Word: campos
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Runkle also dated a couple of her clients. Her most serious friendship apparently had been with Johnny ("Fat Man") Campo, Pleasant Colony's trainer since March. They were vivid proof that opposites attract. Campo, 43, is a bombastic, street-wise man who rose to prominence by turning cheap horses into winners. Runkle was a slight, shy, sweetly bookish young woman given to quoting Her mann Hesse and Antoine de Saint-Exup...
Just before her death, Runkle described their relationship in as a letter she sent to Newsweek Columnist Pete Axthelm: "Johnny and I do love each other in our own, twisted ways." But Campo, married and the father of two sons, denies any intimacy. "We were close, sure," he told a reporter. "But I never touched her. Our relationship was one of employer and employee. I made her what she was. She would have been nothing without...
...been seeing occasionally since the Kentucky Derby in May. After dinner, Runkle returned to her office at Belmont Park Race Track, just outside New York City and not far from where she lived. She later wrote Axthelm: "We never really loved each other." According to her letter, Runkle called Campo later that night; he flew down from upstate Saratoga Springs, then returned with Runkle to Saratoga the next day. A day later, Monday, Campo had an early dinner with Runkle and then drove her to the airport, where he bought her a one-way ticket to New York City...
...Thus Campo was a controversial figure long before he rudely announced after the Wood Memorial in April that his colt would win the Kentucky Derby because the rest of the field was "a bunch of garbage." The remark was vintage Campo. He refuses to make his sentences parse or his opinions palatable. He also pre-empts criticism about his appearance (5 ft. 7 in., 250 Ibs.) by proclaiming himself the Fat Man. Says one New York trainer: "He's got a huge chip on his shoulder, an inferiority complex that he defends by putting on a superiority complex...
...racing world was surprised when the relatively unknown son of His Majesty took the Derby (1¼ miles). Horsemen conceded him the shorter Preakness (1 3/16 miles) but are now murmuring that he will fade in a race as long as the Belmont (1½ miles). Not Johnny Campo. He has no doubt that Pleasant Colony will become history's twelfth Triple Crown winner. The rapid-fire, near-shout Noo Yawk accent softens only when he speaks of his colt: "He really is a good horse, this horse. Ahh, such a good horse...