Derby Winner Pleasant Colony Dies

Pleasant Colony, who came within one race of sweeping the 1981 Triple Crown, died in his sleep Tuesday in Virginia, becoming the fourth Kentucky Derby winner to die in the last eight months. He was 24, a day short of gaining a year as all thoroughbreds do on Jan. 1.

“He ate up his food the night he died,” said Paul Maxwell, manager of Blue Ridge Farm in Upperville, Va. “I think he died happy.”

The other Derby winners to die during 2002 were Seattle Slew, who died May 7, the 25th anniversary of his Derby win; Sunday Silence, who died Aug. 19; and Spend A Buck, whose death came Nov. 24.

After Seattle Slew and Affirmed became back-to-back winners of the Triple Crown in 1977-78, Pleasant Colony won the first two races in the series, the Derby and the Preakness, and was a 4-5 favorite to win the Belmont Stakes. But Summing, a colt who hadn’t run in the first two Triple Crown races, won the Belmont at 7-1 as Pleasant Colony finished third, beaten by 1 3/4 lengths.

Affirmed has been the last Triple Crown champion.

“He had a hard race in the Preakness,” Johnny Campo, who trained Pleasant Colony, said several years ago. “He came out of the race fine, but he was a tired horse, and you can’t win the Belmont with a tired horse. To get him geared up, I worked him a mile one day, and I knew then that it was too much for him. But you had to run, and hope you might get lucky.”

For Pleasant Colony’s first seven races -- half of his career -- he was trained by O’Donnell Lee. After the colt ran fifth in the Florida Derby -- his sixth loss -- owner-breeder Thomas Mellon Evans moved the horse to Campo, who saddled him for a three-length win in the Wood Memorial, only two weeks before the Derby.

After the Triple Crown, Pleasant Colony was voted best 3-year-old male, but horse-of-the-year honors went to John Henry.