Campbell Sets Western Canada Record

When driver Brandon Campbell jumps back in the race bike for the start of the 2023 harness racing season in Western Canada this weekend, he will do so with a new record on his resume.

The 39-year-old Calgary, Alta. horseman ended 2022 as the first driver with a $2 million season competing exclusively in Western Canada. Horses he drove earned a record-breaking $2,056,905 in purses.

"It's crazy to think," said Campbell in a recent interview with the Alberta Standardbred Horse Association. "Once I hit it, I kind of went through all the drivers and everybody I could think of that was in Western Canada that ever did any good and the best I could find was Keith [Clark] made 1.8 [million] and change in his best year ever. And I was like, no way. There's no way, how could I beat a guy like that? It's a pretty cool milestone to hit."

Campbell said he sets goals every year to earn 100 wins and a million dollars in purses. He's achieved the former goal with more than 100 driving wins in each of the past 14 consecutive years and has topped the $1 million mark in six of those seasons. But in 2022, Campbell blew away his previous career-best numbers (208 wins in 2020 and $1.3 million in 2019) with a record-setting campaign.

"For me, once I saw I was getting close to it, it was like another goal," he said of the $2 million mark.

The leading driver at both Century Downs in Calgary, Alta. and Fraser Downs in Surrey, B.C., Campbell won a total of 266 races, with 232 seconds and 172 thirds from 1,117 starts. His 0.404 UDRS ranked second-best in Canada among drivers with 260 starts or more and was top four in all of North America for drivers with 500 starts or more.

Campbell, who achieved all that while also managing his own stable, attributed his record to the significant travel between the Alberta and B.C. circuits and his stakes success.

"Early in the year, I won all the stakes races," he said. "Kelly Hoerdt was out with his eye, with his retina, so I got to drive his horse [Penny Bath winner Uptown Hanover] out in B.C. I got the Western Canada Pacing Derby [with Sunshine Boy] that was pushed into 2022 -- I think that helped -- and then out in B.C., I got the Keith Linton. So it started out big and then it slowed down a little bit, but it stayed consistent... It was a lot of work going back and forth to B.C. and I think it was just the effort of getting to race those four days a week."

Campbell remained consistent through the end of the season and also picked up lucrative stakes wins with his own trainee Virtual Horizon in the Century Casinos Pace and Alberta Super Final, and won a pair of B.C. Breeders Stakes finals with the Jim Marino stable's Shoot The Whiskey and Side Piece.

"I spent a lot of time away from [my family] and when I was here, it was always on the fly. It took a lot out of me, like it hit me right at the end of the year here -- I was pretty spent -- so being able to spend a couple months here with them [now] without having to go anywhere and focus more on my barn is pretty exciting. My goals moving forward next year are just to spend more time here and focus more on my barn. I think I'm going to set a new goal for my training side rather than my driving side this year and hope that that works out in the end."

Campbell will send out a pair of starters and have a full slate of drives when racing resumes at Century Mile in Edmonton, Alta. this Saturday, Jan. 7. Post time is 6:15 p.m.

To view Saturday's harness racing entries, click the following link: Saturday Entries - Century Mile.