When the Fat Man Talks, Listen

By BJ. Phillips

And Johnny Campo is saying that Pleasant Colony is no fluke

Early one morning last week, a crew of painters arrived at Barn No. 48 on the backstretch of New York's Belmont Park. They started to work, patching cracks in the walls of the cramped two-room office next to the stables and applying a fresh coat of paint to the weathered picket fence. "Just regular maintenance," a workman explained. Then he added, "Of course, the big horse always gets regular maintenance just before the big race."

The big horse is Pleasant Colony, winner of the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. The big race is Saturday's Belmont Stakes, final jewel in the Triple Crown of American Thoroughbred racing. Pleasant Colony occupies a stall midway down the shed row, his needs tenderly ministered to by a groom, his well-being protected by a round-the-clock guard detail. But Barn No. 48 is more than the home of Pleasant Colony. It is the domain of Johnny Campo, the controversial trainer who violated one of the conventions of the racing world by brashly predicting victory for his once obscure colt: A new coat of paint might spiff up Pleasant Colony's stable, but no amount of maintenance will transform Johnny Campo into a gentleman. A combative New York City street kid who worked his way up, Campo is loud, untidy and embarrassingly blunt.

If Pleasant Colony is an unlikely Triple Crown candidate (he had never won an important stakes race until Aqueduct's Wood Memorial two weeks before the Derby), his trainer is more improbable still. Campo was born 43 years ago in Manhattan, the son of Italian immigrants. His destiny was sealed when his father, a tailor, moved the family to the relatively greener pasture of Ozone Park, Queens. From his classroom window at P.S. 108, young Johnny stared at Aqueduct across the street, dreams of flying hoofs and flowing silks dancing in his head. At 15 he showed up at the track looking for work; as always, there was a job for a youngster willing to do the hard, dirty work of mucking out stalls and hot-walking horses in endless circles to cool them down slowly after a workout or a race. When he turned 16, he quit school and went to the track to stay. Says he: "I started out walking hots, carrying manure on my back, being abused. I gave up my whole life to be a trainer."

His first job was for Lucien Laurin, who later would leave his mark on racing history as the trainer of Secretariat, Triple Crown winner in 1973. Then Campo worked as a groom for Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons, trainer of Triple Crown legends Gallant Fox (1930) and Omaha (1935). Finally Campo joined the stables of Eddie Neloy, trainer of the great handicap horse Buckpasser.

That was Campo's big break. He started as a groom, and after four years Neloy promoted him to assistant trainer --and full-time protege. In hopes of smoothing some of Campo's rough edges, Neloy went so far as to enroll him in a Dale Carnegie course. That effort failed. Though Campo could never acquire the social skills of the racing swells, he learned well the lessons of the barn and backstretch. Says Trainer Woody Stephens: "Johnny was a very hardworking guy. Eddie gave him his first push when he sent him out to California with some horses. Buckpasser was one of them, and Johnny handled him well. Step by step, he went on from there."

Campo opened his own shop at Belmont in 1968. He did not enjoy the backing of racing's powerful old families, but he built his stable into one of New York's best. In 1970 he won more races than any other trainer in the state and, by shrewdly picking up future winners in claiming races, kept improving his record. In 1971 he broke into the big time with a colt named Jim French, which finished in the money at the Derby, Preakness and Belmont. Then it was discovered that the colt's hidden owner was Robert Presti, who had been banned from racing in New York State for alleged connections with the Mafia. Stewards for the New York Racing Association ruled that Campo had misrepresented the horse's ownership, and the trainer was suspended from racing for 30 days. Seven years later, Campo was subpoenaed by a Detroit grand jury when confessed Race Fixer Tony Ciulla named him as an associate. Campo said he sold Ciulla horses that were later used in fixed races in other states, but authorities were unable to prove that he was involved in any wrongdoing.

Thus Campo was a controversial figure long before he rudely announced after the Wood Memorial in April that his colt would win the Kentucky Derby because the rest of the field was "a bunch of garbage." The remark was vintage Campo. He refuses to make his sentences parse or his opinions palatable. He also pre-empts criticism about his appearance (5 ft. 7 in., 250 Ibs.) by proclaiming himself the Fat Man. Says one New York trainer: "He's got a huge chip on his shoulder, an inferiority complex that he defends by putting on a superiority complex. But fortunately, a good horse doesn't know who his trainer is." Others may scorn Campo's city background and his own ineptness in the saddle. ("He's no horseman," says a Kentucky breeder. "I don't think he could ride in a boxcar with the doors closed.") But Campo is equally --and justifiably--haughty about his accomplishments. Says he: "I'll put myself and my record up against anybody in this country, in the world, head-to-head. I'm a good trainer. I know what I can do. This horse (Pleasant Colony] leaves at the end of the year, but I'll get another one like him and another one after that. I know where to get them and how to get them because I'm good."

Still, a colt like Pleasant Colony is a once-in-a-lifetime creature, a rare congruence of speed, stamina and heart. The racing world was surprised when the relatively unknown son of His Majesty took the Derby (1 1/4 miles). Horsemen conceded him the shorter Preakness (1 3/16 miles) but are now murmuring that he will fade in a race as long as the Belmont (1 1/2 miles). Not Johnny Campo. He has no doubt that Pleasant Colony will become history's twelfth Triple Crown winner. The rapid-fire, near-shout Noo Yawk accent softens only when he speaks of his colt: "He really is a good horse, this horse. Ahh, such a good horse."

--By BJ. Phillips

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