Dean Hoffman

No Nukes and Cam Fella were foaled little more than two weeks apart in the spring of 1979, No Nukes in New Jersey and Cam Fella in Kentucky.

They were both part of the sophomore pacing class of 1982 that also included Merger, Temujin, Ideal Society, Icarus Lobell and others. No Nukes came into that season after showing highly-explosive speed as a 2-year-old while Cam Fella was a sleeper and was unknown to many.

At the end of the year, however, Cam Fella was named Horse of the Year after a brilliant sophomore season in which he showed bulldog tenacity. He won the Messenger and Cane Pace, but was not eligible to the Little Brown Jug. No Nukes was not as consistent at Cam Fella, but still won six of his 13 starts.

That fall in Lexington, both horses were sent against the fence at Lexington in quest of a fast time trial mark. Cam Fella paced in 1:54 while No Nukes was almost two seconds faster, ripping off a 1:52.1 mile. There was never any doubt that No Nukes had extreme speed while Cam Fella was the never-say-die grinder who refused to be beaten.

Both horses later went to stud in New Jersey, a fact that would seem to favor the big, strapping No Nukes as his offspring should have excelled on the mile tracks at the Meadowlands and Garden State Park.

After the recent death of No Nukes, David Carr of the USTA Information & Research Dept. put together some remarkable statistics on No Nukes and Cam Fella as stallions.

No Nukes is the leading sire of 2:00 performers with 1,392, more than twice as many as the 657 2:00 pacers sired by Cam Fella. (No Nukes, as the chart below shows, sired 2.5 times as many foals as Cam Fella.)

No Nukes has almost twice as many 1:55 performers (494 vs. 298) as Cam Fella, but when you explore the 1:50 category, a real surprise emerges: No Nukes has only two 1:50 credits while Cam Fella has 20.

The two 1:50 pacers sired by No Nukes are Givemewhatineed 1:50 and last year’s 1:49.4 pacers Spandrel Hanover. The chart below tells the story.

No Nukes, an extreme speed horse himself on the track, was a remarkably successful stallion, but it seems that many of his best performers couldn’t break the 1:50 barrier. In the overall list of stallions with 1:50 performers, No Nukes falls near the bottom of the list, which is headed by Artsplace.