What kind of car do you drive? GMC Pickup. Favorite dinner meal? Snack? Seafood; trail mix. What is your favorite track to race at? Why? Probably The Red Mile because of the history. It is such a beautiful place to race horses. What is your favorite big event in racing? Why? Now it's the Kentucky Futurity after winning it the other day (laughing). I've always loved going to Lexington for that since I was a kid. How often are horses or racing on your mind? 24/7. What is your favorite thing to do outside of harness racing? Hang out on my boat. What is your favorite sport to watch? Team? Playoff hockey -- Pittsburgh Penguins. What is one thing about you most fans/bettors don't know? I'm deaf. I wear hearing aids and have lost 75% of my hearing. What is one word that describes harness racing for you? Exciting. How did you get started in Harness Racing? My father. I grew up on a horse farm in Canada and have been involved in it ever since. Your father is a very accomplished trainer/driver. Did he teach you everything he knows? He taught me a lot of it. The rest is from being around so many other trainers while racing in California, New Jersey, The Meadows and Canada. I'm very observant; what works and what doesn't work. Was there ever any rivalry between the two of you on the track? We competed against each other often when we both had stables but it wasn't really a rivalry. We wished the best for each other. You have 2,185 wins as a driver. What does that number mean to you? It means a lot. I was a full-time catch-driver when I was in Canada, but I felt the interaction with the horses while training provided a little more security. Being a catch-driver is a tough go sometimes. ► Sign up for our FREE DRF Harness Digest Newsletter About 15 years ago it seems you gave up being a catch-driver as your starts tailed off. What happened? When I moved back to The Meadows from Canada. I came with a small stable and focused on that. I had a daughter and that's one of the biggest reasons I came back. The travelling around got to be too much in Ontario. My daughter's mother is from Pennsylvania.  As a trainer you started quite a few horses from 2004 to 2010 but then barely trained for a few years. What happened there? I guess I ran out of owners (laughing). I worked for my dad for a while and had a couple of horses on the side. When he left for Florida I worked for Ron Burke for about a year-and-a-half. Then an owner approached me about taking care of some horses and it took off from there. You need the right people behind you to succeed as a trainer.  What is the best advice you can give about harness racing? You get out of it what you put in when it comes to horses. How many horses do you have in your barn? Four. You currently train the top-ranked 3-year-old trotter in the sport Jujubee. Can you believe you ended up with a horse like him?  I pinch myself every day. He certainly came along at the right time.  Do you think his success can help your career? That's what I'm hoping. We bought his brother at the Lexington sale and hopefully we'll get a few more and try to keep it rolling. It's a bit early to speculate, but as good as he has been, could you see him going against older foes in the TVG if he wins the Crown? I talked with my owner about it a bit the other day. We'll play it week to week and see how he races in the Crown. It is an option. I tried to avoid racing him against older horses all year, sometimes we had to, but I don't think he has anything else to prove. I don't really like to do it, especially if we plan on racing him next year.  [EDITOR'S NOTE: This interview occured before Jujubee won the Breeders Crown at The Meadowlands on October 30.] As a colt, do you see Jujubee coming back as a 4-year-old? I think he would come back super. He only really had five weeks off from last November to January, so he has been going forever. A few months off would do him super. He's so strong and still growing, I think he could probably break the [speed] record for trotters. The owner wants him to come back and race. We've been offered some decent money but I think his wish is to bring him back unless we get some ridiculous offer to go to stud. Let's show Jujubee's owner/breeder some love. What is it like to train for Jon Erdner? He's been super to train for. He doesn't put any pressure on me and lets me call the shots with the horse. The bad horses, those are the most important ones. How an owner treats you with the bad horses is the key. He's been in the business a long time and knows it. He just wants someone who is honest with him and works with him. It's been great to train for him. What was your best moment in harness racing? The Futurity win for sure. Hambletonian Day when Jujubee trotted in 1:49, that was big too. If you had the power to change one thing in the sport, what would it be? Probably universal testing, stricter testing with all tracks having the same policies.  How do you view the future of harness racing? The last few years have been tough but I think it is on its way back. I think some of the tracks are doing a little more to get young people involved. That's good to see. The bigger tracks should continue to do really good and unfortunately the smaller tracks probably won't do so good. Is it tough for a smaller barn like yourself to survive in the sport? Oh yeah. It has been discouraging at times. Trying to keep training bills reasonable and taking care of your owners. Unless your horses are doing good and you are getting that extra 5 or 10%, it is tough at times. If you weren't involved in harness racing, what would you be doing? I'd probably be a gym coach. My mentors growing up were my coaches. I was a good baseball player and got a scholarship offer from the University of Michigan, but I got the horse bug. Still to this day I like working with kids and passing on the knowledge like my coaches did for me. Do you have any regrets from your time in the sport? I don't think so. I did a lot of travelling and I don't think it helped my career, bouncing around to California and back home [Ontario]. I was doing good in Ontario when I left for here [The Meadows]. So that part of it maybe hurt me a little bit, but I did it for my daughter so I don't regret that. Time for the stretch drive.  Best Horse you ever saw: Niatross. When I saw him as a kid it was exciting. Lasix -- Yes or No?: Yes. Favorite TV Show?: I don't watch much TV. Trotters or Pacers?: Trotters.