But two months before the 1981 Kentucky Derby, savvy railbirds had barely noticed Pleasant Colony. Born on Thomas Mellon Evans’ Buckland Farm in Warrenton, Virginia, he was a son of His Majesty, an excellent sire and a son of the great European runner and sire Ribot. His dam was Sun Colony, by Sunrise Flight, resulting in a distance-loving pedigree.
A lanky, dark brown colt that grew to almost 17 hands. He captured two of his five junior starts, including the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes via disqualification in New York. At age 3, Pleasant Colony was second in the Fountain of Youth but finished fifth, defeated by 12 1/2 lengths in the 1981 Florida Derby. Evans fired his young trainer O’Donnell Lee and shipped the colt to Belmont Park and trainer John Campo. A sharp-tongued New Yorker who stood five feet tall, he tipped the scales at 250 pounds.
“It doesn’t matter, the horse runs, I don’t,” Campo said.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Evans was one of Wall Street’s most feared corporate raiders. After closing several businesses in New Jersey, Democratic Congressman Frank Thompson Jr. him ‘the corporate embodiment of Jaws, the great white shark’. More often, however, Evans was hailed as a financial genius.
He came from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and started his financial career at the bottom – despite his gold-plated middle name. His grandmother’s first cousin was Andrew Mellon, the world famous banker. After graduating from Yale University in 1931, Evans got a $100-a-month clerk’s job at Gulf Oil, which was then owned by the Mellon family.
In 1956, Evans purchased a 495-acre ranch in Gainesville, Virginia, where Black Angus cattle were raised. He switched it to Thoroughbreds and renamed it Buckland Farm in 1964. A trio of champions would be raised there – including Pleasant Colony – their jockeys wearing the dark blue Buckland Farm silks with a white triangle and white sleeves.
The son of an Italian sewing machine operator, Campo grew up near the Aqueduct racetrack in Queens. In 1959, at age 16, he was hired by Aqueduct trainer Eddie Neloy, a future Racing Hall of Famer. Campo was promoted to assistant coach after four years with a catch. Neloy insisted on smoothing Campo’s rough edges with a 14-week self-improvement course.
“It was a pretty fun course,” Campo said in a 1981 interview with People magazine. “I think it would help someone who isn’t so tense.”
Campo also worked in the barns of James E. “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons and Lucien Laurin before going solo in 1968. His first top horse was Jim French, who won the 1971 Santa Anita Derby and finished second in both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes.
In early 1981, Pleasant Colony, stabled in Campo’s barn in Belmont, didn’t look much like a runner. He dozed in his stable. When he entered the track for the post parade, his ears drooped, his ribs protruded and he was known for his unruly behavior by the time he was loaded into the starting gate.
Once Campo took control of Pleasant Colony, he had a month to prepare for the Wood Memorial Stakes. Normally slow at his best pace during races, Pleasant Colony’s late run and endurance made him a tough and stylish competitor.
“When the horse came in, he looked underdeveloped – all leg and no girth,” said then-Pleasant Colony veterinarian Janice Runkle. People. “John trained him hard and now he has muscle mass. Some horses wouldn’t have been able to tolerate that change in training, but he was ready.”
Armed with a new trainer and new jockey Jorge Velasquez, the rangy colt stepped out of the shadows in the 57th running of the Wood Memorial as Pleasant Colony favored Cure the Blues in the final turn to take a three-length victory.
“Look at him in the Triple Crown,” Campo told the newspaper New York Times. “I’m a good trainer and I told Jorge this morning that if this horse doesn’t win at five o’clock, he won’t win. I’m not a jockey, but you have to give this horse a chance. He’s a big horse and he has to get himself together before he goes out.”
In Louisville, Campo, being Campo, told anyone who would listen that his horse would win. As for Pleasant Colony, the colt was probably surprised at all the fuss. Twenty-one horses broke from the gate in the battle of the roses on May 2, in front of the second largest Derby crowd at the time of 139,195.
Pleasant Colony drifted to the back of the pack before quickly working his way into contention and weaving through the field on the final turn. Pleasant Colony took the lead in the early stretch and withstood a powerful finish from Woodchopper to prevail by three-quarters of a length.
The winner’s time of 2:02 over 1 ¼ miles was two and three-fifths seconds off Secretariat’s Churchill Downs track record, even though the first two quarters were run in record Derby clocks of :21 4/5 and :45 1/5. The early pace sapped the staying power of the other favorites: Top Avenger, Proud Appeal and Bold Ego.
“I told you! I told everyone!” Campo shouted. When friendly ABC announcer Jim McKay asked him about his confidence in his horse, Campo barked, “I’m a good horse trainer, never forget that.”
The 106th Preakness was Pleasant Colony’s third sparkling performance in four weeks. Evans’ colt circled much of the field as he rolled into the stretch and tangled with Bold Ego. The duo dueled the entire length of the stretch before Pleasant Colony’s final burst of speed in the final few strides secured a one-length victory. For Velasquez, it was sweet redemption after the heartache of Alydar’s Triple Crown run of three straight second-place finishes three years earlier.
“I thought we were going to swoosh, right at Bold Ego,” Velasquez said Sports illustrated after earning his first Preakness win in six tries, “and when that didn’t work out, I was like, ‘Hey, what’s going on here? Bold ego, you gotta stop!’ He ran a dead-game race.”
The long run was so fast that Pleasant Colony tied the record for the fastest final three-sixteenths of a mile in the Preakness with its clocking speed of 18 1/5 seconds, tied with Little Current (1974), Affirmed (1978) and Codex (1980).
For Buckland Farm owner Evans, the Preakness win was worth $200,800. His second Triple Crown victory increased Pleasant Colony’s career earnings to $720,147 and his season earnings to $632,179. Pleasant Colony also gave its owner, trainer and jockey their first Preakness victories.
Campo was encouraged by what he said was an impeccable performance by Pleasant Colony in the Preakness.
“He goes as fast as he has to run,” Campo told the New York Times. “And he does it for fun.”
“He’s a genius racehorse,” Campo continued. “He’ll win the Belmont.”
On a hot and humid June afternoon at Belmont Park, a crowd of 61,106 was rooting for Pleasant Colony to deliver its fourth Triple Crown sweep in nine years. Labeled as the 4-5 betting favorite, it wasn’t Pleasant Colony’s day. Spooked and washed out in sweat on the way from the stable to the saddle pasture, Pleasant Colony refused to enter the starting gate and postponed the race until the assistant starters finally lured him inside.
Pleasant Colony broke from the outpost and was moved back to last place early in the 11-horse field. Velásquez turned into the stretch and urged Pleasant Colony to begin his run, but the colt was unable to uncork his patented closing kick. Still, Pleasant Colony held on and finished a game third, beaten by less than two lengths by Summing.
“You can’t regret it, that’s the name of the game,” Campo said. “You can’t win them all. My horse tried to run, but he didn’t gain any ground and he didn’t lose any ground. He’s still a good horse. He’s not a great horse.”
“He had a tough race in the Preakness,” Campo reflected in a Preakness story years later Los Angeles Times. “He came out of the race fine, but he was a tired horse, and you can’t win the Belmont with a tired horse. To give him a good boost, I worked him for a mile one day, and then I knew it was too much for him. But you had to run and hope you’d get lucky.”
After the Belmont the foal was given a long rest period. He only raced three more times in his career. Angel Cordero replaced Velasquez as Pleasant Colony’s rider and guided him to a second-place finish in the Travers Stakes and a 1 ¾ length victory in the Woodward Stakes, in which he defeated a top-ranked handicap field.
After a fourth-place finish in the Marlboro Cup Handicap, Pleasant Colony retired with a lifetime record of six wins, three seconds and a third from 14 starts and $965,383 in earnings. He was named 3-year-old male champion in 1981, but lost to John Henry for Horse of the Year.
Pleasant Colony passed on his class and stamina at stud at the Buckland division in Kentucky, producing 77 stakes winners, including 1992 older male champion Pleasant Tap; Pleasantly Perfect, winner of the 2003 Breeders’ Cup Classic and 2004 Dubai World Cup; 1991 champion 2-year-old filly Pleasant Stage; 1993 Belmont Stakes winner Colonial Affair; 1993 Big ‘Cap winner Sir Beaufort; and 1992 European Horse of the Year St. Jovite. In total, his descendants earned more than $66 million. Pleasant Colony is also the broodmare sire of Tonalist, the winner of the 2014 Belmont Stakes.
On New Year’s Eve 2002, Pleasant Colony died of natural causes in his pasture on the Blue Ridge farm near Upperville, Virginia, at the age of 24. He was buried at David Blake’s Buckland Farm, just a short distance from the barn where he was born.
Note: This story was originally published in 2015 and has been updated.
#Pleasant #Colony #Kentucky #Derby #winner #true #racehorse