Preconceived notions are part of life and I'll admit to perhaps being over prepared in terms of quantity of questions prior to speaking to Larry Stalbaum, as I was expecting brief answers. Ultimately I was pleasantly surprised as the 61-year-old was quite chatty, frank and thoughtful during our conversation. Stalbaum has competed on circuits from Michigan to New York and now calls Saratoga his home base.  A triple threat as a driver and trainer who also used to shoe his horses, Stalbaum has been in harness racing since the 1980s and is still going strong with an 18-horse barn in 2024 that includes top Borgata contender Rocknroll Runa A. Truth be told, I originally tried to interview Stalbaum back in 2020 and it just never came to fruition. Good things come to those who wait and I think you'll enjoy this in-depth On The Backstretch feature as we cover his career, infractions on the track, his lifestyle, the industry, and so much more. How did you get started in harness racing? I started racing ponies because my dad did that as a hobby when I was about 7 or 8. I rode in my first Pony race when I was 14 years old. That was in Amish country in Indiana. I was born in Indiana but all of my real family is from around Kentucky and Tennessee. It's funny because I was born and raised in Indiana and never raced there because they didn't have pari-mutuel racing when I was there. So you are the first in your family to get involved in harness racing? Yes. My dad worked in a steel mill and my family were mostly farmers. You moved to the East Coast from Michigan in 2005. How did that change your life? It will be 19 years ago this month. It was for the best. We had a good life in Michigan but [racing] was just dying and I knew it. Kim [Asher] and I had our own place with a nice farm, but we kept talking that the sport was dying out there and slots where coming to Pennsylvania and New York. I don't know if it was fate or luck, a guy pulled into my driveway one day and asked me if the property was for sale. I told him ‘everything is for sale. Let me think about it.' Kim and I sat down to figure out how much we had into the property and I told the guy $100,000 over that amount. He said ‘I'll have my secretary draw up the papers and I'll take it.' That was in the fall of 2004. I raced that winter at Northville. When Hazel Park opened I raced the first week and moved. You have over 6,300 driving wins and almost 1,500 as a trainer. What do those numbers mean to you? Driving is what I love to do even though I also love training. Now I don't do as much driving. I hurt my back last year really bad. I've been in a lot of horse wrecks and this really scared me. I woke up one morning at like 3:30 AM, I had already been in the hospital earlier that day and they sent me home with a bunch of stuff, and I couldn't feel my legs or feet and I couldn't move them. It was the most agonizing pain I've felt in my life. I didn't drive for a while and when I did it was just here and there. I did a lot of therapy, chiropractic and other hocus pocus. It still hurts but it is livable now. Talking about the training wins, Kim and I were together for 22 years. If you look up her stats, we won over 2,000 races during that time with her as the trainer. We parted on good terms and raised four beautiful children together – I have five altogether including my boy who is in his 30s. My kids with Kim are all in their 20s. Was it just the 2023 accident or was it a compilation of a lifetime of wrecks on the track? I shod horses my entire life and my back always hurt. I finally quit shoeing because it got so bad. It was just all the wrecks and everything combined over the years. Another issue is they put me on steroids and I gained like 20 pounds so I didn't feel comfortable. Now I drive my own and sometimes I don't even do that. You must be pretty proud that your kids are following in your footsteps by staying in harness racing? Yeah. I'm not that guy who says I don't want my kids involved in the horse business. Right now in the world, where else can you go and make a couple hundred thousand a year and it isn't that hard to do? Like me, [Winter Asher-Stalbaum] owns them all himself. I've had a couple of good partners over the years but for the most part I always wanted to own half or all of them. I don't like talking on the phone very much. Why did you decide to own just about every horse? It really kills me to make money for other people. When I first came out here [in 2005] my phone was ringing off the hook with owners from all over the place and I just kept saying no. About six months after I first came out here I bought a mare back in Michigan for $5,000 for someone. Her first year out here she made $80,000. Why would I want to make the $80,000 for an owner when I can make it for myself? Plus, nowadays you have to charge so much to train that an owner doesn't stand a chance. I like owning for myself. If I want to take off to Key West for a week or two I can do it. I have no one to answer to but myself. How many horses are you currently training? 18 at Saratoga. It is me, my girlfriend Brittany and this girl whose nickname is Midgie. I couldn't make it without them. I do all the riding but without them I'm nobody. You are a driver who will gun off the gate with any horse at any odds and give that horse a shot. Do other drivers get upset when you leave hard from post 8 with a 30-1 shot? Oh yeah, they don't like it at all [laughing], but I always like to put a horse in play. I read the gate. Especially young guys – I think it is a mistake they make – who have a plan when they go out there. You need to look at the program and know the horses but also have your horse on the gate ready. If five of them look like they are going to fall off early, I'm gone! Also, you see them lining up quickly and slowing it down but I'm out and moving at the quarter pole. You can just come up in the handholds. You don't have to race them wide open and before you know it you're alongside the leader. That's always been my theory and it has worked for me for a long time. Your nickname is "The Bomber." What do you think of it? Brett Boyd gave me that name a long time ago at Muskegon, Michigan. Back in them days I would send them wide open. I'd rough them up [score down hard] and get them in the rigging, especially horses I'd never drove before, ones that had the trainer in the bike and have been getting in the way and just following along. Those horses got stale, so I'd score them down hard and rev them up and send them 100. I'm not saying I'd win all the time. Sometimes they would race horrible and I would say ‘put me back up. He'll race better next time.' The next week he'll remember that I got his attention and then you don't do the same thing again. What is your favorite track to race at? Why? I do love Saratoga. The half-mile track gets old even though I do really well on a half. Saratoga and Pocono are probably my two favorites to drive on. At Pocono the horses stay sound because the track is so good all the time. Saratoga is one of the few half-mile tracks where you can race them all year and they never get tore up, especially if you take care of them yourself. That's the other thing about me driving them. I drive them for me, not an owner. If I'm in a bad spot, I'm not going to stiff my horse but I'm going to race them conservative; try to get a check and hope for a better spot next time. I get a lot of flak from people because I race my horses a lot of starts. My good horse at Yonkers [Rocknroll Runa A] raced 39 starts last year but he really didn't "race" 39 starts. He raced hard about 25 and I raced him easier in the other ones. What is your favorite big event in racing? Why? I'm a fan of the Borgata. I won it back when it was the Levy with Special Report. I've raced in it a lot. I love it because it separates real horses. It is hard on them and most horses can't go to Yonkers and race six straight weeks while going balls to the wall. I like that. I don't like races where guys are just pointing for that race and doing everything just to get them good for one spot. I think the sport needs to have a little more of showing a horse's toughness. I think one of the problems is we bred the toughness out of them. That is why I love the foreign horses, that's about all I buy, except for my trotters. The foreign horses are just hardier. They race long distances so they have to race them easy. They have to be well-mannered and they can't be lame. They teach them when they are young to race easy. Speaking of the Borgata and Rocknroll Runa A, can you win the final with him on April 22? I think I can. You can't win from any position and you need a little luck with the draw . . . I do think he has a big, big shot. He's not getting too much respect but he'll have it when the final is over [laughing]. I staked him to every aged pace there is this year and if nothing bad happens he is going to show up to them all. At the end of the year I think he'll impress a lot of people because he is a really nice horse. What is your favorite thing to do outside of harness racing? Absolutely nothing. This is my hobby, my obsession, my career and my everything. It has consumed my entire life and cost me a lot. That is why I'm still here. I've had some nice partners that have been there – Doc and Tracy Smith is who I have now, we've won a few together. When their son passed away they kind of adopted me and I kind of adopted them. We've stayed together. Papa [Michael] Sorentino is another one through the years when he was alive, along with Junior [Michael Sorentino Jr.], who has gone on to become a judge. Papa Sorentino would've sure enjoyed this ride with Rocknroll Runa A. He just wanted to have "the" horse. What is one word that describes harness racing for you? Life. I really don't even know what I would've done with my life if I didn't have harness racing. Without it I'm nothing. I think about it all the time now that I am 61. Except for my back, my health is pretty good and I'm sure I have a lot of years left, but if harness racing shut down tomorrow I don't know what I would do. ► Sign up for our FREE DRF Harness Digest Newsletter What is the best advice you've ever gotten or given about harness racing? I don't know if anyone has ever given me great advice. Get up and work. It is what you put into it. I can't stand having a day off. I give my help a day off but I don't want one. These horses are my life. I love every one of them. If I don't get along with a horse I'll get rid of them but I keep horses their whole life. Old Crockets Cullen N, he's 13 years old and I bought him when he was 6. He's made over $500,000 for me. He's getting to the end of his rope but I enjoy having him here. He'll race until he's 14. Miss Irish Rose A, same thing, she's 12. When I bought her she had less than $50,000 earned in her life and now she's pushing $500,000. I just keep them around. They are my family. The kids are gone. I have a girlfriend Brittany, my dogs and my horses. That's all I really want in life. I don't want a big fancy house. I just want to get up every morning, see my horses and race. That was the other thing about moving up here. I'm tired of the shipping. I walk them to the paddock up here and race them. It is fun to ship Rocknroll Runa A around the country and race him because we are going for a lot of money [laughing], but racing from farms and shipping with late nights, that got me sour. What was your best moment in harness racing? Winning the Levy with Special Report [2008] was everything to me. I wanted that horse since he was 2 years old. I always tried to buy him and finally he became available. I remember when I got him my phone starting ringing and everyone was trying to buy him. I told them, all I would do is spend the money trying to chase another one like he, so why would I sell? Which is the best horse you've ever driven or trained? I think Rocknroll Runa A is a freak. I'm hoping I prove my point at the end of the year. I was very close and really thought about supplementing him to the Breeders Crown last year. Drew Monti once told me that you are what harness racing is all about; working hard until you make it. Do you view yourself that way? Yeah, at the expense of any personal life. That's the bad thing about it. I didn't care about anything but horse racing. I cared about winning and making money with my horses. And don't take that the wrong way, also taking care of my horses. You don't have a Crockets Cullen A, who has four pencil legs, and keep them going at age 13 if you don't take care of them. I always did what was best for the horses but it consumed me. Have you accomplished what you wanted to in the sport? Yeah. Even if there isn't a Rocknroll Runa A, I've still done everything I wanted to do. I'm happy if I just sit here, never go nowhere and just have a few horses racing. It will be fun though if he ends up as good as I think he can be. That would be a crowning achievement. Looking at your USTA record some may say you have a checkered history in terms of penalties. What do you attribute that to? I take full responsibility for 50 percent of what is on my record. I think 25 percent I shouldn't have gotten as much of a penalty as I received and another 25 percent was just fabricated nonsense bullshit. When I was younger I probably did things I shouldn't have been doing. I grew up and once I got with Kim, they probably should've put up billboards up about me because I straightened out my life. I changed my path in life and that is why I'm still here today. I don't think without Kim and her dad's influence that my life would've went the same way, and also Doc and Tracy Smith, they are always there for me when I get a little down. They are always there to pick me back up and remind me what I'm there for. Back in 2020 I recall a stretch where you were winless in like 70 starts. Do streaks like that weigh on you? Weigh on me, my gosh, if I don't win a race every day I'm going crazy. I remember that. They had to take all the sharp objects away from me and make sure there was no rope laying around [laughing]. I'm my own worst critic and I beat myself up terribly. I don't think you can be any good with a nonchalant attitude. You have to have a little bit of that gruffness to you. You have to have a little bit of a chip on your shoulder and think you are better than everyone else to be a catch-driver, because if you don't you'll just get walked all over. I was always pretty high on myself, so I didn't have that problem [laughing]. If you had the power to change one thing in the sport, what would it be? I'll probably take more flak for this than anything but hear me out. One of the greatest things to happen in the history of horse racing was the addition of claimers, because back in those days it worked. Now they are just hurting the sport. If you eliminate claimers, no overnight barn in the country will have 50, 60, 70, or 80 horses because you can't race them all in the same class. Horses will go up the ladder and they'll go down the ladder. People won't be able to jam horses into claiming races to win every week. Those older guys that the business sort of went by but are still good at getting a horse going, it will get those guys going again because their horses will be worth more. Also, if you take the claimers away the deals [owner buys a horse and trainer covers the bills – purses split 50/50] will go away. How do you view the future of harness racing? I think we are in trouble. We all know the casinos are a Band-Aid and the casinos know that. They lobby every day to get rid of us. We are doing nothing to help ourselves. I think it will always be around but the number of racetracks will have to drop. I think our business is saturated. Using New York as an example, Yonkers will always be Yonkers and be around, but why are all these other tracks racing against each other? Buffalo, Batavia, Tioga and Vernon should all get together and pool their purse money to create a year-round circuit with only one track going at a time. If you did that the purses would be strong and you could race four to five days a week. Time for the stretch drive… Best Horse you ever saw: I'm a little biased to the foreign horses because I watch so many of those races. Lazarus, I watched him race over and over long before he came here. I was dumbfounded how he did things that horses here couldn't do. Lasix – Yes or No: Yes. Everyone would have to find something else if it wasn't used and it would just create another problem. Interestingly, the foreign horses don't bleed there because they don't have a lot of our diseases . . . that's why a lot of those horses, the minute they get sick here they aren't the same. That's why I'm anal about keeping them healthy. Favorite TV Show: I don't really watch TV. If I do it is the Food Network. I like to cook and I'm absolutely a foodie. That and a beer drinker, but I can't make a living doing either of those things. Trotters or Pacers: I love them both. Right now I have a very good group of horses, perhaps the best quality that I've had in my life.