John Campbell swung five wide down the...
John Campbell swung five wide down the stretch to drive So Cozy to victory by three-quarters of a length in the $796,750 Sweetheart Pace at the Meadowlands and set a record for career earnings.
Campbell’s win, his fourth straight in the Sweetheart, increased his purse total to $54,069,558, breaking Herve Filion’s previous mark of $53,770,116.
Campbell, 32, is the youngest of three drivers in the history of standardbred racing to win more than $50 million in purses. The other driver to pass that mark is Bill O’Donnell.
So Cozy paid $6.80, $4.60 and $4, and won $398,375.
The Sweetheart was the richest of nine stakes, most of them for juveniles, on the $2.6-million Million Dollar Babies card at the track in East Rutherford, N.J.
A traffic jam denied New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner the pleasure of watching his 3-year-old filly, Pacific, win the $468,250 Mistletoe Shalee Pace in a stakes-record time of 1:53 4/5.
Steinbrenner, who owns Pacific with two partners, was unable to get out of Yankee Stadium, where his first-place Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-5. So, he listened by telephone to the race call as Pacific overcame several obstacles to score a 2 3/4-length victory.
Pacific, who has won 10 of 11 starts this year, paid $3.80, $2.60 and $2.10. The $234,125 first-place share pushed her career earnings to $495,802.
Supergill won the $600,750 Peter Haughton Memorial Trot for 2-year-old colts and geldings.
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