BREEDERS CROWN : Driver Competes With Peace Corps for Change of Pace

Driver John Campbell will get his first look at Peace Corps tonight, and it could be from farther back than he is accustomed to.

In her last start in the United States, Campbell was in Peace Corps’ sulky when she won the Breeders Crown 3-year-old Filly Trot on Oct. 27, 1989, at Pompano Harness. In 1988, Campbell drove her to victory in the Breeders Crown 2-year-old Filly Trot.

Tonight, Campbell will drive Free Token against Peace Corps in the Mare Trot, one of eight Breeders Crown races on the Pompano program.

“If she’s anything like last year, she’ll be very tough to beat,” Campbell said of Peace Corps, who is owned by Bjorn Pettersson of Sweden and who is driven and trained by Swede Stig Johansson.

“She’s just a great, great mare. She’s got tremendous desire.”

Johansson bought the New Jersey-bred Peace Corps for a reported $1.6 million in January, 1989, and kept her in the United States where she became Trotter of the Year with a record of 16 wins and one second in 19 starts and earnings of $1,002,701.

After her victory in the Breeders Crown 3-year-old Filly Trot, Peace Corps was taken to Sweden. In 12 starts this year in that country, Norway and France, she posted a record of eight wins and three seconds.

In her first start abroad, Peace Corps came off a six-month layoff to finish second to the great Mack Lobell in Sweden’s most prestigious race, the Elitlopp.

In her last start, Oct. 13 at Sweden’s Aby Racetrack, she beat Sorrento, the leading Soviet trotter.

When she beat colts in the 1989 World Trotting Derby in a time of 1:52 4/5 on a one-mile track at DuQuoin, Ill., she became the second-fastest trotter in history, after Mack Lobell.

While Peace Corps tries to become the third horse to win three Breeders’ Crown races, Beach Towel will try to become the first harness racehorse to win $2 million in a single year.