What kind of car do you drive? Lincoln Navigator. Favorite dinner meal? Snack?     The Macaroni & Cheese with Tuna Fish my wife makes; pretzels. What is your favorite track to visit? Los Alamitos. Growing up there, I had a lot of fun memories. What is your favorite event in racing? The Little Brown Jug. They just do things right. Locally the Adios is good, too, but at the Jug, you race for a few days, they have a nice hospitality tent and good horses. The whole event is what I like. How often is racing on your mind? As often as I breathe. It’s all I do. What is your favorite thing to do outside of racing? Spend time with my family and my dog; just unwind. Is owning horses your full-time occupation? Yes. I still have other investments, but it is what I do full-time. It's probably been 15 years since I did something else regularly. What is your favorite sport to watch? Team? Basketball – Los Angeles Lakers. What is one thing about you most fans/bettors don't know? Even though I've had a lot of success owning horses, at heart, I still feel more comfortable around the average "Joe" in the grandstand, not in the clubhouse or the dining room, but on the track apron with the guy slapping his program on his knee rooting his horse home. I consider myself a fan of horse racing and not Mark Weaver of Weaver Bruscemi LLC. What is one word that describes harness racing for you? Life. How did you get started in the sport? I grew up in Southern California near Los Alamitos racetrack. They raced half the year Harness and half the year Quarter Horses. I started going there when I was 17. I was never a big drinker or partier. That was what I did and it all grew from there. My family wasn't involved. It is rare to have someone involved in the business when their parents or grandparents weren't. My brother works for TVG, but we may be the only generation of Weavers who work in horse racing. How did you get into owning? I moved back to the Pittsburgh area in the late 1990s. I was still a big fan or racing. When I got wind that the slot machines were coming and that a big percentage of the revenue would go to the horses, I figured now is the time to get involved. I bought my first horse in 2003 and it has grown from there. Now I believe I’ve owned about 2,000 different horses and a little over 300 currently. It's been a fun ride. What is the best advice you’ve ever gotten about harness racing? I ask a lot of questions, and getting started, I assumed certain people that I had a lot of respect for had all of the answers. At times, I would be disappointed that I wouldn't get an answer I was looking for. So there really wasn't advice available, maybe because at the time the purses weren't as high and there was no blueprint for me to follow to get where we are now. We were the first to kind of go at it strictly from the business standpoint at such a large scale. The game has changed so much in the last 10 years to the point where you can make money in it as a business. It used to be where people did it more as a hobby without expectations of being profitable. I love the sport but my whole goal is to make money. Otherwise, I wouldn’t survive. You race exclusively with Ron Burke as your trainer and have owned thousands of horses with him. What's the worst argument you've ever had with him? We've had quite a few. We are good for a blowout every year or two. Ronnie has them daily with people, so I don’t think it gets to him. I'm an easy-going guy, maybe because of my California upbringing. Maybe we've had five or six. I don't remember what they were over, but I think there is a mutual respect there and we appreciate the passion we both have. It has never been something we couldn't overcome. Anyone who has been in business together for 15 years is going to have a few. He often credits you with finding new stock. Are you the brains of the operation? Well, I'm certainly the looks. I don't know if I can be the brains as well. It all started with Mickey (Burke) and Ronnie has kind of taken things to the next level. I do feel I have an important role, but so many people in the organization do as well. Ronnie’s mother, Sylvia, she does the bookkeeping for over 300 horses, 50 owners and hundreds of combinations of owners. She does that herself. You can have half-a-dozen people in an office and still not get it done. There are long-time employees like Ronnie's sister, Michelle, and Shannon Murphy in New Jersey. There are close to 100 people that are part of the team. We all have a role and that is something that makes the operation successful. We all focus on what we do best. For me that is buying, or recently selling horses, because I have time to do it and I don't mind dealing with people. To say I'm the brains, maybe only jokingly, because there are a lot of different pieces that make it work. What was your favorite moment in harness racing? Winning the Adios with Dorsoduro Hanover. It is a local race. I grew up visiting Pittsburgh every summer and most years it was around the Adios and my grandfather would take me. Just to have been to an event 25 times and to have a horse in it and finally win after about 10 tries, it was special. Which is your favorite horse you've ever owned? I would probably be an idiot if I didn’t say Foiled Again. I love Sweet Lou, just from the standpoint that at that time Ronnie really hadn't developed top young horses and (Dave) Palone hadn't had as many opportunities on the Grand Circuit as some of the other big-name drivers. So it was extra sweet to see a horse that was selected by our core group of owners, trained by Ronnie, who again at that point was thought of a guy who made an aged horse better but someone who couldn’t develop a young horse, to see him win the Breeders Crown by six lengths at age 2 by toying with his competition and setting a world record that stood for 10 years, that was special. So it would be Lou or Foiled. You are obviously involved in the breeding game now. How has that experience treated you? It's been a godsend, especially right now with no money coming in from racing. Sweet Lou has been huge. His daughter Warrawee Ubeaut has been one of the best 2- or 3-year-old fillies ever. Since his first crop there have been four Breeders Crowns and his offspring has won three of the four. We couldn’t ask for anything more from him. The crop that is foaling now in 2020, I think it is arguably the best group of mares ever assembled. So I just hope we are back in full swing by 2022 when these things are ready to race because I think he is poised for a huge year. What he has been able to do thus far with marginal mares is really remarkable. On the trotting side, we have Southwind Frank. His oldest are 2 and from what I hear they have been training down great, so I'm really excited to see them. We have All Bets Off standing a second year. He bred 150 mares his first year in Canada. And Dancin Yankee, just last week, his book was announced full and closed. So we stood four horses ourselves and everyone has been well received. It’s a different part of the game. It can be frustrating at times, but it can also be rewarding as well when their offspring win races. You are also an avid handicapper. How often do you play? Quite a bit. As often as I can, but I've really over the years, the last two months being an exception, I get so much action from watching my horses race that I've been much more selective and only play in situations where I feel I have an advantage, like a carryover or a mandatory payout. There are some tracks I’ll bet, like I’ll play the whole card at Northfield if I'm bored. I still like to bet Los Alamitos. But I just pick my spots. It is such a tough grind. I just don’t have the time and patience to watch replays because I’m already doing that for my job, and I hate losing, so I tend to be more selective now. Would you be involved in Harness Racing as a business if you didn't like it? I guess, if it was the only way to make a living. I could go do something else and not like it. I hope I never have to make a decision like that, because I do love it. Which horse or horses are you most looking forward to seeing from your stable in 2020? I hear we have some pretty nice 2-year-olds. It would be hard for me to single out any from the group as a whole, but I know Ronnie has been pretty high on them this year. I'm interested to see how Warrawee Ubeaut does against the aged mares. At this point, I'm ready to watch a $10,000 claimer. We also have This Is The Plan and Filibuster Hanover. We just bought Covered Bridge and there is Dorsoduro Hanover. You are a regular on the Catch Driver racing app. What draws you to the game? I love it, just like Harness Racing. Every race is a puzzle. It is competitive. I've never sat behind a horse in my life. I'm kind of afraid of the animal itself and allergic to them, so it is a chance for me to use the strategy of driving without the risk of getting kicked or having an accident. I’ll take on anyone in the game. I’ve taken on Yannick (Gingras) a couple of times and made him look like a “P” driver. It’s fun and competitive. Being that many of the drivers probably know me from owning horses, I think there are a lot of times when I don’t get favors on the track, and I kind of enjoy that. In my mind I'm playing the bad guy and sometimes I try to use that to my advantage. On a scale of 1-to-10, how good of a Catch Driver player are you? 11. In the Discord chat room, you've been accused of working with Mario Barone during some of the races. Any truth to that? He's a good friend. Basically anyone that gives me a hole, I'll reciprocate, and anyone who runs me for no reason, you can expect that to come back to. It is kind of like real life. If you are fair to me, I'll be fair to you. If you screw me, I’m going to look to screw you. Tell me the truth, you love pressing the pace when I’m on the lead, right? No. With you, this year you are on a mission and driving more aggressive. You've changed your whole style and you are playing a lot more. I think you are fair out there. I look at you as neutral or maybe as one of my friends out there. If you could have a mulligan from your time in the sport, what would it be? Maybe from a business perspective I would’ve invested in other aspects of the game 10 years ago. How has COVID-19 affected you personally? Personally I've enjoyed it. I’m a homebody. Obviously, my wife, son and daughter are home from school. I have my dog. It has been very enjoyable. I do miss the action from racing and sports, but other than being a little bored, it hasn't been the worst time in my life. Best-case scenario, when do you think the first U.S. harness track will open? I keep hoping we are 10 days or two weeks away, but as things keep getting pushed back, I don’t know. I’d say maybe the end of May. The opportunity is there. Look at Fonner Park. It is handling 10 times what it usually does. Here at The Meadows, on Monday-to-Wednesday at 1PM, we usually handle about $600,000-$700,000. If we could slide into that slot, we could maybe handle $1.5 or $2 million and get a lot of eyes on us. We have a great product, full fields, and a great driving colony. It would be awesome to showcase that. [Editor's Note: The above question was asked prior to Scioto and other tracks announcing opening dates.] If you had the power to change one thing in the sport, what would it be? I'm not smart enough to come up with ideas like that. My mind doesn’t work creatively like that. You can say takeout is too high. I do recognize that the game needs to be improved and I hope someone that understands the sport and the gambling part of it, can come in and improve the experience. I don't know who that person is or group of people are, but we desperately need them. How do you view the future of harness racing? I'm optimistic. I consider us fortunate in that we race in every jurisdiction where you can be profitable, so we are somewhat protected that if something bad happened in one state we could just shift elsewhere. I'm optimistic, but then you get what our Governor tried to do in Pennsylvania. The State has the best breeding, Hanover Shoe Farms, the best stallions, but the Governor threatened to pull the rug out from all of us by taking money that was written into the law for horseracing. That’s dangerous. It makes it hard for people to want to invest. I’m just a horse gambler, owner and fan. I just hope there are smarter people out there that are doing whatever can be done to preserve our sport. Time for the stretch drive. Best Horse Ever: Foiled Again. Best Driver Ever: To make sure I don’t insult any of my current friends and drivers, I'll go with Bob Sleeth, who I think has passed away. He was at Los Alamitos when I grew up in the 1980s. He was one of the orginal catch-drivers. I don't think he had his own barn. First-time Sleeth, you could just go to the windows. That’s when I learned about driver changes. He was like a poor man’s Ron Pierce. Lasix – Yes or No?:  Yes. Best race you ever saw?: Somebeachsomewhere getting beat by Art Official in the Meadowlands Pace. Trotters or Pacers?: Pacers. Favorite TV Show?:  Animal Kingdom.