What kind of car do you drive? Buick Enclave - lots of room for a couple car seats and good for road trips. Favorite dinner meal? Snack? Steak and Lobster for sure. I'm more of a salty snacker over sweet stuff, so probably chips or popcorn. What is your favorite all-time track to visit? Why? I like to get outside with the family, get out the lawn chairs and enjoy a summer afternoon, so probably Clinton Raceway. What is your favorite big event in racing? Why? The Gold Cup & Saucer at Red Shores. The whole Old Home Week is incredible - they race 2 cards a day and the whole place is just buzzing. They integrate a fair/carnival with the event, so it's fun for the whole family. It's just unlike anything else I have been to and I try my best to go every year now. What is your favorite sport to watch? Team? I used to watch a lot of hockey, but it's painful being a Maple Leafs fan. Nowadays I watch more golf and baseball. The Blue Jays are my favorite team in sports right now. They've got some young talent that is fun to watch. You created The Farm Ventures, which owns Bad Jump Games, a maker of mobile games. What led you to that route? I guess it's the intersection of being raised on a Standardbred horse farm and going to school for computer science. I was working in tech prior to starting the company, but my passion is really in horse racing. This gave me the opportunity to bring my technical skills into the realm of working on something I love. Your first harness racing app is Off And Pacing, a racing management game. How would you say that is doing some four years after launch? Honestly, this game continues to amaze me. It is still overall our most successful game and is still going strong today. The app world moves fast, so it is built on a now outdated technology stack which does present a challenge for us. This game will always have a special spot in my mind, as it's the game I had planned out for years prior, filling up a notebook with every idea that crossed my mind through my university years. It seems that Off And Pacing brings out a certain passion -- positive and negative -- in many people. Why do you think that is? That is true for sure and I always take that as a good sign. People don't get passionate about something unless there is a connection built. If they just didn't like the game they wouldn't make a fuss and instead find a game they did enjoy more. I think because players are engaged, you get that passion - both on the positive and negative sides. People are always looking for innovation. Do you see anything new coming from Off And Pacing? Could we ever see an Off And Trotting? There's certainly a lot of things on the table for the future of Off and Pacing. Near-term, the plan had been more focused on delivering a Virtual Reality experience at the tracks with Catch Driver VR, but obviously COVID delayed those plans. The big question with Off and Pacing will be whether we do a major rebuild update onto a new technology stack and bring the game forward or if we someday do a new management game like a trotting version as you suggested. What about the possibility of bringing real money into the game? Is that feasible? I have been brainstorming a blockchain-based horse racing management game for a number of years now, built on Bitcoin, which would allow players to realize real earnings. It's very unlikely the current games could have a real money economy added, just due to Google and Apple rules. You also have a driving game called Catch Driver and two companion games for Thoroughbreds in Stable Champions and Top Jockey. How are those doing? Top Jockey has been a little slow getting off the ground, while we still work out a few issues to improve the player experience. Stable Champions has a good little community and is like the little sister to Off and Pacing. Catch Driver has had a great player base right from day one and the real core of that community revolves around the Pro Series event where players drive for Off and Pacing players' stables. After stepping back for a while you recently resumed management of some of the apps. Why? I wouldn't say I stepped back necessarily. We have just been restructuring the company to better prepare us for the future. In the early days I was very hands-on with the development and day-to-day management of the games, as well as personally doing a lot of the support work that comes with them. As the games grew and we matured as a company, it became more pressing for me to focus on some other areas of the business. I wanted to make sure that handoff was clean and that I wasn't micromanaging or jumping in to someone else's role and stepping on their toes. Recently I took on the position of Producer for Off and Pacing and Stable Champions. This still doesn't put me into the daily development or support work, but it allows me to shape the future of these apps and ensure they stay true to the original vision for them. Can you talk about your family history in harness racing? My grandfather Norm Clements has owned horses for a long time. He still owns a breeding farm- Prince Lee Acres, which has produced some top-level trotters in recent years. What he's best known for in the business is owning Cam Fella along with Norm Faulkner. Cam Fella won 28 races in a row at the highest level in the sport and is arguably one of the greatest horses the sport has ever seen. My dad, Daniel Clements, has been training and driving his whole life. He didn't focus on catch-driving until later in his career, but when he did he found success pretty quickly. He was Driver of the Year at Georgian Downs and Grand River Raceway for a couple of years, I want to say around 2005. In recent years you've taken up training and gotten more involved in ownership. What sparked those paths? It's something I've always wanted to do and I've just sort of taken the opportunities as they've presented themselves. I got to work with my dad last year and learn a lot from him and we got to spend a lot of time together at the barn in the mornings. You are also the track photographer at Clinton Raceway. How did that come to pass? I picked up photography as a hobby last year and it has become something I really enjoy. Honestly, I try to look at the sport from every angle I can, because I'm constantly looking for places where we could innovate or maybe I can build some software to help the sport grow. Looking at the sport through a camera lens has given me a lot of ideas already. As for Clinton specifically, it's not far from my house and they only race one day a week for a short season, so it's perfect for me to do without stretching myself too thin with too big of a commitment. What is one thing about you most fans of the sport don't know? I'm not sure about this one, I'm a pretty open book for the most part. Maybe something I don't share often is that I do hope to someday get my driver's license and maybe race in a few amateur races. What is one word that describes harness racing for you? Family. What is your favorite thing to do outside of the racing and game development worlds? I love to travel. In a normal year I'm on the road or on a plane as often as possible. It's one perk of working on a computer - I can work from anywhere in the world. What is the best advice you've ever gotten about harness racing? The cheapest part of owning a horse is buying the horse. What was your favorite moment in harness racing? Probably flying out on a little plane to Ottawa with my dad, my cousin Matt, Randy Waples and a few others when I was younger. I don't remember much about that trip specifically, but traveling to stakes races was always a blast. I remember a horse that my dad trained named Your Nemesis won The Battle of Waterloo back when I was about 13, and Randy Waples stood up on the bike coming back to the winner's circle to celebrate. There's nothing like this sport when you have a good horse. Which is your favorite horse from your time in the sport? Admirals Express - The Grey Gladiator. I'd go watch him at Woodbine whenever I could and he would always give a gutsy effort. You were recently named President of the Canadian Chapter of USHWA. What made you want to take on that role? This one is pretty simple I think. I really like a lot of the people in the organization and I think media has a very important role to play in contributing towards the future of this sport. You've done quite a bit of traveling and have often spoken highly of racing from Hong Kong. What makes it so great? It's hard to pin it down to one or two things. It's like if you could handcraft the industry in a green field from scratch you'd choose to do 99% of what they are doing. They only race twice-a-week, Wednesday nights at the city track (Happy Valley) and a weekend afternoon at Sha Tin, so there isn't an oversaturation of racing. The horse population is limited, so there is a familiarity with the horses and you can develop stars. The races are handicapped so well that often every horse has a legitimate chance to win. The fields are almost always full- 12 at Happy Valley and 14 at Sha Tin. The Judges follow up on every single detail and include it in their report - there is a high level of integrity and trust built up as a result for the bettor. I could go on and on - it's an amazing industry, and if you walk around Hong Kong you will see schools, hospitals and art projects all built with funding by the Hong Kong Jockey Club. It's a testament to what a flourishing horse racing industry can do for a local economy. If you had the power to change one thing in the sport, what would it be? This is so hard. If I had to pick one thing I guess I'd start with pricing. I don't think the sport can compete when we charge an average of 20% takeout while casino games and sports are closer to 5%. The business model is just broken - from the host fee, ADW, video signal, past performance data ownership. It just needs to be completely torn down and rebuilt from the ground up. How do you view the future of harness racing? I have to be careful how I say this because at the end of the day I am very optimistic that our sport's best days are still to come in the future. Unfortunately, I think the path that we are on currently as a sport does not lead to that bright future. If we can't or won't adapt, I think the sport has some dark days coming and that the future success will have to rise from those ashes. My hope is that we can act now and find that right path forward, and I know there are many forward-thinking people in this industry fighting for it. Time for the stretch drive: Best Horse You Ever Saw?: Somebeachsomewhere. Best Driver Ever?: Tim Tetrick. Best Trainer Ever?: Jimmy Takter. Favorite TV Show?: Right now we are re-watching Lost - it's definitely up there on my list. Trotters or Pacers?: Trotters.