Grade 1 winner Global Campaign was aboard a van to WinStar Farm Sunday morning with Improbable and Tom's d'Etat, each with plans to enter stud at the Versailles, Ky., farm in 2021. Unlike the others, though, Global Campaign's first steps off the trailer might end up being for a layover instead of a final destination.
Elliott Walden, WinStar's president, CEO, and racing manager, said the 4-year-old Curlin colt will be assessed during his time at the farm, and he could return to the barn of trainer Stanley Hough in seven to 10 days to prepare for a final start in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes on Jan. 23. Though the final decision will be made following the assessment period, Walden said he was “leaning that way” toward sending him back into training.
Global Campaign finished third in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Keeneland on Saturday, capping off a 2020 campaign that has included wins in the G1 Woodward Handicap and G3 Monmouth Stakes. WinStar bred the colt, and owns him in partnership with Sagamore Racing.
Walden said Global Campaign's connections entered the Classic with different long-term plans depending on his performance in the race. He also said the early shape of the potential Pegasus field might play well into the upward trajectory of Global Campaign's development.
“If he'd won the Classic, he'd probably been retired, if he'd ran poorly, he'd be retired, but if he ran a good race without winning, we would consider the possibility [of the Pegasus], and that's exactly what happened,” he said. “With Improbable retiring, and I don't know what Authentic's going to do, but he showed himself [in the Classic]. That was a deep, deep Classic field, one of the deepest we've had in a long time. Global Campaign really ran well. Stan Hough told me he was going to run well, told me he was going to outrun his odds.”
Should Global Campaign be given the green light to try for the Pegasus, Walden said he would join Hough's barn wherever he's needed, most likely going to Palm Meadows Training Center in south Florida.
Global Campaign has won six of 10 career starts for earnings of $1,321,080, also including last year's G2 Peter Pan Stakes.
“He's had a big year,” Walden said. “He's won three out of five, with a win in the Woodward and he won going seven-eighths (an optional claiming race at Gulfstream Park on April 25). When he ran the first start of the year in that seven-eighths allowance race, and he ran extremely fast, that's when we said we wanted to stand him, no matter what happens. We made a deal with Kevin [Plank, owner of Sagamore Racing] to do that. We'd owned a piece of him, but we bought up to make that happen.”
Global Campaign's 2021 stud fee is still to be determined.
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