Trailblazing women in the Florida Thoroughbred industry have been setting milestones and quietly becoming power players in the game. Their efforts and accomplishments have changed the trajectory of the sport forever. The Women Legends of the Sport features these
history-making breeders, trainers and executives in Florida.

BY GARY WEST

Everything changed in 1968, and the changes weren’t insignificant; they weren’t little nudges, one way or another, but were disruptive and transformative. Upheaval ran amok. In 1968, the entire world seemed feverish with anger and discontent.

In New York City, students protesting the war in Viet Nam took control of administration buildings and shut down Columbia University. In Chicago, police violently clashed with protestors outside the Democratic National Convention. It was the same everywhere, from London to Mexico City, but the upheaval was most evident and widespread in America, where the cultural fabric of the country was riven by rage.

At the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and riots broke out in 60 cities across the country. At the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Sirhan Sirhan shot and killed Robert Kennedy, who had just won California’s Democratic presidential primary. Nothing, it seemed, was immune; nobody safe; everything uncertain. The nation was in a Robert Altman film.

The tidal wave swept over sports, too. The New York State Athletic Commission stripped Muhammad Ali of his title and sponsored a heavyweight championship fight to fill the vacancy: Joe Frazier knocked out Buster Mathis in the 11th round. But boxing, like everything, was fragmented, and many sanctioning bodies didn’t recognize Frazier as champion until the 1970s.

This was also the year that Harvard “beat” Yale 29-29, as The Harvard Crimson famously described what might have been amateurism’s last hurrah. Both teams were ranked and undefeated, and so, in retrospect that was probably the last significant college football game involving genuinely amateur athletes.

It was a watershed moment in horse racing, too. With a post-race positive for phenylbutazone, Dancer’s Image became the first horse to be disqualified from winning the Kentucky Derby, and six months later, on Thanksgiving Day of 1968, at Bay Meadows in San Mateo, Calif., a 2-year-old named Majestic Prince won his debut by nearly three lengths. The son of Raise A Native had been the sale-topper at the Keeneland Select, where Frank McMahon paid $250,000 ($2.26 million adjusted for inflation) for the strikingly handsome chestnut. Majestic Prince, as you know, went on to win two-thirds of the next season’s Triple Crown. By doing so, he proved to an expanding audience that to own a great racehorse you didn’t have to start at the breeding shed, not if you had enough cash, along with a high tolerance for risk; instead, you could buy a great racehorse, even a Kentucky Derby winner, just as you could buy an oceanfront home in Palm Beach, or a Bugatti La Voiture Noire or almost everything else, except love, as the lyricist points out.

Yes, in 1968 just about everything was shifting or giving way to change or being displaced. It was arguably the most turbulent, transformative year since World War II: established codes, conventions, routines, institutions and customs all breaking up, fragmenting and roiling; everything becoming more democratic, more commercial, more hostile, more confrontational and, well, more modern. The nation was unmoored.

But that was also the year Charlotte Weber, with her then-husband, John, bought 1,100 acres from P.A.B. Widener III and began to develop Live Oak Stud.

Amid all the turbulence, with everything in flux all around her, she built an everlasting monument to the racehorse: Live Oak is consecrated to everything that is beautiful and consequential and enriching about horse racing. If you love horse racing and horses, Live Oak sends a tingling through the length of your bones. Remarkably enough, the standards and priorities she brought with her to Florida in 1968 are still in place, just like Widener’s Normandy barn.

Kimberly Cookson, the farm’s director of operations, succinctly describes Live Oak as “historic and majestic.” And that’s certainly true; it is, but only because of Weber’s relentless and enduring commitment. Live Oak has become, as Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse describes it, “iconic,” and Weber has become a pillar of Florida Thoroughbred breeding and racing.

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On an otherwise unmemorable day in 1982, Peter Fuller invited some friends to Suffolk Downs in East Boston for an afternoon of racing and socializing, in other words for a good time. This was still three years before his great filly Mom’s Command would sweep New York’s Triple Tiara, but as the owner of Runnymede Farm in New Hampshire and the breeder of Dancer’s Image, Fuller must have been a dynamic host. His passion for the sport was well known. And the invitation to the racetrack, as it turned out, became an introduction into a world apart from the quotidian.

That was how Marilyn and Gilbert Campbell first connected with horse racing, as spectators and casual horseplayers during an afternoon’s enjoyment at Suffolk Downs. But Fuller’s introduction quickly led to the Campbells’ investment in a young horse named Shananie, a Florida-bred son of In Reality, buying 25%. Fuller retained 50% of the horse; John Costello, the owner-publisher of the Lowell Sun newspaper, also owned 25%.

Business people with years of accomplishment in their past performances, the Campbells knew little about horse racing other than what they saw that day at Suffolk Downs—the beauty, competition and excitement of it all, spiced with camaraderie.

Gilbert was in construction, residential and commercial, and was a developer; he had been president of the Massachusetts Home Builders’ Association. But unlike many successful people attracted to the sport who get quickly, sometimes impetuously, involved, the Campbells knew what they didn’t know. They didn’t assume their business acumen would automatically and easily transfer to a game that had humbled many bold, sporting investors over many decades. And so they set out to learn.

Shananie was the perfect horse for them. He became their training wheels, enabling them to experience disappointments and detours and successes, all without losing their balance. Shananie won nine races in his four-year career, including the J.O. Tobin Handicap at Delaware Park and the Engine One Stakes at Belmont Park. He earned $175,955; even more, he gave the Campbells a rewarding and enlightening experience.

As they expanded their interests, they moved into breeding, and Shananie continued in his training-wheels role. He became, as you might expect, the first stallion to stand at their Stonehedge Farm South in Williston, Fla., where he proved to be useful and productive. He sired 13 stakes winners, including Garemma, a graded winner of $395,583, as well as multiple stakes winners Ask Shananie ($270,664 in earnings), Shananie’s Boss ($251,276) and Shananie’s Beat ($242,758), whom the Campbells also owned. But that’s allowing the story to move ahead of itself.

The Campbells held onto their mares, knowing they had value as broodmare prospects, and boarded them, along with horses that weren’t in training, at various farms. The Campbells soon realized they needed to look for a place of their own, especially if they were going to take the next step. That realization was their moment on the edge of the precipice. It wasn’t back there at Suffolk Downs when they bought a quarter-interest in Shananie or even when they invested in more racehorses. This was it: They had to decide whether they would buy a small farm for their mares or would take the plunge with a commitment to something much more substantial. They leaped. Looking first in Kentucky for a farm to purchase, they didn’t like what they saw, or rather they didn’t like the weather.

They were still looking in 1988 while attending the Ocala Breeders’ Sale when they heard that Waldemar Farm was on the market. This was where What A Pleasure stood, where Kentucky Derby (G1) winner and champion Foolish Pleasure was foaled and where Tasso took his first steps and, just a few years earlier, his first lessons on how to be a racehorse, right here, over this training track, on this farm, Waldemar, before going on to win the second Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) and earning championship honors.

Edward “Ned” Allard, their trainer from Massachusetts, took the Campbells out to Williston to look at the farm and assess how it might fit their plans. Apparently it fit them perfectly, for they decided that very day to buy it. Originally about 170 acres, Stonehedge Farm South has acquired adjacent properties, built homes and barns and enhanced the training track so that the farm now covers more than 500 acres.

In 2021, after Gil Campbell died at 91, his widow never even considered selling the farm they had built together or all the horses they had acquired together. It was “never a thought.” Marilyn Campbell wasn’t interested in filing away all the knowledge and experience of 40 years into a memory that she would employ only for sentimental recollections.

She likes to imagine, she explains, that Gil “is up there saying, ‘You go, girl.’” And so she goes, adding to her knowledge and experiences so that Stonehedge can continue to be one of the leading Thoroughbred farms in the state, and in doing that she has become a pillar of Florida racing.

After leading all Florida breeders with 103 victories and $3,338,867 in earnings, Stonehedge Farm South was named Breeder of the Year for 2023 by the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders’ and Owners’ Association board of directors. In the name of Gilbert Campbell, Stonehedge was also Breeder of the Year in 2013 and 2016, and it has ranked in the top 10 among Florida breeders each year since 1997. Seven Florida-bred champions in various divisions have come off the farm in Williston, which is a partner in the state’s leading stallion, Khozan. Moreover, Stonehedge has produced 12 winners and 18 victories in the FTBOA Florida Sire Stakes, owning all but one of those winners as well.

Having broodmares with more stamina than quickness, more endurance than precocity, in their pedigrees, Live Oak Stud hasn’t focused on the 2-year-old Florida Sire Stakes, and that’s by design. Charlotte Weber’s design. She has been solely responsible for Live Oak’s direction and future for most of the farm’s 56 years. As one observer put it, Charlotte Weber is Live Oak. As a result, Live Oak Stud has become one of the most consequential and influential Florida farms in history. Last year, it ranked third among Florida breeders, based on both earnings ($2,381,393) and wins (64). Four times Live Oak Stud has been the state’s Breeder of the Year — 2006, 2017 (when it was also the TOBA’s Breeder of the Year), 2019 and 2020. Moreover, Live Oak has bred and raced 10 Florida-bred champions that won 16 championships (Miesque’s Approval and World Approval won multiple titles.) And it has produced three Florida-bred Horses of the Year — Sultry Song, Miesque’s Approval and World Approval. (Only Tartan Farms has bred more — Dr. Fager and Ta Wee, who both won two titles, along with Codex and Unbridled.)

Weber, who served on the FTBOA board of directors from 2003 to 2009 and from 2010 to 2016, and Campbell, who has sat on the board since 2019, differ in approach and emphasis, but they’ve arrived at the same place. They both breed to race, and they’re passionate about racing. Of most importance, they’re pillars of support for the Florida horse industry.

Charlotte Weber

On a day after a storm hit Ocala in the small, dark hours with a couple haymakers, Live Oak Stud looks as though it somehow sat out the tempest. No fences are down; no fallen branches impair roadways; no detritus has gathered along pathways. Is it possible the storm detoured around the farm? Probably not. In some low-lying places, sunshine skips over small puddles. So either the storm delivered only a wrist-slap to the area or the Live Oak Stud workers already have nullified the impact. You can confidently bet on the second possibility.

The massive live oak trees that dominate the landscape were here before anybody. Some of them are probably hundreds of years old, but they wear their age well, like their Spanish moss. The live oaks generally behave themselves. They’ll spread their balmiest charms over thousands of spectators during the annual Live Oak International, which is the largest combined driving and show jumping tournament in the country. The live oaks considerately make way for hundreds of horses, as well as herds of Angus, Brahman and Charolais cattle; they’ve made space for 22 homes, spacious barns and the training track built in 1978. Many of the farm’s 55 employees live here. But Live Oak Stud is so vast, having grown over the many years to 4,500 acres, that only the live oaks themselves can be everywhere and watch over everything. And on this day, which is like most, the venerable trees shut out the turbulence. The serenity is expansive, with width and breadth, like a comforter. Somewhere an angry driver leans on his horn, somewhere a disaffected politician yells into a television camera and somewhere the pixels of a Jumbotron explode with Fortnite chaos. But not here.

Here, the light is soft, the breeze calm and the birdsong faint; and here it’s easy to remember that horse racing is a pastoral sport with a glorious history.

Live Oak evokes memories and images, black-and-white perhaps and gleaned from clippings and tomes rather than experience, of great horses competing at monolithic cathedrals of racing, their grandstand aprons crowded with people standing shoulder-to-shoulder, the men wearing fedoras and the women cloche hats, and all of them hoping they might catch a glimpse of Elizabeth Taylor in the paddock, or perhaps Jacqueline Kennedy, or Bing Crosby or maybe even Mamie and Dwight Eisenhower. Live Oak nurtures a vision of the sport as having a meaningful place in American culture and history.

“It’s a passion,” Charlotte Weber says, explaining her dedication to Live Oak. The provenance of this passion goes back to when she rode horses as a youngster, although not as often as she might have liked, and to her mother, Ethel Colket, nee Dorrance, who was active in the Devon Horse Show in Pennsylvania. Her father, Charlotte’s grandfather, was a brilliant chemist who developed the method for condensing soup and in doing so transformed Joseph Campbell & Co. into an international powerhouse with an iconic brand, Campbell’s Soup.

And that’s certainly true, but a more succinct and comprehensive description might be that Live Oak is Charlotte Weber.

“My mother died when I was young [in 1965],” she continues, “and so it was a situation where I had all this money, and now what do I do with it. So I bought a racehorse; I always wanted a horse…. I was told I was crazy, and I said, ‘That’s all right.’ That’s how I started. The horse was a winner for me, and when that happens — well, that’s some pretty tasty pudding.”

A win picture in the offices of Live Oak Stud recalls that first taste of tasty pudding: Llallauco scoring at Monmouth Park in 1967.

Weber’s wealth doesn’t define her. She served on the Campbell Soup board of directors for 24 years; she went to school in Lausanne, Switzerland, and graduated from the University of Paris; she’s a member of The Jockey Club, a trustee of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame and a trustee at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of art, where she provided funding for the Charlotte C. Weber Galleries. In 2005, she was honored as the Most Distinguished Woman in Racing. The array of experiences and accomplishments, as well as her gardening, philanthropy, environmentalism and art collecting — they’re all facets of a complex person and a bountiful life, but what most succinctly defines her is right here, giving form and purpose to every acre, nurturing every horse and caring for every person. She is Live Oak, and Live Oak is Charlotte Weber.

“The people here are very proud,” she says, referring to the Live Oak Stud employees. “I believe if you’re neat and tidy in your person, you’ll be neat and tidy in your job…. And the people here take such pride in their work and in the farm that if something falls down, they pick it up, and if something breaks, they repair it. Their tenure is fabulous; they’re fabulous. Most of the people here have been with me 15 or 20 years.”

Weber keeps about 35-40 broodmares at the farm, along with their yearlings and weanlings, of course. At any given time, as many as 25 homebreds could be in training, along with a few horses purchased at sales. And then there are the retirees. The horses bred here and foaled here have a home here for life.

“I love it when the new foals are in the fields,” Weber says. “It’s just stunning to see those babies,… and I like the old boys in the pasture. I shake my bag of mints and they come running up to the fence for a treat and a greeting…. But I like the excitement of the racetrack, too. I’m a racetracker. I used to love to go to the backside and talk to the guys and watch the workouts.”

Live Oak has bred and raced more than 110 stakes winners. At the racetrack, Weber’s nom de course is Live Oak Plantation. She also has two stallions at Ocala Stud — Awesome Slew, whose son Hades won this year’s Holy Bull (G3), and Win Win Win, whose daughter Nooni topped the Ocala Breeders’ Sale in March at $1.8 million and recently won her debut for trainer Bob Baffert at Santa Anita by more than nine lengths.

Joe Ambrosia trains the Weber horses while they’re at the farm, and he vividly remembers Win Win Win, not just because “he looked like a god,” as the trainer put it, and acted like one, too, but also because the horse’s career exemplified Weber’s priorities and her approach. In 2019, seven weeks after finishing about five-and-a-half lengths back in the Preakness (G1), Win Win Win made his turf debut in the Manila at Belmont Park. Checked in traffic, he dropped back to last, but from there, finally getting clear, he popped like a champagne cork, charging through the final quarter-mile in :22.10 to defeat Fog of War, a Group 1 winner from Canada, and Casa Creed, who, of course, has gone on to claim multiple Grade 1 prizes.

A couple weeks later, a minor injury surfaced, and the horse that looked as if he were on the threshold of becoming one of the favorites for the Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1) went to the sidelines. Win Win Win got a break — Weber insists all her horses and employees take meaningful time off from working — and some R&R. And then he was brought back “carefully and patiently,” Ambrosia explains.

Win Win Win returned to the races 11 months later, and a couple months after that he won the Forego (G1) at Saratoga.

“She always puts the horses first,” Ambrosia says. “She’s in it for the love of the game and she makes sure you have all you could possibly need, all the resources necessary, to succeed.”

About 10 days after the Forego, Win Win Win’s injury resurfaced. Rather than risk exacerbating the problem, Weber retired the colt.

“It’s obvious she really cares about her horses,” says Michael Trombetta, who trained Win Win Win and recently received five youngsters from Live Oak into his barn at the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland. “The horses from Live Oak are all raised properly and given every opportunity to develop their potential. It’s an unbelievable opportunity to train for her.”

That opinion isn’t consensus, it’s unanimous. Her concern and interests, though, stretch beyond the horses to include all the people involved. “She was very, very helpful,” says Hall of Fame Trainer Bill Mott, who trained Grade 1 winners My Typhoon ($1.3 million in earnings) and To Honor and Serve ($1.8 million) for Weber. “Very helpful, even on a personal level. She’s helped a lot of people in a lot of different ways. She was great to train for.”

Laser Light was Weber’s first racehorse to grab national attention. A homebred, Laser Light won the Remsen (G1) at Aqueduct and finished second in the 1982 Kentucky Derby behind Gato Del Sol. Since then there has been a procession of stakes winners — such as Sultry Song, Solar Splendor, Medieval Man, Brilliant Speed, Za Approval, In The Gold, Awesome Slew, Old Forester, Sky Approval, Golden Hawk, Dynaslew, Revved Up, Global Access, March to the Arch, Our Flash Drive and High Fly, a homebred who won the 2005 Fountain of Youth (G2) and Florida Derby (G1).

Zo Impressive was one of those horses that, had she been anywhere else, might have — well, who knows what she might have done, but it’s rather clear what she wouldn’t have done. She wouldn’t have won the Mother Goose (G1). As a 2-year-old, Zo Impressive just didn’t get the meaning of all this running in circles, and her display of talent suggested her name might be an ironic joke. But Weber said, in effect, no problem, we’ll just give her some time and wait for her to tell us when she wants to be racehorse. A year later, with Live Oak’s red-polka-dots-on-white colors, Zo Impressive was in the winner’s circle at Belmont Park. After the Mother Goose, she ran second in the Coaching Club American Oaks (G1) and fourth in the Alabama (G1).

Then there are the “souper” stakes winners — Souper Sensational, Souper Escape, Souper Tapit and Souper Hoity Toity, their names all alluding, of course, to Campbell’s Soup. Perhaps most notable, though, are the champions Miesque’s Approval and World Approval. As a 2-year-old in 2001, Miesque’s Approval flashed potential, finishing second in the Summer Stakes (G2) at Woodbine and winning the Pilgrim at Aqueduct to begin an admirable career that proved to be a testament to Weber’s approach. He raced seven years, averaging about six starts a season, with, of course, annual vacations. At 3, he won the Kent Breeders’ Cup (G3) in Delaware; at 4, he was the runner-up in the Canadian Turf Handicap (G2) at Gulfstream and the Maker’s Mark Mile (G2) at Keeneland; at 5, he won only an allowance affair; at 6, he won the Old Ironsides at Suffolk; at 7, he won the Sunshine Millions Turf at Gulfstream, the Maker’s Mark Mile, the Firecracker (G2) at Churchill, the Red Bank (G3) at Monmouth and the Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1) at Churchill to be named an Eclipse Award winner and the season’s champion turf horse. After two starts as an 8-year-old and 41 in his career, he retired with earnings totaling $2.6 million.

His career was a long rumble leading to a lightning-bolt crescendo. His younger half-brother, World Approval (they’re both out of the 2017 National Broodmare of the Year Win Approval), had a somewhat different sort of career, a short sputtering fuse leading to an explosion. In his two starts as a juvenile, both on dirt, he was beaten a total of 28 1/2 lengths. Then he moved to the barn of Mark Casse, who moved him to the grass. In March of 2015, making his turf debut, in his first outing as a 3-year-old, World Approval rallied from far back to win by daylight at Gulfstream Park.

“I can still remember that,” Casse says. “When he made that big move and shot to the lead, I turned to Mrs. Weber and said, ‘We’re going to have a lot of fun with this one.’”

More fun than tasty pudding, as it turned out. As a 3-year-old, World Approval won a couple stakes, the American Derby (G3) at Arlington and the Saranac (G3) at Saratoga, but he was just getting warmed up.

“He was a good horse as a 3-year-old,” Casse says, “but we gave him some time off, and then he came back a much better horse at 4.”

World Approval won the United Nations (G1) at Monmouth as a 4-year-old, and then at 5 he — well, he became quite simply and clearly the best turf horse in America. He won five of his six starts, his only loss coming at an unfamiliar distance, a-mile-and-one-quarter, in the Manhattan (G1). He won the Turf Classic at Tampa Bay, the Dixie (G2) at Pimlico, the Fourstardave (G1) at Saratoga, the Woodbine Mile (G1) in Canada and the Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1) at Del Mar on his way to winning championship honors. He retired with 11 stakes victories and more than $3 million in earnings.

“It’s has been a dream to train for her,” says Casse, who has conditioned many Live Oak horses. “I’ve been in Ocala for more than 50 years. We moved here when I was five; so I’ve been here virtually my whole life. And Live Oak has always been very special to me, a special place, an icon. It’s magnificent.”

And that’s certainly true, but a more succinct and comprehensive description might be that Live Oak is Charlotte Weber.

Marilyn Campbell

Marilyn Campbell is all about continuity. The man who trained the first horse she and her husband, Gilbert, ever owned, that man still trains horses for her. The woman who trained their young homebreds when they first decided to emphasize the Florida Sire Stakes, that woman still trains horses for her. And the man who virtually grew up on what was then called Waldemar Farm is still there, the general manager of what has become Stonehedge Farm South.

“I’ve trained horses for a lot of couples, husbands and wives,” says Edward “Ned” Allard. “The thing that was always interesting to me about those two (the Campbells) was this: usually it’s the husband who loves the horses and the racing, and the wife not so much. But that changed with those two. She (Marilyn) loved the horses even more than Gil. And I’ll tell you this, too: She’s as well-versed in racing as anybody I know.”

And so 42 years after he won with the Campbells’ first horse, Shananie, Allard recently won with two Stonehedge homebreds, both of them first-time starters: Sunny Breeze, a son of Cajun Breeze, who scored by seven lengths at Delaware Park; and Popover Gal, a daughter of Khozan, who won her debut at Pimlico.

Kathleen O’Connell has saddled more winners — 2,500 and counting — than any woman in the history of racing, and she credits the Campbells with giving her career impetus. O’Connell trained Blazing Sword for them, a Stonehedge homebred that won the Florida Stallion Stakes Dr. Fager and Affirmed divisions, as well as the Calder Derby (G3), the Widener Handicap (G3) and the Washington Park Handicap (G2) on his way to earning $1.18 million.

“I had 10 horses in my barn at Calder at the time, and they trusted me with some very nice horses,” O’Connell says, recalling her early relationship with the Campbells. “They were wonderful about communicating and about realistically racing their horses where they could succeed. Through them I got noticed…. Marilyn has continued to be very active and very involved. She loves her horses.”

And so 28 years after winning the FSS Dr. Fager with the Campbells’ first “big” horse, O’Connell recently won with another Stonehedge homebred, Khozan’s on Fire, at Tampa Bay Downs. Yes, Marilyn Campbell is all about continuity, which is simply another way of saying she can identify the best path forward and stick to it, confidently.

In 1988, when the Campbells purchased Waldemar and created Stonehedge Farm South, they almost immediately hired Larry King as their farm manager. And he’s the son of Joe King, who for years was the farm manager at Waldemar. This is the farm Larry King rambled over as a kid, or a larger version of it.

He didn’t quite know what to think at first, he recalls, but one day, soon after accepting the position at Stonehedge, he bumped into Marty Wolfson, whose training career was starting to gather momentum. Wolfson assured King he had “one of the best jobs in Florida.” And he was right, King says.

“Everybody here works hard and does a lot of good work,” King continues. “I’ve heard people say the success we’ve had here is because of good bloodlines or because of the rich soil. And that’s all true. But the main reason is we’ve never cut a corner. Everything we do here at Stonehedge is done to raise a good horse. We spend a lot of time with the horses.”

Stonehedge is neat as a bandbox, everything efficiently positioned and maintained. Sunshine pours over the spacious, manicured pastures, and trees genuflect in reverence. It’s home to 40 broodmares, yearlings and weanlings and one stallion, Cajun Breeze, as well as some of the 15 employees. In addition to Khozan, Campbell owns shares in St Patrick’s Day, a full brother to the great American Pharoah. After a few unsuccessful adventures taking mares to Kentucky to breed, these days Campbell sends all her mares to Florida stallions, generally her own. Again, it’s about continuity, about following the path that has led to past successes.

Marlin, for example, who won four Grade 1 stakes, including the Arlington Million (G1) at Arlington International, and earned more than $2.4 million, was by the Campbells’ stallion Sword Dance (Ire). He scored most of his victories in California for Michael Tabor and D. Wayne Lukas, but he began his journey right here at Stonehedge Farm South.

In 2011, the Campbells’ Watch Me Go, a homebred by their stallion West Acre, won the Tampa Bay Derby (G2) on his way to running in the Kentucky Derby (G1). He earned $628,375 in his career. Also by West Acre, Ivanavinalot swept through the Florida Sire Stakes in 2002 and won five of her first six starts with audacious style. A tornado of a juvenile, she was a day away from departing for Chicago and Arlington International to run in the Breeders’ Cup when O’Connell telephoned the Campbells to explain that the filly had a temperature and hadn’t eaten her breakfast. Plans were scrapped because that’s what they do here; they prioritize the health and safety and future of the horses. It was the wise and prudent decision. Ivanavinalot returned the next season to win the Bonnie Miss (G2) at Gulfstream Park, but, of course, she’s best known as the dam of the great Songbird.

Many homebred stakes winners come easily to mind. Marilyn Campbell can readily recall, for example, Friel’s for Real winning the Pimlico Breeders’ Cup Distaff Handicap (G3) in 2004 and Always Sunshine winning the Tale of the Cat at Saratoga and then going on to the Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1) at Churchill Downs in 2018. But she prefers to brush nostalgia and sentimentality aside and look forward. After all, what’s essential for continuity is continuing.

“We’re always looking for the next winner, always looking for the big time,” she says. “I’m dreaming right now about the Breeders’ Cup.”

Her Dean Delivers is aimed squarely at Del Mar and the Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1). He recently returned from a brief layoff to win the Mr. Prospector Stakes at Monmouth by eight lengths. The performance sparkled, lighting a clear path forward, all the way to California. A graded stakes winner of $562,660, the son of Cajun Breeze will probably make his next start in the Alfred G. Vanderbilt (G1) at Saratoga. Success there will fill out Campbell’s dream with details.

She says her favorite horse is the one running right now, and the ones that are about to run. Dean Delivers, for example, and Fiona’s Magic, who’s trained by Michael Yates, who as a youngster galloped horses at Stonehedge. Yes, there’s that continuity again. Fiona’s Magic won the Davona Dale Stakes (G2) at Gulfstream to earn a spot in the Kentucky Oaks (G1), where she struggled over the muddy surface. And so the daughter of St Patrick’s Day has come home for a freshening.

“We’re eager to see how Fiona comes back,” Campbell continues. “It was exciting to run in the Oaks — that’s why we do this — and we thought we had a chance, but running in the slop for the first time, she just couldn’t handle it…. And we have all these 2-year-olds we’re looking at. You never know in this business…. You never know which one is going to be a superstar. But we’ll continue to try to breed winners in Florida. That’s what we do.”

Yes, continuity is all about continuing.

Charlotte Weber looks around and sees the sport she loves changing dramatically. Too many people who aren’t horse people are running racetracks, she says; too many people in the game believe it’s all about money.

“This sport is about the horse and the challenge and the beauty,” she says, adding that she believes there could be a “reset” and horse racing could rediscover its traditional values and priorities. She can embrace such a belief because she’s a pillar of support herself and because she knows there are other pillars out there, like Marilyn Campbell.