ARCADIA — Visitors to Phil D’Amato’s barn in Santa Anita are greeted by gleaming white wooden plaques with neat blue numerals announcing the thoroughbred trainer’s impressive career totals in wins and track championships.
Perhaps D’Amato’s next victory deserves its own plaque.
When he saddles 3-year-old colt Stronghold for Saturday’s $750,000 Grade I Santa Anita Derby, D’Amato will look for the biggest victory of his life and a chance at a career-defining victory during the Kentucky Derby on May 4. .
“It’s definitely considered the Super Bowl of our sport more than any other race in the country,” D’Amato said of the Kentucky Derby. “Getting there is an achievement. To get there and win is an exceptional feat. We have to get there first.
Stronghold, ridden by Antonio Fresu, is the 5-2 second choice on the Santa Anita Derby morning line, behind the 8-5 favorite Imagination and ahead of 5-1 Tapalo, 5-1 Mc Vay, 8-1 Wynstock, 10- 1. Tessuto, 20-1 EJ won the Cup and 20-1 Curlin’s Kaos.
Imagination and Wynstock are ineligible for the Kentucky Derby as Churchill Downs added a third year to trainer Bob Baffert’s suspension resulting from Medina Spirit’s disqualification from winning the 2021 Derby. That leaves Stronghold and five other runners of the Santa Anita Derby to fight for the qualifying points awarded to the top five finishers.
To add enough points to his column and secure a spot in the 20-horse field at Churchill, Stronghold will likely need to finish third or better in the Santa Anita Derby. A fourth place finish could also be good enough, depending on the results of Saturday’s other races. The Blue Grass Stakes, in Lexington, Kentucky, and the Wood Memorial, in New York, complete the final week of major preparations for the Triple Crown.
It’s a new experience for D’Amato, 48, a San Pedro native who was an assistant to training giant Mike Mitchell before taking over the stable when Mitchell retired 10 years ago this month . Mitchell died of cancer the following year.
D’Amato has established himself as one of the best coaches in Southern California. The signs outside the barn remind you that he raced 12 times and won 18 elite Level I races as well as over 100 Level II and III races. The most important, from a national perspective, was Obviousment’s victory with jockey Flavien Prat in the 2018 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Santa Anita.
But his reputation has been built on success with horses specializing in turf racing, a focus he says he and most of his clients have settled on because it is generally cheaper to buy young horses whose pedigrees and conformation are suited to grass as those built for. main dirt tracks. Simply put, turf horses tend to be lighter, dirt horses more sturdily built, like the difference between human long-distance runners and sprinters.
Although turf racing has grown in importance in America in recent decades, track classics such as Triple Crown races remain at the heart of the sport here.
That’s why going to the Kentucky Derby would be a big step for D’Amato, whose closest contact with racing has been running horses on the undercard.
“We ventured out and bought some other nice dirt-bred fillies, but this is one of the few times I was lucky enough to have a really well-bred foal,” D’Amato said in his barn office. “It takes a lot to get to the Derby. Hopefully Stronghold is enough.
Stronghold, bred by owners Rick and Sharon Waller, is a son of 2004 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner and Horse of the Year Ghostzapper and the stakes-winning mare trained by D’Amato Spectator. Adding emotion to the story of connections, Spectator died giving birth to her only foal.
The sire and dam’s victories on dirt indicated to D’Amato that Stronghold should be tried on the main track. He immediately showed promise, finishing second at Ellis Park in Kentucky and then beating his maiden at Churchill Downs in races against horses that ran on the Derby track. Just behind Wynstock in the Los Alamitos Futurity, he finished his 2-year-old season in style.
A February win at the Sunland Derby in New Mexico made Stronghold a Derby possibility – but not yet a contender.
“I think at this point, after four or five weeks, you need a horse that is improving,” D’Amato said. “I definitely see that in the morning, and we hope to see that in the afternoon.”
Intense morning workouts over the past two weeks indicate that Stronghold is sharp. Training with Fresu has made him more maneuverable, which should allow him to sit behind the many favorites at the start of the 1 1/8-mile Santa Anita Derby.
“I definitely think he’s a horse with potential (that) gets better with age, and we all hope he’s a potential Kentucky Derby horse,” D’Amato said. “We’re kind of at the dawn here, and we’ll know a lot more after the Santa Anita Derby.
“It would mean a lot.”
The Santa Anita Derby is scheduled for 4:45 p.m. as the 10th race on Saturday. It is one of five stakes, including the $300,000 Grade II Santa Anita Oaks. The 12-race pack starts at noon.
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