What kind of car do you drive? Dodge Challenger. Favorite dinner meal? Snack?     Pasta; Ice Cream. What is your favorite track to race at? Red Mile – It is fun to go down there at the end of the year. You can stretch your horse out on the clay and don’t have to worry about the rigging so much; you can just let them get out there and go. What is your favorite big event in racing? Jug Week in Delaware. It is local. I pretty much race everything there. I always have a lot of fun that week. How often is racing on your mind? Every day, though probably a little less since the pandemic. I try not to obsess too much about it because there is nothing we can do about it right now. What is your favorite thing to do outside of racing? I like to go on vacations and travel. I don’t get to do a lot of it, but that would be my favorite thing to do. Did COVID-19 affect your vacation plans at all this year? Not really. I send horses to Florida in the winter and I also have a big stable of young horses in Ohio. I go to Florida quite a bit during the winter and train there. We were going to take my kids down during spring break, but we didn’t do it. What is your favorite sport to watch? Team? Probably college football, though not a lot; Ohio State Buckeyes. What is one thing about you most fans/bettors don’t know? That I was almost a Veterinarian. I was about to go to vet school and I ended up buying a yearling and sold her for a half-million. I majored in biology in college. I was in the process of applying to vet school when I got that horse. I decided to train horses instead when she came around. Was the decision to give up being a vet a good one? I think vets work pretty hard too, so it was probably a good decision. I kind of grew up thinking I would have a vet degree and I could do the horses for fun, because the horses were something I grew up in, were fun, and something I wanted to do. My parents always told me I couldn’t make a living at it (training), so I was going to be a vet. It wasn’t easy a lot of years, but I don’t think vet school and being a vet is an easy life, either. Things worked out well. What is one word that describes harness racing for you? Life. How did you get started in the sport? I grew up in it. My dad was a part-time trainer and became a full-time trainer as I got older. He also had a meatpacking plant. He figured out early that neither me or my sister had any interest in the family business. He ended up transitioning to being a full-time horseman and I kind of followed him into that. From 2012 to 2019, your stable has increased in starters and earnings every year. Is that a sign that you have “made it”? I think I had a lot of years where I was up-and-down. I had to move to Canada to survive. It is hard to move somewhere. My stable started to get big up there, but my wife at the time didn’t like living away from home (Ohio). We got divorced and she moved home with my kids, so I came home. It ended up working out better than I could possibly imagine. It was right about when Ohio was getting slots at the racetracks. I bought one Ohio-bred yearling that year for $4,000 and she won the Sire Stakes final for $225,000, so I was able to really increase the Ohio-breds I bought after that. It took off pretty quick. I feel pretty secure now in racing, at least until this came up with the pandemic. I went 20 years before that where I  had to really struggle and the only way I kept going in the business was to own horses. I didn’t have a huge bunch of owners. It was me owning with a few people. Things really changed when I moved back to Ohio. Obviously Harness Racing deals with trotters and pacers, but are you a “trot” guy? 95%. I train a few pacers every year, but this year, for instance, I have 40 2-year-olds and 36 are trotters. My dad had about 50/50 (trotters to pacers), but I always liked the trotters because I felt like you could gain an advantage by using your mind and figuring them out. So I fixated on trotters and for that reason I ended up with what I was better at. You have 91 career driving wins. Did you know that? If so, do you want to get to 100? I would expect I’ll get to 100 because I drive a few that are having troubles here or there. I did not know where I stood with the number. There was a time early on in my 20’s where I thought I would be a trainer/driver. Eventually I figured out that it wasn’t going to work for me. I didn’t have the connections to do that and I was a little tall. I always weighed over 200 pounds, so I figured I didn’t give horses any advantage. I do still drive young ones when I’m figuring them out or even at fair races sometimes. You have 1,037 career training wins. How hard is it to win that many races? It is not hard at all when you start racing 600-700 starts a year. If you would’ve asked me 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have thought it could happen. Ten years ago, I had a 12-horse barn. I got close to a 30-horse barn up in Canada and when I moved home, I lost a lot of owners. I remember the first winter I was home, I was doing 12 horses by myself. If you would’ve asked me then, I would’ve said 1,000 wins was impossible. Once you start in a lot of races, the wins are going to come. What is the best advice you’ve ever gotten about harness racing? It is advice I haven’t followed enough – Take the money when you can get it. When you have a horse that is racing really well and get a big offer on it, take it. I did it once like 20-25 years ago and ever since I’ve always wanted to keep the horse rather than sell it. What was your favorite moment in harness racing? Way up there was setting a world record in Delaware with Triumphant Caviar (2009, Old Oaken Bucket, 1:54 2/5). We were at home and he was a horse I picked up and developed. He didn’t cost much and still set a record in my hometown. Which is the best horse you ever trained? Custom Cantab. She would probably be the best I’ve trained. She’s made over a million through her 4-year-old campaign. She was race-timed in (1:)49 and change at The Meadowlands last year and she had a couple of tough breaks. She came within a nose of winning the Hambletonian Maturity and they set her back for interference. When she was in top form, she was nearly as good as Manchego or Atlanta. She was within a length or two of them during the summer. We are bringing her back right now. She had a little injury behind at the end of last year. So far she looks good this year. How many horses do you have in your barn? 67. You qualified 17 horses at Spring Garden Ranch last week. Does that mean your barn is ready to go? Yeah, I’d say they are ready to go, and the 2-year-olds are getting close as well. It is a little scary, everybody is ready to go. I can imagine racing will be incredibly tough when all of the trainers have had nothing to do for the last two months other than hone on their horses and get them ready to go. When people are qualifying, they have them ready. Which are the horses you are most looking forward to racing in 2020? Pure Chance is coming back. She finished the year pretty good at the end of her 3-year-old season. Then I would say my 2-year-olds in general get me excited because you don’t know what you have until they start racing. Probably the one that looks the best in the barn is a Trixton colt called Kildare King. He’s been training the best so far of my 2-year-olds. I’ve got several Trixton’s and a Muscle Hill in New Jersey. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Pure Chance finished second by a half-length timed in 1:58 at Spring Garden Ranch on April 29 with Chris Beaver driving.] How has COVID-19 affected your life and business? With business it has affected me a lot. In Ohio, we are typically up and running with stakes in early April. I would say the stable probably made about a quarter-million in stakes races by this time last year. We’ve got the Hackett, the Scarlet and Gray and the first leg of the Sire Stakes. I was racing about a dozen in Ohio-breds. I can’t say we would’ve raced too much outside of Ohio, but the horses all had over a $100,000 to race for in April and early May in Ohio. Personally, you kind of go stir-crazy not being able to race or do anything. You kind of obsess with the horses because there are no distractions. If you had the power to change one thing in the sport, what would it be? Probably the very first thing that comes to mind is the whole integrity issue. It was really tough to see all of the indictments that came out and to know that is how the world perceives us. If I could fix the bigger image problem we have, that would obviously be the best thing to happen to the sport. How do you view the future of harness racing? I’m worried about it right now. The Thoroughbreds are still racing and in the public’s eye. As time goes on, not only do we have no revenue from the casinos to support the purses, we have the bad publicity from the indictments, and we are going to have terrible sales this fall, I would imagine. I’m usually pretty optimistic, but I’m worried right now about it all. If you had one wish in life, what would you wish for? To get to the point where I feel content with what I’ve done. Time for the stretch drive: Best Horse You Ever Saw: Muscle Hill Best Driver Ever: Ron Pierce Lasix – Yes or No?: Yes Favorite TV Show?: Ozark or Black Mirror.