It had been a glorious five-year run. A parade of stellar champions named Seattle Slew, Affirmed, Alydar, Spectacular Bid, and Genuine Risk had roamed racing's landscape.
But two months before the 1981 Kentucky Derby, savvy railbirds had barely taken notice of Pleasant Colony. Born at Thomas Mellon Evans’s Buckland Farm in Warrenton, Va., he was a son of His Majesty, an excellent sire and a son of the great European runner and sire Ribot. His dam was Sun Colony, by Sunrise Flight, resulting in a distance-loving pedigree.
A lanky, dark bay colt who grew to stand nearly 17 hands, he captured two of his five juvenile starts, including the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes in New York. At age 3, Pleasant Colony was runner-up in the Fountain of Youth, but finished fifth, beaten by 12 1/2 lengths in the 1981 Florida Derby. Dismissing his young trainer O'Donnell Lee, Evans shipped the colt to Belmont Park and trainer John Campo. A sharp-tongued New Yorker, five-foot tall Campo tipped the scales at 250 pounds.
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