Drew Campbell achieved a major driving career milestone at Plainridge Park on Tuesday afternoon (Nov. 14) when he finished second with Starlit Thiswanman and saw that purse money push him past the $20 million plateau for his 35-year body of work.
A native of Halifax, N.S., Campbell started driving in Maine in 1989 and remained based primarily in that jurisdiction while also competing at Rockingham Park, Foxboro Park and Pompano Park. Since that time, he has been a leading driver at all Maine tracks along with Plainridge Park, where he started to drive when they opened in 1999 and has continued to ever since.
A respected catch-driver at all tracks, Campbell has always been a high percentage reinsman wherever he competed. For his career, Campbell now has 30,006 starts with 5,779 wins, 5,203 seconds and 4,463 thirds, which pushed his purse total to this new height. He had a career-best .523 UDR in 2017 and had five other years where he finished well above the .400 mark. He registered a high of 395 wins in 2009 and had his best earnings year in 2018 when he bankrolled a total of $1,918,522.
Campbell topped off his big day by winning with Uncle Joe T (1:54.4, $7.60), who won his second straight outing in the fifth race.
Another milestone was reached on Tuesday by trainer Jimmy Nickerson, who after winning with Maggie At Bat (1:55.4, $3.60) in the second race, went past the $1 million mark in earnings for the meet at Plainridge this year. This is the second year in a row Nickerson has gone over a million ($1,194,860 in 2022) and he remains the only trainer ever to cross that annual earnings threshold at Plainridge. This is also the third year in a row that Nickerson is the overall earnings leading trainer at The Ridge.
Nickerson ended the day two-for-two after his Star Of Terror (1:54.1, $8.20) won in the ninth race.
Matty Athearn was the leading driver on Tuesday, winning three races on the card.
Live harness racing will resume at Plainridge Park on Thursday, Nov. 16 with post time at 1 p.m. and there will be a $587 carryover in the Wicked Hi-5 pentafecta wager in race six.
(Standardbred Owners of Massachusetts)