What kind of car do you drive? GMC Pickup. Favorite dinner meal? Snack? Meatloaf, spaghetti or any seafood. My wife is a baker. She makes so many good ones. Probably her ding-dong cake. What is your favorite track to race at? Why? It's always been The Meadowlands. It is so competitive there. The track has the best trainers and drivers. It is a little far for me to ship, but I love the competition and love racing there. What is your favorite big event in racing? Probably the Hambletonian. Over the years we've had a couple who were eligible. We never made it to the final. Kirkman Hanover was the fastest sixth-place finisher one year (2000) and would've gotten in with a scratch, but he didn't get in. I've never made it into the final but I've always enjoyed trying. How often is racing on your mind? All day -- between trying to keep up with the blacksmith, vet, entering horses, checking to see what gets in and what doesn't. I don't have a big stable, but I don't know how the Ronnie Burkes and Erv Millers of the world with 200-head do it. It boggles my mind.  What is your favorite thing to do outside of racing? I don't have many hobbies. I used to golf. The thing I do the most is cut a lot of grass in the summer, between my property and Ken Wood's (owner/friend). I do have a condo in Ocean City and when I get a day off I like to ride down there and lay by the pool. What is your favorite sport to watch? Team? Football -- Washington Redskins. In baseball it would be the Baltimore Orioles. What is one thing about you most fans/bettors don't know? I hated school. I was lucky to graduate. I didn't go much my senior year because I was always at the barn working. They called my mother one day and told her that if I wasn't in school by 10 AM that morning I would fail my senior year, and of course she knew where to find me. She called the barn and I high-tailed it there and luckily graduated, because otherwise my mom would've made me go back.  What is one word that describes harness racing for you? Competitive. How did you get started in the sport?  I had a real good friend of mine whose father raced horses. I used to go to the races with him and watch. I loved it. Even as a young kid, I always liked Westerns and was drawn to horses. At like 12 or 13 I would ride my bike to a horse farm about three miles outside of town on the weekends and clean stalls. It just went from there. I latched on to a couple of people who gave me steady work on the weekends and in the summer I would work full-time with them. I went from the very bottom, mucking stalls, on up. But it is all I've ever done. If something happens and I get out of it, I'll probably be working in a McDonald's drive thru. What is the best advice you've ever gotten about harness racing? When you leave the barn, leave the barn there. Don't bring it home with you. It is almost impossible to do, but it is something you need to do. All the leg problems, all the eight-holes you drew that day and all the horses that trained badly, you have to try to leave that at the barn. What was your favorite moment in harness racing? There are so many and they all have to do with JL Cruze. His 4-year-old season as a whole and winning all the big events as he climbed the ladder is probably right up there. JL Cruze has made a good chunk of your stable's earnings the last half-dozen years. What does he mean to you? He means the world. We bought him at Harrisburg for $37,000 and maybe he didn't put me on the map, but just like with this interview, he got people to call to write an article and he allowed us to travel. We went to Canada, Indiana and other places that we never went with other horses. He amazes me every time we take him to the track. He's had problems his whole life, lameness and soreness issues of all kinds, like bad feet, terrible knees -- he has a chip in one knee and an OCD in another one -- but he just overcomes everything. There were a couple of races where I was going to take him to the track and warm up and if he didn't look good I would scratch him, but he looked ok warming up and he would just walk away from the field in the race. He's just amazing. He has a heart as big as a heart tire. JL Cruze has already won three races in 2021 and seems as sharp as ever. How hard has it been to keep him healthy and racing at a high level? I can't train him on my track at home because I have a small half-mile. If you try to go the training way, he'll make a break at every turn. I can turn him the jogging way and speed him up to maybe 2:40, but I have to go to the seven-eighths at Harrington to train him. Lately the tracks have been terrible because there has been snow, ice and rain every day. The days that we have needed to try to get a training mile into him it has been terrible. So we've just jogged him five to six miles. We take him to the track having missed two or three weeks thinking he'll be short and he just goes out and looks like you've trained him a double-header that week and had him banjo tight. It is unreal what he does. You got JL Cruze when he had made about $20,000 in his career after 14 starts. Now he has over $1.5 million in earnings. Is that hard to fathom? It really is. Last year I didn't think he was going to have the best year. He was having some lameness issues and I didn't think I was going to be able to get him in the right spots. The Open wasn't filling at The Meadowlands and it was hard to find races for him. He didn't have many starts, but he still made his $100,000 at the end of the year. He makes his $100K almost every year. I pick my spots with him and hope he gets in. I drop him in the Open at The Meadowlands every week hoping it fills. If it fills, he'll be there because I know the big trotters are getting ready and he's 10 now and can't go with the big guns. He'll probably get beat up by the good ones pretty soon, but he'll work his way down and find a level where he can shine again. JL Cruze is owned in part by Ken Wood, who you've had a long relationship with over the years. What is it like to work with Ken? He's been like a father and a best friend to me. I've been with him my whole life. I started with Kenny when I was 15 and I'll be 61 in August. He's the only guy I've ever worked for. He's unbelievable. He puts all the money these horses make into Africa. He's over there right now as we speak drilling water holes for the small villages where there is no water. Most of the money comes out of his pocket. He tries to get donations from churches and other groups, but most of it comes out of his pocket and his time. The trip he's on now, he'll be gone for a month and he goes by himself. He has some people in Africa that work with him now, but he'll come home muddier than anyone. If you've been working for Ken since you're 15, how old is he? He is 75, I think. He's had two open heart surgeries and it scares me every time he goes because Kenny only has one speed and that is wide-open. He'll out-work anyone that is in his crew. That's just his make-up. It is all he's known and all he's ever done. He's a great man. You also had a couple of big years with another trotter named Anders Bluestone in 2011 and 2012. Do you have a knack for trotters? I wouldn't say that. I just got lucky enough to get two that know how to do their work, weren't hard to figure out and had incredibly big hearts. They both loved what they did and know who to go out and do it. I was just blessed. Is there one race that you are still hoping to win? You'd always love to win the Hambletonian. I'm not a young-horse guy and we don't deal with broodmares. We go to the sale and find a few young ones at a reasonable price who fit Non-winners of 2 or 3 that you can move up the ladder and turn into a nice horse. We would always claim a few, but Kenny has gotten to the point where he just hates to claim off people because he knows so many and just wants to leave them alone. You have 99 driving wins but haven't done it since 2004. Do you have any desire to reach 100? If only I had a dollar for every person that told me I should go out and drive one more. My belly is so big now it half takes my breath away to sit in the bike. I used to love to drive and I did. I got in an accident at The Meadowlands years ago in a qualifier and I wrenched my back up pretty good. It has killed me ever since. When I was healing up from that is when the slots were moving in and the smaller drivers were moving out and the bigger drivers came in to chase the money. We were getting better stock and we turned it over to the professionals, so to speak. You live in Maryland but race anywhere from Yonkers to Rosecroft. Now at 60, does the travel get to you? I'm not going to lie, I try not to go anymore. I hate grooming anymore and going to the track because my back kills me if I'm on my feet a long time. I leave the travel to the boys in the barn. They are younger and like to hustle. If one of them can't make it for a reason, I'm next in line and I'll go, but I don't look forward to it. I love watching them at night on TV and I love prepping them, but if I don't show up at the track it doesn't bother me. How many horses are in your barn? 14. JL Cruze won the Dan Patch award in 2015. Can you see winning another one? I just got lucky and I'm very, very, very thankful. For the money we spend on horses it is hard to ever get a Dan Patch award. My partner and I bought a couple of yearlings this year and we paid $8,000 for one and $9,000 for another. We bought an Always B Miki and Roll With Joe. You look at the catalog and see other Always B Miki's going for $200,000 or $300,000 and think, 'what the heck am I going to do with this one for $8,000'. You just have to roll the dice and hope to have some luck. We did it with JL Cruze. I don't think I'll ever do it again, but you never know.  If you could choose any horse in history to train, which horse would it be and why? I don't think I could have more fun than I had with JL Cruze. I wouldn't change anything. If you had the power to change one thing in the sport, what would it be? The Meadowlands handles $3 million a night, so what they are doing clearly works. That said, racing starts so late and the last race ends up going off at 11:30 or later. Because it takes me four hours to ship, I wish post time was a bit earlier at a lot of tracks. We are in the 13th race at Rosecroft and scheduled post time is like 11:15. I just don't know how many people are even up that late betting races. I wish we could race earlier like the Thoroughbreds. How do you view the future of harness racing? I think it is strong. The sales are still good. People are spending money. Handle is good at tracks like The Meadowlands and Pompano. I think it can keep rolling on. Time for the stretch drive: Best Horse You Ever Saw: Tall Dark Stranger is the one that comes to mind, but I'm sure if I thought about it I'd come up with many more. Best Race you ever saw: Wiggle It Jiggleit winning the Little Brown Jug. Best Driver Ever: John Campbell. Lasix -- Yes or No?: Yes. Favorite TV Show?: I watch a lot of the History channel. Otherwise, The King of Queens. Trotters or Pacers?: I made more money with trotters by far, but whatever is in my barn I'll train.