Sport: You Have to Be Lucky

When Middleground and Hill Prince ran one-two in the Kentucky Derby, a big, paunchy, 73-year-old man solemnly rose in his paneled office at New York's Belmont Park and drank a silent toast to himself. Five months before, John Blanks Campbell had closed the office door, sat down with his file of last year's two-year-olds and decided that Middleground would be the three-year-old to beat. In his Experimental Free Handicap weights, he rated Middleground at the top with 126 lbs., about a length better than Hill Prince (124).

Last week, when Jockey Eddie Arcaro and Hill Prince pounded home a length and a...

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