Memoirs of a Longshot

About the Book

Teenage drinking diverted Cot Campbell onto the perilous slope of alcoholism. This invidious enemy stymied the talents of young Campbell, who lurched from job to job and from jail to jail. Finally disgusted by his personal failures, Cot grasped the aid of Alcoholics Anonymous. Thereafter, he forged a rising career curve with passion, imagination, and integrity, taking his cherished wife and family along on the ride. Campbell founded one of the South’s leading advertising agencies, then found a way to turn his love of horse racing into a sporting career, and his success completed a remarkable transformation. Memoirs of a Longshot is a sprightly telling of that unique tale. It is indeed the story of a “Riproarious Life.”

Praise for Cot Campbell’s “Memoirs of a Longshot”

“Leave it to a world-class storyteller like Cot Campbell to weave the vague, stumbling beginnings of a lad on a Tennessee horse farm with the raucous highs and desperate lows of big-time horse racing. Sprinkle the tale with such characters as Featherlip Trabue, Rhumba Pete and a one-armed barber named Baker Lane, and come out the other end with an indelible memoir of a life lived in grand and gracious style.”

— Jay Hovdey, Daily Racing Form

“Cot Campbell and I have had a strong working relationship for more than a decade. Reading Memoirs of a Longshot gave me a front row seat in the movie of his life – all the highs and lows and everything in between. This book is so much more than one man’s autobiography, it’s an entertaining “how to” manual for an unusual life. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the history of a man I have counted as my friend for many years.”

—Todd Pletcher, North America’s Leading Trainer for 3 years

Cot Campbell´s love of horses is matched by his love for writing. He knows the low side and the high side of life, and in "Memoirs", he doesn´t spare himself. From membership in AA to the winner´s circle in the Triple Crown and the Breeders Cup, from prep school brat to Saratoga, he has run the gamut, and you can run it with him in this, his third book.

—Furman Bisher, Senior Columnist, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Cot Campbell’s Dogwood Stable has been a mainstay in the world of horse racing for many years. The rollicking tale of how this came to be, and the personal travails overcome to make it so, is at times harrowing and sad, but ultimately uplifting and joyous.

—Ed Bowen, President Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation

Other Books by Cot Campbell:

Lightning in a Jar

A how-to guide for owning racehorses based on many of the author’s own experiences.

Rascals & Racehorses

Runyonesque stories about racing interspersed with some of the author’s candid tales.

For more information on Cot Campbell, click here

About the Author

Cot Campbell never graduated from grammar school, high school, or college – but did go to all of them. After flunking out of Sewanee, he bounced around the country, working as a boat driver, auto assembly line worker, car parker in a night club, apprentice mortician, master of ceremonies of water ski shows, sports writer, and advertising copywriter – never turning down an opportunity to take a drink along the way. At 30 years of age he joined AA and his career ceased its downward spiral. In 1965 he started his own highly successful advertising agency, and later indulged a lifelong ambition and carved out a career for himself in Thoroughbred racing, made possible when he conceived the idea of forming limited partnerships to own racehorses. Campbell and Dogwood Stable have been a major factor in the sport. Cot and Anne Campbell live in Aiken, South Carolina. There are two daughters, in Atlanta and Chevy Chase, Maryland, and six grandchildren.