Hunter Oakes is having a career year and perhaps the first of many considering he is only 27 years old. A native of Buffalo and a second generation horseman, his path was very much halted in the sport when his father Chris Oakes was sentenced to 36 months in prison stemming from a drug misbranding and adulteration charge. Buoyed by the success of multiple stakes winner Dandy Ideal, Hunter Oakes is edging close to $2 million in barn earnings and hopes to increase those totals in the Breeders Crown. Ahead of his first appearance in the series, Oakes took the time to discuss his stable star, his father and the toll it took on him, plus much more. Enjoy! How did you get started in harness racing? I grew up around it through my father and was around horses from the get-go. Was there ever a chance that you wouldn’t pursue a path in harness racing? I’m actually allergic to horses so it was never a huge pull-in for me until I had a few ‘regular jobs’ and ultimately decided to battle through it and stick with the horses. How have you dealt with the allergy issues? In high school I got allergy shots once a week and that pretty much subsided it. Luckily after getting the shots it isn’t too bad. I’ll have my bad days but I can deal with it. It is difficult to discuss your story without bringing up your dad, Chris, who was sentenced to three years in prison back in 2022 for misbranding medications. How hard was that on you? Very hard. It kind of came as a surprise. I would help him with the babies and we went from a full barn to nothing in a few days. It kind of left me wondering what was going to happen. Overnight my last name went from being a good thing to a bad thing. Is your dad out? How is he doing? He’s been out for a little over a year now. He is doing good. He’s still probably my biggest supporter and critic. He knows it was a long journey for me after everything that happened with him and he’s just hoping I do well. ► Sign up for our FREE DRF Harness Digest Newsletter Is it difficult being a trainer in the shadow of your father’s “reputation”? In certain situations it can be. I try not to think about that and just try to pave my own path, but it definitely has come with challenges. I still can’t race at The Meadowlands but I’m in good standing with the New Jersey Racing Commission. Stuff like that is tough. I cross the obstacles when they come to me but I try not to look at it as a handicap. I still think my dad was a good horseman and I’d like to think it was a good thing growing up around him. Does the guilt by association rub you the wrong way? Yeah, it definitely rubs me the wrong way. In over 2,000 starts I’ve never served a suspension day. That is the only thing that bugs me. I’d at least like a chance. You do have one listed positive for a class two but it cites “mitigating circumstances.” What does that mean? I got a positive on capsicum. I was familiar with the word and it is a pepper. The levels were in the single picograms. The horse had just started wearing bandages and he was trying to chew them off, so I sprayed a product called RAPLAST that is sold over the counter at the tack shop on the track grounds. I thought maybe that caused it and brought the bottle to the hearing along with the receipt. The first ingredient in it is capsicum. I went from trying to do a good thing for the horse and next thing I know the positive happened. I thought they were very fair to me in my hearing. Was your father the first generation for the Oakes family in the sport? Yes. His father was a gambler and would take him to the track and bet on races. My father always told me from the first time he went to the track that he wanted to work with the horses. Your stable already has set career highs in wins (100) and earnings ($1.9 million) with a few months to go. How have you been able to build your barn up to that level? It has definitely progressed but the numbers have really been helped out by Dandy Ideal in terms of the money. I try to be smart about the horses I take. I’m not interested in taking just any horse and I try to make sure they will be competitive at the tracks I race at. I’ve also had a good year with the claimers and that helps with the numbers. The purse structure with the claimers is a little superior to the non-winners conditioned races. You have to be willing to spend a lot of money to get a good conditioned horse and in some cases the money isn’t better versus the claimers. I’ve tried to structure my barn by focusing on stakes horses and claimers. It has worked out really well. You have a greater freedom to classify claimers. If they race bad I can just drop them. Some of your horses are owned by your mom Susan. How supportive has she been in getting your barn going? She has her own career aside from harness racing that she does really well at. Thank God for her, even after everything happened with my dad, she was the first person to help me get on my feet with a horse or two. Thank God it has worked out well for this year. I’m really happy for her and all the other partners that have gotten a good return. She’s been very supportive. You’ve tried your luck in the bike as well and have 134 wins in 751 starts. Why did you stop driving in 2021? I really enjoyed driving. I only had about one or two horses to myself after my dad got in trouble. It was nice, I could get into the barn early, get my stuff done and drive at Monticello. Then I had an owner call me up to claim some horses. I didn’t really imagine what he had in mind. He sent more money than I anticipated and told me to claim whatever I wanted. The next weekend I had like six or seven in on a Saturday and I was driving them all myself. It was a little overwhelming trying to make sure all the equipment was right, warming up and other catch drives. So I thought until I get a little help I’ll just use the catch drivers and once I get situated I’ll go back to driving. Things were going well and I never went back to it. I missed it a little at first but at least now all the pressure isn’t on me. Making the decision to stop driving has allowed me to grow my barn. Recently someone mentioned on social media that they saw your dad in the winner’s circle after a win by Dandy Ideal, which turned out to be false. To clear things up, where are you stabled and where does your father live? I’m stabled at Silver Springs Ranch which is about 20 minutes outside of Pocono and my dad travels a lot between Florida and Buffalo. His whole family lives in Buffalo but he likes being warm in the winter. How many horses are in your barn? With the claimers it changes but between 20 and 30. What is your favorite track to race at and why? I had a really good experience going up to Mohawk for the North America Cup and I thought they did a great job with everything. They put on a great show. On top of that, Mohawk is a track I enjoy watching. They do a great job with the commentary between races and everyone should take a note out of their book. It keeps everyone interested between races. When I’m watching Mohawk I’m not tempted to switch to another track the second they cross the wire. What is your favorite thing to do outside of harness racing? Get a good dinner and relaxing with my friends. What is one thing about you most fans/bettors don’t know? I’ve driven in a race in Belgium. What is one word that describes harness racing for you? Business. What is the best advice you’ve ever gotten about harness racing? Be able to turn the page after a bad race. It is a hard one to follow. Do you have a bit of a temper after bad races? More of an internal bad temper. I’m just hard on myself. What was your best moment in harness racing? Winning the Max Hempt with Dandy Ideal. A close second would be when I took Homicide Hunter back to the paddock [at The Red Mile] after he won in 1:48 [4/5] and the crowd was cheering. That was pretty cool. Any time there are a lot of people involved it is a lot of fun. At Pocono in the Hempt when Dandy Ideal won, a lot of my friends came out. They don’t come to the track a lot and they love the energy of winning a big race. Even winning the Sire Stakes at Batavia, I’m like the only one on my mother or father’s side that doesn’t live in Buffalo. We had a really big crowd there too. You have a number of very nice horses in your barn led by Dandy Ideal who had won eight straight races before a loss on October 11. Is he good enough to win the Breeders Crown versus Louprint? I think he has a shot at it. Obviously Louprint is extremely talented but I think my horse can step up versus the big horses. I’ve been around a lot of nice horses my whole life and he ranks right up there for me with the way he emits class off himself. I think he can surprise some people. [EDITOR'S NOTE: This interview took place before the Breeders Crown eliminations where Dandy Ideal handed Louprint his first loss of 2025.] Have you trained a horse in the Breeders Crown before? This will be my first one. I’m very excited. It’s nice for me after just having to restart everything a couple of years ago. It’s surreal. Did you always know you had a special horse with Dandy Ideal? I bought him last year [private purchase] and only had him for about a week before the Matron. Then I turned him out, so I didn’t really have a lot of time with him. Training him back over the winter time, he really impressed me. I didn’t think maybe he was going to be this good but I knew he was very talented. Do you see your 2-year-old Imagine Heaven or anyone else in your stable stepping up in the near future? Imagine Heaven is Dandy’s sister and that’s why I bought him. I bought her before I bought him. I think I bought him two days later. She was off to a really good start and hit some road bumps, but I’ve tried to change some things around hoping for some better luck in the later part of the year. She is extremely talented and I knew that training her down. You are just 27 years old. How do you see your future in harness racing? Hopefully the same way it has been the last couple of years – steady growth. If you had the power to change one thing in the sport, what would it be? Uniform rules between States. I think all of the horsemen would appreciate that. How do you view the future of harness racing? We need to keep looking to make changes for the better, not only for the horsemen but for the bettors, and keep trying new things. As a young person in the sport, is it possible for the industry to improve and get people your age involved? I think it really isn’t bad for the horsemen right now. You really can make a living at this and I think you can argue it is better than it was 25 years ago for the horsemen. We need to do more to get bettors involved. Even some of my friends that I bring around, they have a little trouble because it really isn’t the most attractive sport to bet on. We need to find a way to make the sport more attractive to young gamblers. It needs drastic improvement. What does a day in the life of Hunter Oakes look like? Get rolling at the barn about 6 am and that’s about it when I’m not racing. I’m either at the barn or on the road racing. Time for the stretch drive. Best Horse you ever saw:  I was very impressed with Confederate. Lasix – Yes or No: Yes. Favorite TV Show: White Lotus. Trotters or Pacers:  Pacers. I like trotters but I deal with more pacers.