What kind of car do you drive? 2018 Ford Explorer. Favorite dinner meal? Snack? Veal Chop; Ice Cream. What is your favorite track to race at? Mohawk -- There is something about the feel up there. It is a good place to race and they do everything right.  What is your favorite big event in racing? I like the Little Brown Jug. There is nothing like it. I've won two Jugettes but haven't had a colt yet in the Jug. Hopefully next year. How often is racing on your mind? Unfortunately 24/7. I'm very passionate about it. I love it. I watch races every day, all day. I know pedigrees. I'm addicted. What is your favorite thing to do outside of racing? Play video games. I like first-person shooter games. What is your favorite sport to watch? Team? Hockey -- Detroit Red Wings. What is one thing about you most fans/bettors don't know? The operation is a team effort between my wife (Alaina) and I. My wife is a huge part of our success. She's up in Canada right now under quarantine so we can have American Courage in the Metro. [EDITOR'S NOTE: American Courage will not race in the Metro so Alexander can make sure the colt is 100% after a poor performance in the NYSS final at Yonkers on Sept. 12.]  What is one word that describes harness racing for you? Action. How did you get started in the sport?  I'm a fifth generation horseman. I was going to go to vet school but I had Leukemia and after going through that, I wasn't going to stay in school for eight years. I went to work for Hall of Famers Joe Holloway and Jim Campbell. What did you learn from Holloway and Campbell? Two fantastic trainers with two different styles. I owe both gentlemen a lot. I don't know if there is anyone better at getting speed from horses than Joe. Jimmy is just a great all-around horseman. I got to learn two different styles and mentalities and I kind of meshed them both together.  You won back-to-back Jugettes as head trainer for Fashion Farms in 2006/2007 but decided to go out on your own. How hard was it to start anew? Very hard. I wanted a fresh start and a change, so I packed up and moved back home (Michigan). It has worked out great because I met Mark Washington, my partner with Fiddler's Creek Stable, and met my wife. Now we are back on the east coast. Where do you stable? Mark Ford's training center (New York). What happened from 2012 to 2014 when you had a total of only 37 starts? I had a class 4 positive in December of 2011. I did my days and when I got back we had a good summer. One day they came to the barn at 6pm. In Canada you can have prescription medication (for horses) as long as you have the proper paperwork. My stuff came from the U.S. since all my horses were U.S. horses. It didn't have the DIN number, so they didn't know what to do with me. I was suspended for like seven months. They thought I was a distributor and all these awful things. It was a mess. They tested all of the medications I had and came up with nothing to pin me on. They just kept me in limbo. I was wrong. I take full responsibility for what happened. I didn't know about the DIN number and didn't do my due diligence. Was the penalty excessive? Yes. But live and learn. I had to get a criminal attorney because they forgot to switch my status on the computer. I couldn't get a license anywhere and couldn't figure out why. Finally a Judge in Michigan told me I needed to call someone in Canada. When I did, that is when I found out. I had to get a non-horse criminal attorney in Toronto. All that for a computer issue. When my days were over they simply didn't hit the button that I was ok to race. They tried to ruin me.  You are on pace for your fifth consecutive year of improving in win percentage and earnings. Are you on a roll? We are on a roll. We have better horses, mostly homebreds. We knew this was coming, it is what Fiddler's Creek and I set out to do. It is so hard to compete with the big ownership groups to purchase the stock that he (Mark Washington) wants to have without spending large sums of money. He'd rather go through the farm system and breed our own, maybe buy nice fillies and breed to the right stallions. We got American Courage, Thanos. Next year we have a full sister to American Courage. The outside world is starting to see what we've been building. What is your relationship with Mark Washington? He's the owner and I'm the trainer. We talk every day. I make most of the horse decisions and the breeding work is all mine, like choosing stallions, because that is my passion. So far so good. Hopefully the trend continues. You have over 370 training wins but according to the USTA's Pathway you own a goose egg in 36 starts in the bike. Will you seek that elusive win one day? I actually have two wins, one at Windsor and one at Sports Creek. I was too hard on myself as a driver and I couldn't let the races go. I've always had a trainer mentality over a driver mentality. That's why I pursued my calling. What is the best advice you've ever gotten about harness racing? Keep it simple, stupid. Jim and John Campbell's dad used to say it to them and Jim used to say it to me all the time. What was your favorite moment in harness racing? Winning the Breeders Crown elimination (2005) with Western Cyclone over Jereme's Jet, who was undefeated at the time. I knew he was a good horse and I told driver David Miller before the race, 'just don't get locked in. He won't lose'. He was a homebred for Jules (Siegel) and it was my first year in charge at Fashion Farms. It felt really good.  Which is the best horse you've ever trained? I've been lucky, I got to sit behind Broadway Hall. But for my stable, American Courage. Which horse is/was your favorite? Daddy Mac. He is like a person. We bought him from Bob (McIntosh) when he was 5 for $75,000 and he made us a lot of money. He always showed up. We still have him in the barn now. He's retired. He likes Grey Goose. He likes Bud Light. He likes ham sandwiches, pizza. But if a 2-year-old kid walks in the stall, he freezes and puts his head down. He is the kindest soul but a warrior on the racetrack. What's the one race that you haven't won but really want to win? Breeders Crown. I finished a close second with Western Cyclone. I just want that (Breeders Crown win). How many horses do you have in the barn? 30. If you could choose any horse in history to train, which horse would it be and why? Somebeachsomewhere. It would be nice to feel the raw power he possessed. How did COVID-19 affected your life and business? When Yonkers cancelled and shut down, we flew to Florida and spent two months there. I think the missed time benefitted my stable. Other than missing some racing and income, the break helped the horses overall.  If you had the power to change one thing in the sport, what would it be? The breakdown of the handle. Now in 2020, we have to come up with a different way of how the handle is split up. The system is broken. We create the content and barely share in the profit.  I'm a video game guy. I see 25-year-old kids that make millions of dollars playing video games because they put on a show on Twitch. They have sponsors, people that donate money and they have subscribers. There is no live handle for racing in 2020 and the whole model needs to change and move forward before we are left behind. You see these big days where they bet $5 million at Mohawk on North America Cup night and wonder, where does that all go? When Yonkers bets $1 million, where does that money go? Why does the sport get so little of that money? Back in the day when live handle was huge, it worked. The system doesn't work anymore.  People still want to bet horses. We just have to come up with a better system for the good of the sport as a whole, not just one track or horsemen's group. How do you view the future of harness racing? I'm an optimist. It's changing. The large stables and ownership groups are dominating and small guys are having a tougher time, but history repeats itself, so maybe that will change. The sport and business needs to change and I think it will be ok. Time for the stretch drive: Best Horse You Ever Saw: Western Shooter. He was a freak of nature before getting injured. Best Race you ever saw: Life Sign winning the Jug. It was my first Jug. Lasix -- Yes or No?: Yes. Favorite TV Show?: The Big Bang Theory. Trotters or Pacers?: I like trotters, though I don't have many.