Shamrocks in the Bluegrass: Padraig Campion of Blandford Stud

If you want to know what endures, you need to know what has changed. To know what really counts, then, you must talk with the guys who have been around longest.

“I remember when the first ultrasound scanner came to town,” Padraig Campion says. “A guy called Dr. Norman Rantanen brought the machine in, to show us, and the first mare he scanned was Gold Digger. And sure enough, there's twins there. We didn't know. Down the road we realised it was pretty normal, that a lot of them just go away. But the old guys in the barn, every time it showed twins, they would say, 'Goddam, it's that machine causes them.'”

Gold Digger! The dam of Mr Prospector, no less. Campion belongs to a generation of horsemen that has seen it all; and to a subset that saw more than most, the Irish pioneers who migrated to the Bluegrass on the cusp of bloodstock's commercial revolution. Nowadays he sells on a scale apt to his years, his Blandford consignment vastly overshadowed by the industrial operations. But very often these little firms, with a seasoned hand at the tiller, prove to be the ones that see the big picture most clearly.

“One of my last years at Spendthrift, a horse called Princely Native bred 80 mares,” he recalls. “And people nearly went on strike. How could a horse breed that many mares!? But I rubbed Affirmed, and I rubbed his father Exclusive Native, and I rubbed Majestic Prince, still one of the best-looking horses ever.”

And the daddy of them all, all that clan anyway: Raise A Native.

“Looked like no horse I'd ever seen before,” Campion says. “Because he was the American Quarter Horse with a bit of stretch. Nothing like that in Ireland, where we were used to looking at Great Nephew and Habitat.”

Not that those prototypes of the old country had especially featured in his own upbringing.

“I grew up on the Curragh, so it was either horses or join the army-and I didn't want to get my hair cut,” Campion says. “My dad liked a bet and he knew the groom of Santa Claus. The milkman would go by Paddy Prendergast's place and then come by the post office, where my dad worked, and let him know how the horse had gone that morning. So they followed him all the way, and when he won the Derby [in 1964] my dad bought a house out of it.”

Campion himself just missed a big ante-post payday with Le Moss (Ire), when he ran second in the 1978 St Leger, having meanwhile begun his education at Brownstown Stud (which was in the same ownership). The farm was right next door, and Campion could just stroll to work across a field-but he could not have had a better mentor, had he walked the length of the island.

“Tony Butler was one of the greatest horsemen ever,” he declares. “So many of us learned our lessons under Tony, and he made sure you learned them properly. His great expression was: 'God bless you, your mother reared a jibber.' And then he'd tell me to go off and join the effing army. Gerry Dilger was there. Anthony Stroud was there. Though I was rarely on time myself, I always had to wake up Anthony on the way, in his caravan in the yard.”

Brownstown famously offered its yearlings in pairs, giving the successful bidder the pick. That was intended to give the market confidence, but very often the reject would turn out to be the better of the pair. Of course, being sent to Seamus McGrath at Glencairn was no hindrance-but it showed these young men that horses would often confound assumptions, which gave everyone some kind of chance.

As for so many others who ended up in Kentucky, however, Campion's launchpad was the Irish National Stud course. He was one of the first young graduates “traded” to Spendthrift Farm, where John Williams had asked Michael Osborne for staff better equipped to meet his peerless standards. So it was that Campion found himself on a Greyhound bus out of New York in November 1979. At the first rest station, he marveled to be able to buy “beer” from a vending machine. He remembers thinking: “What a country!” Now he adds drily: “Never tasted root beer since.”

In other respects, however, the land of opportunity lived up to its billing.

“Spendthrift was a great university, a great place to learn,” Campion says. “You got exposed to everything. Of course, it was hugely different from home. Because it was so big, you had to specialize: you worked with the broodmares or the stallions or the yearlings. But over the years I did a bit of everything, and I learned about the sales from John, and Don Snellings.

“The covering shed was interesting on St. Paddy's Day. There were a few times people had to be picked up off the floor. But John understood, being half-Irish and half-Italian. Fun times. Met a lot of good people and learned a lot.”

Because, again, horses seldom made things obvious. Looking at Gallant Man, for instance, you saw nothing that explained his ability. And nor does Campion quite share the reverence of Williams for Nashua.

“I'll admit it, that horse scared me,” he says. “He was different. If you were standing at his door and he didn't want you there, he'd just ease on over and next minute make this scream, you'd think somebody was dying. One day a bunch of Japanese tourists came round. We had a sign, 'Do Not Take Photographs Of Nashua.' So he just moseys on over, reaches out and grabs the camera around this guy's neck. If the strap hadn't snapped, he was done. Beautiful horse, though. Never had a son, but his daughters were gold dust.”

Seattle Slew was a notoriously tricky breeder. “But I got on really well with him,” Campion says. “He was so smart. He used to be ridden every day. One day the rider didn't show up, and John got on him. I can't remember how much he was syndicated for, but John was white-knuckled when we peeled him off. Because any minute this thing could run away and go through the fence. You'd try something new with him every day but in the end if the mare wasn't ready, Slew wasn't doing it. Though when he did breed a mare, he got her in foal: his fertility was fantastic.”

After six years, Campion had earned his stripes sufficiently to be recommended him for a position of responsibility on another farm. Not being at a stage of his career where he needs to ingratiate himself with anyone, the best Campion can say of this next job was that it made him realize there was little point doing most of the work if other people were banking the profits. To be fair, however, the sheer volume of traffic made for a very effective finishing school.

“They would sell probably 200 yearlings annually, we were probably prepping 80, and I was only 25 at the time,” Campion reflects. “So you either sink or swim. It was back at the time when Northern Dancer seasons were selling for $1 million, no guarantee. The Arabs were coming in, Wall Street was getting involved, there were people thinking this was an easy game. That's why we have market corrections: it sorts out the guys who can last from the ones that come in and make a splash for a couple of years.”

After five or six years, Campion and his wife Aveen took the plunge: they bought a farm and leased the Xalapa Training Center.

“We had some great clients, and a bunch of Irish guys riding for me-Declan O'Brien, Adrian Regan, Ted Campion and Frankie O'Connor-who were a big help as well,” Campion says. “We had some great horses come through there. We broke The Tin Man [for owner-breeders Ralph and Aury Todd] and took him back after he won the [GI Arlington] Million, did the old blister and pin-fire, sent him back and he won another Grade I.”

Dixie Union was another to confirm Campion in his opinion of Richard Mandella.

“He's magic, amazing, thinks like a horse,” he says. “Richard can tell you stuff about a horse when you're looking at him here in Kentucky, and he's out in California.”

An earlier Million winner who went through their hands had been Marlin (Sword Dance {Ire}).

“So, yes, a lot of nice horses, but it's working with great people too that really helps,” Campion says. “All horses have their personalities and I think that's what makes a good trainer, the ability to figure them out. The good ones need the work and the bad ones can't take it. Plus I think all good horses I've ever been around were really intelligent. With time, we got more and more into the sales. And though we sold the farm a few years ago, we're still stuck in the sales! But I like it, it's great fun, and we're only getting good at it now.”

True, some of the changes to the commercial landscape he finds uncongenial: the power of agents nowadays; the herd-like stampede from one set of new sires to the next; and, purely from a vendor's point of view, partnerships between programs that would previously have been in competition.

“I try not to be a sheep,” Campion remarks. “Certain stallions, you're not going to get well paid, and patience can be expensive. But I will try to take a chance with second-, third-year horses. Good Magic, for instance. When he won at the Breeders' Cup, I said this is really good horse. But I let him go the first year and then bred to him when he was $30,000. I bought a no-guarantee, really pushed the limits, and we sold the filly last year very well. You're not going to get it right all the time-but you don't have to.”

Above all, perhaps, he laments the fading of color from the scene.

“The characters aren't really there anymore,” he says. “Some of those guys wouldn't make it today, they'd be ostracized. But some of the stories, the parties, the elephant rides and everything. Not that I was ever asked!”

He names a couple of patricians from Europe who stole a limousine from one of Tom Gentry's parties and wrecked it in town; another that rode a Harley nude into the swimming pool.

“Maybe that's all still going on, and I just don't know about it,” Campion says. “To be fair, there are a lot of very good, professional young people around now and some of them have a very good eye: Phil Hager, Lauren Carlisle, Liz Crow. But nobody buys horses on spec any more. I admire the English trainers who do that, buy the horses and then divvy them up. Over here very few trainers even come by the sales anymore.”

But none of the next generation has more promise-nor a better grounding-than his own daughter, an assistant trainer to Steve Asmussen. Campion remembers Sarah doing cards at the sale, no more than seven or eight years old, when Michael Matz came by and asked to see Hip 485.

“I'm really sorry, that one's out,” Sarah said. “But we have a lovely Storm Cat filly we could show you.”

Matz turned to Campion. “She's going to be good!”

Nobody could still hope to make quite the same career as her father, in this day and age.

“It would be very hard to claim horses, the way we used to, there are so many people doing it now,” Campion says. “And you can't do foals-to-yearlings anymore, either, it's too competitive and you have to pay too much. So now I'm just kind of settled in my little niche where I'm selling a bunch of horses, and we've the three mares of our own. They all have different stuff going on, and if that works out, it works out. So the dream is still alive. And if it doesn't, we might just ease on into the sunset.”

But the fundamentals abide.

“When I worked for Tony Butler, I learned that if you don't have the horses you don't have anything,” Campion reflects. “So you've got to take care of them. Treat them right, they treat you right.”

And you're far more likely to do that, of course, if you just remember why we bring these animals into the world-which is not merely to make a few bucks. Last year, Campion managed to claim a filly against a dozen other slips, and ended up running her in the GIII Go For Wand Stakes.

“And at the 1/16th pole she was still leading,” he recalls. “That was the best thrill I ever had at the races. She faded to fourth but we still doubled our money on the claim. Another time we had a little filly we couldn't sell. We were only getting nine grand for her, and she had her problems, so we sent her to the track and she won four races. That's the real fun. When people ask you what the best part of the game is, that's what we should push: winning a race, any kind of race.

“Everybody's complaining about this and that, but we need to concentrate more on the positives-because there are lots of them. Purses are amazing, especially in Kentucky. When Lukas was rocking and rolling, he had his stationery: 'D. Wayne Lukas Racing Stable – Hollywood Park, Monmouth Park, Churchill Downs.' And at the bottom: 'Bring your dreams to us.' And that summed it all up. That's what it's all about. It's still a great game.    We keep trying to kill it, but it'll never die. To see a foal born, and stand up for the first time, that's unreal. And with it you have all the dreams. Every horse is a dream.”