there from the get-go. The atmosphere is great and the facilities are great. I used to like Freehold. It was cool to race there on the weekends. What is your favorite big event in racing? Why? When I was out of racing the couple of times, I did not watch racing – not in a bitter way because I love the sport. Right now I don’t watch any races that my horses aren’t in. If you claimed a horse from me right now I would never know how it did unless I was in the same race or someone told me. Anyway, when I was out of the sport I watched the Hambletonian every year. The coverage is always good and it is exciting to watch. The Hambletonian, Little Brown Jug, Meadowlands Pace are great to watch, but the Pace didn’t have coverage so I didn’t watch it. What is your favorite thing to do outside of harness racing? My favorite thing to do is spend time with my daughters. All three of them mean so much to me. To let loose, I think I’ve probably just forgot how to relax and enjoy myself [laughing]. What is one thing about you most fans/bettors don’t know? The financial thing is something that follows me but they don’t know that I’ve had to support three kids by myself without a wife. Now I’m supporting my mother because my father passed away and she is older. People don’t know a lot about me because I don’t hang out – not in a bad way because I love the people in the business. I finish work and I go home. If I race I’m at the track. So people don’t know a lot about my family life and were my attention and money goes. What is one word that describes harness racing for you? Rewarding, because at the end of every week I see my work pay off, good or bad. For me that means everything. I am hypercritical about myself and very analytical about the work I do. I want to see where I’m right and wrong in my life. I don’t have a problem if things didn’t go my way because now I have information and I crave that in this business. What is the best advice you’ve ever gotten or given about harness racing? Gotten, from John Sheehan. We were at Freehold and you would drop your entry blanks into the race office by hand. He would say that the green box that you put your entry slip in was more important than anything you do, meaning don’t over-classify your horses and put them where they belong. You have to buy horses that fit the right classes. I felt like that was good advice. As far as giving advice, Stacy Chiodo, who used to work for me before going on her own, Nicole DiCostanzo and a couple of others who have come through my barn, I’ve maintained good relationships with all of them. We all ask each other questions and it isn’t uncommon for any of them to catch me in the paddock or call me to ask for advice on a certain situation. The advice I tell them is something that was told to me by Vinnie Fusco during a very trying time during my career when nothing was working. I went from basically winning every race to where my horses couldn’t function. Vinnie could see what I was doing as far as results and said to me, ‘change your horses, don’t change your methods.’ You can only train your way, not like other people train. Everything you do has to align with what you are trying to accomplish. You can’t all of a sudden not be doing well and say, I see Scottie DiDomenico training this way or Joe Holloway training that way and change. If you’ve had success, you have to trust those methods. If your horses are not cooperating with you and you feel like you’ve covered your bases, then it is the horse and it is time to move on. What was your best moment in harness racing? Winning the Sire Stakes final with Voukefalas (2022) because that horse was at his best when he needed to be. I never doubted that he would win the final at any point, there was not a split second in my heart where I thought he would lose, and I don’t think that way. I don’t have an ego about my horses. I do my best with the horses and I hope they will do their best for me. Like with ‘Vouk’ this year, I’m going to race him in a lot of big races and he’s not going to go undefeated, and the horse that beats him will either be a better horse or better that day. It will have no effect on me. So, that moment meant a lot for me meant everything because I had raced for some really good purses in the past and it was always like, I could win or I need a good break or I have to overcome the post, but going into that race I knew I had the best horse. None of the outside stuff mattered to me in that race because I always thought my horse would win. For that to culminate, from breaking him as a baby, to months of training and bringing him along, and ultimately him shining when the spotlight was on, it meant so much to me. Since you brought him up, how good is Voukefalas? He’s very good. I’m not going to make a proclamation other than that he will be racing against good horses all year and I am going to stick to my schedule and plan as long as he is cooperating. He’s made a profit for his whole life already. His owner Michael Pagonas wrote a check for $11,000 to buy his mother Inittowinafortune and he’s never reached into his pocket once since. She made $700,000. His older sister only made a few dollars and she’s retired. It’s fine, he’s paying for her to live. Now ‘Vouk’ is whatever he is going to be and I have an Always B Miki brother coming up for next year. I think ‘Vouk’ is the real deal. People around him think that, so it is not just my ego. He’ll have every opportunity to be the best he can be and if not, there is no shame. He is what he is. What is Voukefalas’ schedule? He’ll have a maximum of 18 starts. Everything I’m telling you is if all goes well. He’ll race in the Sire Stakes final, skip a week, North America Cup (June 10/17) and hopefully the final, then he’ll have three weeks before the Meadowlands Pace (July 8/15). I’m not going to race him in overnights or against older horses. He’ll be racing in these stakes and only them. He has the Cane Pace (August 5) if I want to race him right back and everything is good with him. Then he has almost nothing in August, the Little Brown Jug in September (21st), the Breeders Crown in October (21st/28th) and then the races at Dover if I want to race in them. No Sun Stakes at Pocono? There was a communication issue between his owner and I with his initial nominations were put up. When they are babies you have to nominate him for a bunch of things and we didn’t do it. I thought we had and for whatever reason it didn’t get done, so he isn’t in certain stakes. Do you dream of winning a major Grand Circuit stake with him this year? 100 percent. I would sell my soul right now to win the Meadowlands Pace, and not for me. It would be great for me but I think the horse deserves something like that. I would love to have that feeling I had last year in the Sire Stakes in a big division A race. That would be so important for me. Over the years there have been many people in the winner’s circle after the Meadowlands Pace that perhaps some have never heard of on the Grand Circuit before. Are you the next? The business is what it is, Thoroughbreds I’m assuming to but I don’t know anything about them. For me, I’m Mike Russo. I’m not Joe Holloway. I’m not Nancy Takter. I’m not Ronnie Burke, Tony Alagna or the whole crew of superstar trainers that everyone falls all over, and rightfully so, I’m not saying anything bad about them. I love Tony Alagna. I worked for him and the experience I had with him was invaluable. He’s a great horseman and a great businessman. When you are not them you are discredited when you are on the same ballfield with them. Your horse is automatically discredited because my name isn’t recognizable. But I assume it was the same with Brian Magie and Hot Lead [1996 Meadowlands Pace winner]. If Voukefalas goes out and has a big year, do you see that opening up more doors for you? Of course. It is impossible not to. This would be the second major stakes horse that I created from scratch. I paid nothing for Riverboat King and nobody was high on Cams Card Shark when I bought him. Even though I didn’t race that horse, that was Steve Elliott’s best horse that year which I sold him. The ones he had did not live up to what Riverboat King was. Riverboat King was a very easy horse. He really didn’t do much wrong. I do maintain that in someone else’s hands he could’ve gotten hurt as a younger horse, but that remains to be seen. He’s a world champion I’m pretty sure. With Voukefalas it very easily could’ve gone the wrong way. I feel like there are other trainers in this business whose strength is getting horses to do what they want. That is not how I train. My strength is being able to work my full schedule around the individual quirks of the horses. That doesn’t mean dangerous quirks, but horses have a lot of personality and I’m really good at working around what I allow a horse to do and where I draw the line. I will let a horse get away with certain things to help its personality and attitude. I feel Voukefalas is where he is now because I was able to do that and that he is at his best because of me. That doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t have done it. You also have been competing on and off in the amateur races at The Meadowlands. Do you enjoy it and what do they bring to the sport? Absolutely not. I didn’t like it and forgot that I didn’t like it. I never wanted to be a driver. Training horses was always my passion. I stopped a few years back because there were like three or four races in a row where there was interference in every turn and I was like done. I know the bettors like it, and that is cool. Some of the people in it are very good – Tony Verruso, Joe Lee, Robert Heckhoff, Anthony Beltrami. They are all decent drivers who have been around and are fairly safe. Nicole [DiCostanzo] drives in it. I couldn’t be more proud of another person that is not my own kid than I am of Nicole. She wanted to do it and it is not easy to accomplish it. I couldn’t be happier when she wins a race driving or training. Did you know we have two things in common in that we are both bald and have one pari-mutuel win? [Laughing] That’s right, I have one pari-mutuel win. That horse Prospector Hanover was a great horse. He was good in the New York Sire Stakes. I had to scratch him out of the final because he broke a bone in his foot. He was ouchy from day one in one foot. He was never lame on it but it was always something I had to watch. He was such a tough horse but he just couldn’t make that last start. He missed most of his 3-year-old year and I drove him a couple of starts when he was 4. He was perfect to drive. If you had the power to change one thing in the sport, what would it be? The perception of the sport is something I would like to change – the PETA nonsense and that stuff. This business is like every other one. In baseball you probably have 10 percent of super-good guys. Then you have the same 10 percent of super-bad guys. Then there is the 80 percent in the middle who just go about their business. In harness racing it is the same and the 80 percent in the middle are all legitimate people who take care of their horses. They may have different outlooks on what they want to accomplish but they all have the same appreciation for the horses. The far majority of the horses are cared for as good as they can be and get constant attention from their caretakers and trainers. People that want to say horse racing shouldn’t be allowed – just stop. Horses get hurt just like people get hurt. It sucks and no one wants it, but these horses are cared for very well. Most have a really good life. The perception of the business I would like to change because the people in this business work really hard. They sacrifice so much. The times when I was out of the business and came back, I would return to a different business each time but it was the same people, they just looked worse, even the successful ones. They would be so worried about their horses that they didn’t even take care of themselves. They would eat their meals in their cars because it is more important that they get to the track or take care of a colicky horse than enjoy their lives. The amount of work that the people in this business put in will never be known to the outside world. How do you view the future of harness racing? I don’t want to be a jerk, but not good. I think it will last but there is so much discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots. You have to make $50,000 to $60,000 just to break even. That isn’t the easiest thing. The smaller owners that supported the business can’t function anymore. What happens is a vicious cycle because maybe they do love it and they scrounge up $10,000 or $20,000 to buy a horse they can’t afford and the trainer has to. They have to make a deal where the owner buys the horse but the trainer pays for everything and they split the profits. Many trainers will do that. I’ve done that and it is a death sentence. I won more races doing that than anyone and I couldn’t support the stable I was running. For two years I did incredible because I ran the stable my way with no interference. Unfortunately I couldn’t afford it. Let’s say I’m on a deal where I get half the earnings and the horse makes $100,000, which is a lot of money. $50,000 goes to me and I’m going to make a profit on $50,000. But that is $50,000 I get throughout the year in drips and drabs. And if there is another horse that doesn’t make money, that profit goes right to the other horse. Time for the stretch drive… Best Horse you ever saw: Niatross or Nihilator – pick one, it doesn’t matter. Best Driver Ever: Walter Case Jr is the best driver I ever saw. The guy won almost 1,200 races in 3,000 drives. That will never happen again. It is the most incredible feat that has ever been accomplished in this business. Lasix – Yes or No: Yes. I’m 100 percent on board if used responsibly. Favorite TV Show: Seinfeld. It is the best written show ever. Trotters or Pacers: I don’t care, I like them both. Trotters are great but I don’t like the myth that people are special because they can get trotters to go. I think it is horse shit. I’ve had a bunch of trotters, no champions obviously, but I’ve had a bunch who didn’t wear hobbles and were good trotters. If you are a horseman you can train trotters and I don’t like the myth that they can’t, so in that regard I’ll pick pacers. But please, people that think they are special with trotters, go break a pacer that doesn’t want to go and tell me how much fun that is. They are both great athletes but I’ll pick pacers.