This past weekend was dark, wet and dreary in Southern California. With 3-5 inches of rain predicted, Santa Anita Racetrack decided to postpone Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 San Marcos Stakes for a week. Postponing a stakes race due to weather isn’t unusual but it’s certainly rare. We (Woodford Racing) were scheduled to run Campaign in the San Marcos but the combination of the race being delayed and concerns about Campaign going 1 1/4 miles off a 3 1/2 month break caused us to rethink plans.
Campaign’s trainer (John Sadler) made the decision to run Campaign one day later than planned in a 1 1/16 mile allowance condition dirt race. The dirt track was extremely sloppy on Sunday and the rain that was predicted never let up. Campaign drew post position 9 and was ridden by Rafael Bejarano for the first time.
After leaving the starting gate, Campaign took his customary position in the back of the nine horse field. As they proceeded down the backstretch Campaign was running ten lengths behind the leader and appeared to be content watching the entire field ahead of him. While Campaign didn’t seem to be struggling with the wet track condition, he would need to commence a significant rally to have any chance of winning.
With 3/8th’s of a mile to go in the race, Bejarano asked Campaign for run and he began to pick off horses one by one. Two horses were still in front of us with a 1/16th of a mile to go and the finish line was fast approaching. Under extremely confident handling by Bejarano, Campaign got up in time to win by a neck! My first reaction after the race was Catapult would have benefitted from Bejarano’s ride last week at Gulfstream Park in the Pegasus Turf Invitational.
Photo credit: Benoit
Campaign’s win was his third win in six starts and increased his earnings to $215,000. He has now won on dirt (albeit sloppy) in California and twice on the turf in Kentucky. I wasn’t surprised Campaign liked the sloppy conditions as he ran second in his first lifetime start at Saratoga in similar conditions against a horse (Lone Sailor) who ran in the Kentucky Derby.
Campaign at Saratoga
A versatile horse like Campaign provides many options and I look forward to seeing where we run him next.
Champagne for Campaign