by Murray Brown

Andrew Harris is a relative unknown in the world of 2- and 3-year-old Grand Circuit racing. Trust me on this. That will not be the case for too long. He is far from unknown in training and managing a large and successful stable. He has been on his own in New Jersey since 2015, racing mostly proven racehorses with a few young horses thrown in. He has had success with youngsters like Law Maker, Waitlifter K and Pedro Hanover among some youngsters that have been sent to him. He is a third-generation horseman. Needless to say, he and his partners Bill Pollock and Bruce Areman have made a splash at the Lexington and Harrisburg Sales focusing on and always purchasing the horses that they came to buy.

I had a chance to speak with Harris the day after all his Harrisburg purchases arrived at his stable at Gaitway Farms.

Tell me about yourself?

“I’m a third-generation horseman. Me and my twin brother J have always been involved with horses. J chose to become a full-time driver while I decided to go the training route. I started working for Bill Robinson when I was in my teens. I was there for two years until Casie Coleman “poached” me from him. I worked for Casie for 11 years. She and I are still quite friendly. While with her, I was sent to the States to manage the horses she had racing here. At the time, Casie had a huge stable of almost 100 horses.

“She transitioned to concentrate on Grand Circuit youngsters. Her numbers with me declined and I started to get a few horses on my own to fill that void. Over a short period of time that transition was complete and she stopped racing overnight horses. By then I had established my own stable which grew and we attained some success racing mostly good overnight horses.”

You went to two schools of trainers with Hall of Fame credentials. Tell us about working for Robinson and Coleman?

“The one thing they both had in common was they were both great horsemen but quite different in running their operation. Casie was very hands on and very detail oriented. Nothing escaped her attention. Bill was somewhat laid back. He had a great eye and great instinct. He saw things that others often did not.”

You and your two partners Bruce Areman and Bill Pollock have shaken up the business like no one I can remember and I’ve been involved for 65 years. How did the association come about?

“When Anthony MacDonald was just starting The Stable, he sent me a nice trotter that he had named Law Maker. He was well staked and raced in the Hambletonian out of my stable. One of the multiple owners of Law Maker was Bruce Areman. Bruce has loved harness racing for the last 35 years or more. Bruce started coming around to the stable, first to see Law Maker and then regularly on Saturdays to watch his horses train. We became quite friendly.  He introduced me to Bill Pollock. Bill indicated that he wanted to get into the game. But he wanted to get the very best possible horses that might become available. Last Fall, Abuckabett Hanover was being offered on OnGait. I mentioned this to the guys and Bill said, ‘Let’s buy him’ and we did, for $535,000. That was more than I ever dreamed I would ever have to buy a horse.”

If I understand correctly, you were to become a partner on Abuckabett Hanover and all the horses to come. How is a working horse trainer able to afford that kind of investment?

“To be absolutely honest I’m not and can’t. But Bill worked it out so that I am able to share in the trials and tribulations and hopefully the rewards of horse ownership. He made it clear that we wanted to buy the best available. I believe the mega thoroughbred owner John Stewart was quoted as saying ‘I’m a buyer not a bidder.’ When it comes to buying horses, the same applies to Bill Pollock. Thus far, we have bought every single horse that we have bid on.”

How much pressure does the responsibility of training $6,090,000 worth of yearlings incur?

“I don’t look upon it as pressure at all. I think of it as a miraculous privilege. I have been entrusted with 20 of the best bred and well conformed yearlings in the world. Steve Elliott once said that the most important job in being a successful horse trainer is not to screw things up. That is what I also feel is the highest responsibility in being a good horse trainer. I will do my utmost to do what is best with each and every one of these colts and fillies.”

How is the stable presently aligned with regards to its composition?

“I hope we are loaded in the free for all ranks with Abuckabett Hanover coming back and Seven Colors and El Ray returning as 4-year-olds. We have a few coming 3-year-olds that showed some promise this year. It’s the coming 2-year-olds that I look forward to the most. We have 20 of them, 15 pacers and five trotters. The pacers are divided 11 colts and four fillies; the trotters, four colts and a filly.

With regard to your pacing colt purchases, there was one that especially intrigued me. It was Hip #252 at Harrisburg, a colt named Cafe Culture who you purchased for $195,000. What is remarkable is that he is the 15th foal from his dam. It bears special interest to me since, as you know, I made the rounds evaluating yearlings for the Harrisburg Sale for over 30 years. In that time, I looked at literally thousands of yearlings, of those the most beautiful was the first colt from that mare. His name is Well Said. Now you’ve bought he 15th foal. I hope he is near as good.

“The way you are describing Well Said is the way this colt looks. He is absolutely drop dead gorgeous. I had a question in my mind about his being the 15th foal. Anybody would. But I was always of the belief that it is the individual we are judging, not the number foal he is. I don’t know how many times I went back to look at him, but it was considerable. I couldn’t fault him in the slightest and I determined that we had to have him.”

Author’s Note: It was my pleasure to speak with Bill Pollock about Andrew Harris and his relationship with him.

“A little more than a year ago, Bruce Areman, who has been my friend for around 35 years approached me and suggested I get into the horse business with him and a young trainer that he highly recommended named Andrew Harris,” Pollock said. “He said that Andrew is among the finest of people that he knows in or out of the business. The three of us joined forces. I found that Bruce’s assessment of Andrew was spot on.”