On brink of first title, D'Amato taking stable nationwide

ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer Phil D’Amato has been in an enviable position for most of the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting.

Since Jan. 15, the 15th day of a 63-day season, D’Amato has led or been second to Doug O’Neill in the trainer standings. Last Sunday, D’Amato sent out three consecutive winners to take a three-race lead over O’Neill. Thursday, he had two wins.

Sunday is the final day of the winter-spring meet, and if D’Amato holds on, he will win his first training title. After this weekend, D’Amato is going nationwide.

He will have a small stable at Keeneland and at the Churchill Downs spring-summer meeting, which begins at the end of the month.

“I’ve always wanted to race at the top level across the country,” he said. “That’s the ultimate goal.”

D’Amato, 40, took over the stable of his late mentor Mike Mitchell in April 2014. In the two years since, D’Amato has compiled the stock necessary to be competitive on a high level in California and on other major circuits. Through Thursday, D’Amato led all trainers at Santa Anita at the winter-spring meeting with seven stakes wins, one more than Bob Baffert’s powerful stable. Overall, D’Amato had 37 wins, four more than O’Neill.

D’Amato had a strong year in 2015, winning 85 races with stable earnings of $5,048,989. Going into this year, he did not expect to reach the top of the trainer standings at Santa Anita.

“At the beginning of the meet, I knew I had a lot of good stock,” he said. “If you asked me at the beginning of the meet if I’d be in the top three, I’d have taken it. I’m elated.”

Aside from the small stable at Keeneland, D’Amato expects to be active during the three-week Los Alamitos spring meeting that begins Thursday.

“Both of my stables are ready to fire – Santa Anita and Los Al,” he said. “Usually a third of the string are getting ready, and two-thirds are racing. I seem to have a lot ready to run.”

He said his Kentucky team had six horses in early April and will include “a little bit of everything,” focusing on a few stakes runners as well as allowance horses and maidens. The group may expand as the spring continues.

D’Amato said he has slightly fewer than 100 horses between Santa Anita and Los Alamitos, with more 2-year-olds soon to arrive at the barn.

“I don’t see us going too much higher, maybe 120,” he said.

A Southern California native, D’Amato graduated from USC with a political science major and later earned a degree in animal science from the University of Arizona’s Race Track Industry program. He joined Mitchell’s stable in 2003.

Mitchell is the all-time winningest trainer at Del Mar and won 20 training titles in Southern California. He was found to have a brain tumor in 2012 and retired in 2014, turning the stable over to D’Amato. Mitchell was a frequent visitor to the stable in the year following his retirement. He died in April 2015.

D’Amato watched Mitchell’s stable evolve in its later years from an operation of mostly claimers into one with better-quality stock. Mitchell had stable earnings of at least $2.5 million each year from 2004 to 2013, his last full year of training.

“When I started for him, half the barn was $10,000 to $20,000 claiming horses,” D’Amato said. “That was his comfort level. At the end of his career, there more were allowance horses.”

D’Amato’s familiarity with the better horses, including European imports, has continued since he began training. His client lists includes California breeder Nick Alexander, Michael House, the Little Red Feather partnership, Anthony Fanticola and Joe Scardino, and Michael Martinez’s Agave Racing.

The stable has had two Grade 1 wins – the 2014 Shoemaker Mile with Obviously, and the Starlet Stakes at Los Alamitos last December with Street Fancy, who has since been retired. D’Amato knows he will need more wins in that category to have a national presence.

“I want to see how Kentucky goes,” he said. “I’m very happy with where we are.”