By Dan Johnson

Training has always been a family affair for William Harris. Only he has gone from a father-and-son stable to a husband-and-wife team.

Harris grew up working at the track for his father, trainer John Harris. He has been training on his own for 20 years, only now he shares the stable duties with his wife, Lori.

They do everything from galloping their 12 horses to walking them.

"Lori and I do just about everything," Harris said. "She gallops and ponys the horses, and she even shoes them. We have a girl helping us clean stalls, but that's about all we ever hire. We keep it small, and I like being hands-on."

Hands-on is working. Since first coming to Prairie Meadows in 2010, the Harris's are winning at a 43 percent rate, with 10 wins in 23 starts and have won three stakes. Their stable star has been A Plain Brown Rapper, who won the 2010 Prairie Meadows Juvenile Challenge as well as the race's national finals.

William not only supervises the stable, but works as a groom and hotwalker. While a groom usually walks a horses in the paddock before a race, William does that. He feels it helps that he and Lori are so close to their horses.

"I don't have to go to the track and watch every horse, because I know Lori knows exactly what's going on," he said. "If she comes back and tells me there's a problem, I know there's a problem. Whereas, if I had a different gallop boy every day, they don't know how the horse went the time before. She's probably the best hand on the grounds. She has a good reputation for that, everyone knows her as a horsewoman."

Now, the Harris's' home is wherever their track is. Their residence is a RV.

"We raised our kids, and now they've grown up and gone away. They grew up on the track. Now one's in the Navy, one's still working on the track at Phoenix.

"When our youngest one graduated and joined the Navy, we bought a fifth wheel and we've just been going everywhere. It's wherever we decide we want to go, This winter, we're going to go to LA. The last two years, we went to Hialeah, but this year we have a new grandson and we're going to go to LA to be a little closer to him."

As for himself, William Harris says, "I just grew up on a racetrack. I was one of these little kids out here running around and picking up (discarded) tickets and looking over the rail.

Yet, he didn't plan on sticking with training. He worked on the starting gate, was an assistant racing secretary at Arapahoe Park, and at pone time was a farmer.

"I tried everything for awhile," he said. "But it's a pretty good life. It's just something that gets into you and you're hooked. There's no higher high. Unfortunately, there's no lower lows, too, but the highs are high. It's an amazing sport.”