What is the best performance you have ever seen by a racehorse?
Oh, man. There are so many. There are two that stand out. And I'll go with two where I was there live and in person versus watching on TV. The Arkansas Derby in 2015 by American Pharoah that's certainly number one. Or at least one of two because it was just an other world performance. So during that period, we hadn't had a Triple Crown winner in 37 years, and there were all kinds of doubts that it would never happen again, and we were never going to see one. We had seen some really good Arkansas Derby winners. We saw Curlin and Bodemeister win that race, and they didn't go on to win the Kentucky Derby. But that day when American Pharoah won the Arkansas Derby, not only did I think there's no doubt he's going to win the Kentucky Derby. There was no doubt in my mind he would win the Triple Crown. His Arkansas Derby performance was just something that I had never seen before. It was just breathtaking. You fast forward to when the Flightline won the Breeders' Cup Classic. I think that's the next one for me. It's got to be one of those two. That Breeders' Cup Classic for Flightline, he was running so fast early and chasing the fastest horse in the country at the time, and he just passed that horse like he was standing still and blew away the field like they weren't even behind him. It's one of those two. I can't decipher between the two. The Arkansas Derby may be a little more special because it was just that realization of, "Oh, this is what a truly great horse looks like versus a really good horse.”

What are a few things you look for in a Kentucky Derby horse?
We talked about that breathtaking aspect with American Pharoah. Sometimes you get that. Like Justify, American Pharaoh, you don't really need to analyze them much. You just need to watch them run and go, "Yeah, they're better than everybody else." So, elite talent obviously is the easiest answer. But not every year you've got elite horses. So then you look for the signs of how's the easiest way to win the Kentucky Derby. Well, it's 20 horses, right? So let's look for the horse that has a lot of speed but doesn't absolutely have to have the lead. So, a horse that has early speed but is in control and is calm, and if he gets the lead, that's fine. But if he's sitting in third or fourth, he's just as happy to do that. So those are the kind of horses that I like to bet in the Derby. They don't always win, but when you think about the Derby, you think about what kind of trip we will need here with 20 horses to win. And the easiest way to win the Derby is to get out ahead of 17 or 18 of them, at least, right? And then finish a little bit. So, a horse with early speed and a horse with a lot of flash are the two main things you look for. Then, hopefully, when you find a horse like that, they've got the pedigree to go a mile and a quarter. That's the third aspect of it. You know, sometimes you get horses that have early speed, but maybe they don't want to go a mile and a quarter, and they'll get caught. So you want to have that pedigree aspect, and they can go the distance. It's the longest they've ever raced in their life at that point. So that is the other aspect that you really need to focus on.

Where are you located out of?
So we're actually in Missouri. I live in Joplin, Missouri. My business partner, Jared Welch, lives in Springfield, Missouri. And that's kind of the odd thing about us. We don't really have a horse track in Missouri, obviously. We do have a few tracks, like Oaklawn Park and Remington Park, that are close. Prairie Meadows up in Iowa is close. Will Rogers Downs is a very small track, but still a track we can go to. But not a lot of people around us are into horse racing. We got into it going to Oaklawn. Again, when we tell people we're from Missouri, they're like, "What? Really?" Because Kentucky is usually the answer. Or maybe New York. But yeah, no. We're in Joplin, Missouri, Springfield, Missouri, the Southwest corner of Missouri here. And just two guys that, for whatever reason, defied the odds of where we live. We just got into it heavy.

What are your three favorite racetracks?
Saratoga is number one. I don't know how you beat that for me. I love it. It's a special place. Not just the racetrack itself, which is extremely special, but everything around it. So, Saratoga is number one. Santa Anita would be number two. It's just walking into paradise when you walk into that place. You walk in, and it's like you're on a movie set. And you kind of are because they've had movies there before. So the scenery and everything's amazing. And the third one's tough because I love so many. I think Keeneland is probably going to be my answer for the third one. It does get close for that one. There's something about being at Keeneland. You feel like as a horse racing person, especially as we got deeper into the industry and became workers in the industry, it just kind of felt at home when you go there. It feels like you're amongst your peers more than the other tracks. Whether that's true or not, I don't really know. But that's the way it feels. And Keeneland is a beautiful place as well. Lexington's a great, great city. So I got to go to Keeneland number three.

Who has been your biggest mentor?
Yeah, you know that's a great question, and I'm happy to talk about it because it's gonna come with a little bit of a long story. Not that long. But I didn't have one because my father he loves the horses. Ironically enough, he works for the website now, but he wasn't in the game. He knew racing, but he couldn't help me. He could show me how to read a form, but he couldn't help me with the day-to-day operation of this thing, and, to be honest, Ryan, I was struggling as far as running the website and doing picks publicly and then you introduced me to Jon White and Jon White is my one and only mentor I would say and what mentor to have. I remember the first time I met him, he was making the morning line for the Breeders Cup, and he told you, "Yeah, I'll meet your friends. I've only got like 30, 45 minutes, maybe an hour." and I was like, "I'll take five minutes." I needed to talk to somebody who knew what he was doing because it was very early on in our website's existence. And the guy spent 12 hours with us. 8, 12 hours, I don't remember what it was. It was a long time. And I don't know; I just felt like that was the start of whether he wanted to be my mentor or not, that he was. So every time I would see him at Santa Anita, we would talk, and we would talk, and he doesn't know it probably, but I've relied on him so much over the years. I remember a trip where we all went out to Vegas together, and again, this was only a couple of years ago, and I was just mentally drained and struggling just, you know, taking losses so hard because you lose a lot in racing and you do take it hard. And I remember just talking to Jon White about it. And Jon, he's that calming voice because he's been there, he's done everything in racing. He knows so much about racing. There is not one job he hasn't done. And I said, "Man, how do you deal with losses?" That was the last thing where I just needed his help, and he's like, "You deal with it ... You can't really, it's hard," but he's like, "You just have to realize that it's part of it and move on." And anyway, long story short, it's Jon White. That's the answer. He's the only mentor I've ever had. He's the only one, thankfully, I've ever needed because anytime I've needed something, whether he knows it or not, I reach out to him, and he gets me through it because it's not easy doing this. A lot of people think it is, it's not. It's every single day, the pressure. The more people you get on the website, the bigger that pressure becomes, and you feel like you got have to deliver, and he's just such a help to be that shoulder to kind of lean on when you're feeling it. Because sometimes, with this job, it comes to you easy, man. You just get on a roll, and man, it doesn't matter what the horse is or what the race is you are nailing them. And then sometimes you're just grinding to try to get one win. And that's when you need to lean on guys and say, "Hey, what did you do when you went on a slump?" or stuff like that. So it's Jon White. Without him we wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here for sure.


(Pictured left to right) Jon White, Ryan Stillman, Jared Welch, and Aaron Halterman. The four of them were at Emerald Downs to see their mentor and friend Jon White inducted into the Washington Racing Hall of Fame.

What is the Betting Bible?
The Betting Bible is a product you can get at the website, where it will tell you exactly what we're going to bet on that day. We put amounts in there, but it's based on a $200 bankroll. You can adjust your bankroll however you want to do it. So, you can adjust the bankroll if you have less than $200. If you have more than $200 you can adjust it higher. But it gives you the race-by-race breakdown: "Here's exactly what we're going to do: win, lose or draw. This is how we're betting." You can do the same thing we're doing, or you can do something different, whatever. But for the Betting Bibles on the big days of racing we want you to know exactly what we're doing. We also have picks from all of our handicappers in that Betting Bible as well, like Jon White, who volunteered to be in it after he retired. So Jon White's picks are in there as well. My dad's picks are in there. So it's kind of an array of handicappers, and then some really like centralized, "Here are the bets we're going to make." You may win, you may lose, but at least you know if you're going to buy this product, you know exactly who we like and exactly how we're trying to attack it.

If people want to get started with Racing Dudes, do you offer free picks on your site? 
I would say go to the website. If you've never been to racingdudes.com, I would start there. 99% of what we do is absolutely free, so that's the good news. You can go check us out before you even try the Betting Bible. Maybe you never want to pay for something, and that's fine, too. We have free win picks for every track every day. That's been that way for over 10 years now. All of our podcasts are free, and all of our articles are free, so if you join the site and it's like, "Oh, I love this stuff," and then you want to become a subscriber, you can go do that as well. You can get a month's worth of picks for $70. So, $70 a month will get you picks for every track every day, plus the Betting Bibles are free if you're a subscriber. So, you know, again, most of what we do is absolutely free, and if you don't ever want to be a subscriber, that's fine. You know, we like you coming to the site no matter what. So, yeah, if you want to get involved, I would just check out the free stuff first and see what you think.

Talk a little bit about your new venture Talkin' Track, and working with Ryan Stillman.
Ryan got a show, is what happened, and I just volunteered to say I would come on and be on with him, and it's growing on from there. So, it's new, and when anything is new, you have to build it. You know, it's not going to happen overnight. But I really feel like we're producing some high-quality shows. I think everybody needs to watch them because I think some of the content that Ryan has created comes at it a lot differently. I can sit here and talk about racing all day long, you can go to my channel, and you can watch that, but if you want to see it presented kind of funny, kind of different, more entertaining, I will say that Talkin' Track is the show for you. That's what you need to watch. We have a lot of fun on that show. We're informative. We don't just goof around, but we also have fun with it because at the end of the day, racing is meant to be fun. This is not meant to be anything more than a fun thing to do, and we try to keep it fun on the show.

Thank you, Aaron, for your time. If you want to learn more about the Racing Dudes check their website racingdudes.com. You can also follow them on twitter, instagram, and facebook. In moments of checking them out you will see why they are the most trusted website in the industry. BIGPLAY Sports is proud to work with Aaron Halterman. Look for him on Talkin' Track each week!