What kind of car do you drive? BMW. Favorite dinner meal? Snack? Pasta; Nuts. What is your favorite track to visit? 1) Red Mile, 2) Meadowlands and 3) Mohawk. They are the fairest racetracks for horses, fairest for bettors and fairest for the people of the sport. The smaller tracks place too much emphasis on early speed. What is your favorite event in racing? Hambletonian. How often is racing on your mind? Probably 30-40 percent of the time. What is your favorite thing to do outside of racing? Opera. What is your favorite opera? Eugene Onegin – It’s Russian. What is your favorite sport to watch? Team? Baseball – Chicago Cubs. What is one thing about you most fans/bettors don’t know? That I was born and raised in Queens (New York). What is one word that describes harness racing for you? Exciting. How did you get started in the sport? When I was in college, once in a while we would go to Yonkers or Roosevelt when we had a free weekend night, but that didn’t get me interested in owning horses because I didn’t have any money. In the early 70’s a friend of mine here in Chicago asked me if I wanted to buy a horse and I said ok. It turned out to be a Bret Hanover colt that he suggested Gene Riegle would train. That was the beginning. What is the best advice you’ve ever gotten about harness racing? Find a trainer who knows confirmation. What was your favorite moment in harness racing? Artsplace winning the Breeders Crown at age 2 (1990). He was the first truly great colt I owned along with my business partner Brian Monieson. He set the world record by a lot and it was one of the most important races of the year. Which is the best horse you’ve ever owned? That’s a tough question because fillies and colts are different and trotters and pacers are different. With trotters, I’d have to say the best one I owned part of was Father Patrick. The best pacing colt was probably Artsplace, with Western Ideal a close second. Three Diamonds and American Jewel were the best pacing fillies. That doesn’t mean they were the best broodmares. Which was the favorite from the horses you’ve owned? Leah Almahurst. She was a great racehorse and broodmare. Her progeny were also great broodmares and racehorses. She produced Western Ideal and her daughters and granddaughters produced Meadowlands Pace winner He’s Watching. With recent standouts Manchego, Bettor’s Wish, Six Pack and American History, it seems Brittany Farms is going as strong as ever. What keeps Brittany on top? We are more selective about broodmares. They just happened to all hit in the same year. I don’t know if we’ll be able to do that again for a while. Is there a different feeling watching one of your foals succeed for someone else versus owning one that wins? I don’t really keep any pacing or trotting colts, but if someone buys one that I like, like when Jimmy Takter bought Father Patrick, I was able to take a piece of him. American History was the same thing. I love seeing my horses win. Obviously I get a little more kick when I own them, but I get a pretty good kick when someone else owns them, too. You have a team surrounding you that has been there for decades. What does having a Myron Bell (Racing Manager) or Art Zubrod (Farm GM) mean to your success? They mean a lot. I don’t have all of the answers. I really wasn’t a student of racing when I was first getting started, so I really didn’t pay attention as much as Myron did and I didn’t know as much about confirmation as Art does, plus there is Perry Soderberg and Trevor Ritchie. The horses have changed and improved in confirmation. You have to be up to date and know the families that produce the champions. Where do you see Brittany Farms in 10 years? Do you envision it surviving you? In 10 years, I’ll be 91 and hopefully we’ll be doing the same thing. It will not survive me. Neither my wife nor children have any interest in the farm. There will be no Brittany Farms. So something like a dispersal? Where the horses will go is another story. They’ll all live, obviously. You are part owner of Red Mile Racetrack. Could you ever envision a Breeders Crown there? Yes, I could envision it, but right now it is very problematic. We really do not have a purse account like other racetracks. We do not have the purse account to support the Breeders Crown, but most of all we don’t have the infrastructure. It is not winterized. When you start getting into late September and October, not having a winterized racetrack is a problem. But in the future there is always a possibility. Would you like to see a Breeders Crown at Red Mile? Yes I would. You released a statement about the recent indictment of many trainers for doping horses. Is this the block the sport needed to fall so we can rebuild a better foundation? I hope so. I don’t like to see people get arrested. I don’t like to see Harness Racing get a black eye, but we have to do something about the use of illegal drugs with horses. It is basically stealing money from the other owners and trainers who operate legitimately. It is cheating the fans. It has a detrimental effect on the horses themselves. Getting rid of it is all in the best interests of Harness Racing. Can we weather the short-term storm? Yes. I hope it brings more people into the business. Did you accomplish what you wanted to in the sport? I don’t know what I wanted to accomplish. I just want to breed the best horses possible. That’s all. If you had the power to change one thing in the sport, what would it be? I’d like to see people found using illegal drugs on horses banned for life. I’m talking about performance enhancing class 1 or 2 drugs, not legal drugs given an hour or so late. How do you view the future of harness racing? I think that with funds from racinos and an illegal drug-free sport, our future is bright, especially with the recent influx of European owners and trainers in the sport. I think that has been great. If you had one wish in life, what would you wish for? Good health for my family. What’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Best Horse Ever: Muscle Hill Best Driver Ever: John Campbell Lasix – Yes or No?: Yes Best race you ever saw: Surgarcane Hanover beating Mack Lobell (1988 March of Dimes Trot) Favorite TV Show: It’s a streaming show, Luther.