For as long and as hard as Mike Campbell fought to keep Arlington Park from being shut down, there must have been a little extra joy when he saddled his first graded stakes winner in nearly two decades on Sept. 23 beneath the Twin Spires at Churchill Downs.
Lady Radler, sent to post at 23-1, put on a show in that day's Grade 3 Dogwood Stakes to win by 2 ¾ lengths. The 3-year-old filly is now based at Keeneland while 72-year-old Campbell prepares her to take the next step up in competition, aiming for the Grade 2 Raven Run on Saturday, Oct. 21.
“I do find it unique that I am in barn 49, which is 10 feet away from Rice Road; I think that there might be a message there!” joked Campbell, the former longtime president of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association. “Actually, Mike Stidham stopped me the other day when I was wearing a CDI hat. He said I was the last person he'd ever expected to see wearing that, and what I told him is true.
“At the time, and in that place, I was fighting for the horsemen in Illinois. It was my job, and if I had to do it all over again, I would. But we lost that battle, and now it's time to turn the page.”
CDI, short for Churchill Downs Inc., is the company that owned Arlington Park and opted to close the track in 2021, selling it to the NFL's Chicago Bears for a potential football stadium. The grandstand was demolished earlier this year.
Don't misunderstand: Campbell said he has NOT given up on racing in Illinois. He remains part of a consortium that hopes to build a harness track just south of Chicago, and believes that another Thoroughbred track in the city is not outside the realm of possibility.
“All my life, people have told me what I can't do,” he reflected. “But, because of the market we're in, I think it's entirely sustainable. You need good facilities, cooperation from the horsemen's groups, and you gotta believe in the spirit of the horse, the spirit of the people that are involved in this game. Nobody quits after they lose a race, so we shouldn't quit after we lose a racetrack.”
That horseman's spirit is something Campbell has witnessed every day since his youth: both his father and grandfather were what he called “summertime horse trainers.” They'd head out to East St. Louis or Fairmount Park in the late fall, giving $1,000 or so for older, arthritic horses who just needed a break, then bring them home to Wisconsin for the winter.
“Those cold Wisconsin winters would rehabilitate a horse in a very unusual way,” Campbell reflected. “As long as you kept them warm and fed, then you could turn them out in the three feet of snow and man, those arthritic horses would come around and be very useful the next year. It wasn't stakes winners or anything, but it certainly fed families.”
Campbell remembers a time when there were over 140 horses on the farm, between racehorses, jumping horses, and riding horses.
“In our family, we weren't allowed bicycles,” he said, laughing. “My dad thought they were dangerous, but we had our choice of 140 horses.
“I also show jumped at a very small level and had some very good horses. I had an open jumper, a warmblood, that could easily clear eight feet! It was not unusual for us to just give demonstrations at horse shows, because nobody could believe it. Even at that time, though, it was a real money game, and I was small, so between those factors, it just led me to the racetrack.”
Though his career as a jockey was cut short by injury, Campbell remained undeterred. After taking the time to make sure he was healed, Campbell started training full time in 1978 with a few horses at Thistledown in Ohio.
“The first year I trained horses, I was broke, and I had two twin boys,” he reflected. “I told my wife, 'I cannot do this again.' Well, in 1979 I led all trainers at the summit meet at Thistle. I kept getting more horses, doing better year to year, and this year's been my best year yet. But I do think that had I not been able to get my start in a very humble way, I wouldn't have the things I have today.”
Among those successes in racing are a pair of graded stakes winners, both former claimers, in 2006, as well as two of Campbell's sons, Jesse and Joel, both accomplished jockeys. The former won over 2,300 races, including the Queen's Plate in 2013, and Joel rode 718 winners during his career. Though each has now retired from the saddle, Joel remains involved in racing as a trainer, while Jesse is running a successful HVAC company.
Looking back, Campbell is very cognizant that it's the horses themselves who have allowed him and his family to be successful in this business.
“I told someone once that I'd changed my feeding program – I'm feeding better horses!” he quipped. “The thing is, you build on success. You have to be successful. I've always won races, won stakes, won a couple graded stakes with claimed horses. But I think relationships matter, and I also think experience matters. It's relative to your health, too. I've had good health and great relationships with owners, and a wonderful family that enables me to do all of the above. I feel like experiences, going through hundreds of horses, it all adds up and makes you a pretty well-rounded horseman.”
It's fitting, then, that it was a combination of those elements that led Lady Radler to Campbell's barn. Owner George Mellon, for whom Campbell has trained for more than 25 years, pointed out a filly by Kantharos at the OBS March sale of 2-year-olds in training.
Campbell went to check her out, and loved everything he saw. He ended up being able to purchase the filly for a final bid of $37,000.
“I told him, 'I just bought you a stakes horse and I don't know how I did it so cheap,'” Campbell remembered. “There was never a doubt in my mind that she would break through at the graded stakes level. I told George in the Spring, let me do what I have to do, and I will get you a graded stakes winner.”
Thus, Lady Radler entered the Dogwood with two wins from four starts in 2023, but Campbell was surprised that her odds were as high as 23-1. Her two losses were explainable, he said. The first, in April at Gulfstream, was caused by the filly clipping heels and nearly falling. The other loss, her most recent out at Presque Isle Downs, showed a clear distaste for the synthetic track.
Other than those two efforts, Lady Radler had never finished off the board.
Yet, Campbell was quick to admit that in the view of horseplayers, since he's not a mainstream trainer in Kentucky, and rider Jesus Castanon is viewed as a “senior” jockey, it may have been hard to pick Lady Radler as the winner.
“It doesn't offend me in any way, but sometimes I'm surprised about that,” Campbell said. “I wasn't surprised when she won, though!”
Heading into the Raven Run, Campbell is just as confident.
“This filly is doing outstanding right now,” he said. “When the horse is happy, they're sound, and their respiratory system is top notch, they can whip the top guys in the barn.
“It's a Grade 2, so I'm curious to see who enters, but I don't care who they run against her, she'll be 1-2-3. She needs racing luck, sure, but I don't see her going off at 23-1 this time!”
At the same time, while the odds of another Thoroughbred track in Cook County may be quite a bit longer than those his filly faced at Churchill, Campbell remains committed to the cause.
“It was always my distinct honor to try to contribute to racing in Illinois,” he said. “Based on the conversations that I'm having, from the Governor down, they realize that there is a danger here, that the racing industry is on the ropes in Illinois.
“I'm confident to say that there's still interest to build something like Arlington in Cook County, and if the phoenix could rise from the ashes, we'd like to be a part of it. We will never give up.”
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