While John Campbell has ruled out a repeat in Monday's Battle of Waterloo at Grand River Raceway, the Hall of Famer has not ruled out driving next Saturday at The Meadowlands for the 2015 Hambletonian day card.
On Friday morning, Campbell was driving Drazzmatazz in a qualifier at The Meadowlands when he was dumped from his sulky along the final turn.
Later updates confirmed that Campbell did in fact suffer a broken wrist that forced him to book off his Friday and Saturday night drives in New Jersey as well as his Industry Day drives at Grand River Raceway. Trot Insider has learned that Sylvain Filion will drive Sports Expert in the Battle of the Belles while Trevor Henry is now listed in the Battle of Waterloo on Think On It.
How long will Campbell be sidelined? That is still up in the air. Campbell told Trot Insider on Saturday morning that his wrist is now in a cast and there's much less pain in the area compared to Friday.
"I don't need surgery, and I haven't ruled out next weekend yet. I'll see how the next couple of days are," said Campbell. "The pain's not too bad now, and it's subsided dramatically from yesterday when it happened. [My doctor] doesn't think I can hurt it driving, it's just a question of the comfort and being able to hold a horse in a position where I don't have pain doing that."
The six-time Hambletonian winner is optimistic about driving in pursuit of a seventh next Saturday, but was very clear that he'd only get behind the gate if he could do so pain-free.
"You can't be out there if you have any kind of pain when you go to hold them," Campbell continued. "It isn't a question of pain tolerance, it's that you can't have any. So I don't know how that's going to be come Monday or Tuesday but I'll know a lot more then."
When Monday's draw comes out for the Hambletonian, expect Campbell to be listed with the connections understanding that things could change by scratch time Thursday morning.
"Hopefully I'll be able to drive but there's a chance I won't be able to. I'm going to try it before scratch time for Saturday. I'll go down and train and little bit and see how it feels.
"If you can't hold the hard ones, you can't be out there. Any nice horse can be in a bad spot and take a lot of hold of you...you either can do it or your can't."
Campbell noted that while his wrist is in a cast, that cast can be modified so that he can safely race in the event he's pain-free next week.