D'Amato making seamless transition to head trainer
DEL MAR, Calif. – Like a runner on the anchor leg of a relay race, Phil D’Amato has taken the baton and run with it. After working as an assistant to trainer Mike Mitchell for 11 years, D’Amato heads into his first Del Mar meeting with a large stable and very well could compete for the title as leading trainer, a position often held by his mentor.
Mitchell recently stepped down following a career in which he won a record 476 races at Del Mar and led the standings here for seven summers.
D’Amato seems ready to pick right up. He has 42 runners here, headed by the accomplished turf miler Obviously, but like Mitchell, he operates at all levels of the game. That wide-ranging portfolio should be profitable at Del Mar, where claiming action goes to a full boil after a low simmer in previous weeks on this circuit.
“This is the meet where everyone wants to claim,” D’Amato said. “I think I’ll be pretty live at the claim box.”
D’Amato, 38, was an integral part of the Mitchell operation for the past decade. His ascension to running the stable was seamless, the timing ideal, as D’Amato said he was ready to assume that level of responsibility, while Mitchell was looking to step back and spend more time with his family.
“I was ready for it,” D’Amato said while watching his horses train at Del Mar the other morning. “But it wasn’t like I was itching to go out on my own and prove myself. Mike has been like a second father to me. We have like a father-son relationship. It just felt like this was the right time, and Mike wanted to enjoy his family more, have more time to travel, with his daughters now living in Kentucky and Australia. It was just good timing.
“He’ll still be down for Del Mar and at the races a lot,” D’Amato said. “He still helps out, finding prospects at sales and privately. He’s still a major part of the operation.”
That might sound like the smooth talk of a seasoned politician, but it’s the truth. Not that D’Amato isn’t well versed in politics. He graduated with a degree in political science from the University of Southern California. He then took that education to law school, but two years in, “I said, ‘This isn’t for me.’ ”
D’Amato, who grew up in Southern California, was a lifelong race fan, his interest first piqued through his parents, who owned horses, most notably Casino King, a stakes winner in 1999 and 2001. D’Amato decided to follow his passion and went to the Race Track Industry Program at the University of Arizona, from which he received a degree in equine science.
“They had a working farm,” D’Amato said. “You were around stud horses, learned how to break horses. It was good hands-on experience.”
D’Amato’s first job at the racetrack was 15 years ago as a hot walker for trainer Chuck Simon, who also went through the Arizona program. D’Amato worked his way up to groom, foreman, and assistant, all with Simon, before returning to California and eventually working for Mitchell.
“I feel like I had the best schooling to go through, working with the all-time leading trainer at Del Mar and working with anything from $10,000 claimers to Grade 1 winners,” D’Amato said. “I feel very confident that whatever horse I get, I’ll be able to train.”
D’Amato’s confidence in his skills are borne out by the loyalty shown by Mitchell’s clients, who have gone right on with D’Amato.
“I haven’t had one go somewhere else,” D’Amato said. “After 11 years, the owners all knew me, so it was an easy transition.”
Among D’Amato’s owners is the Little Red Feather Racing Club, a partnership that has seven runners with D’Amato.
“Phil’s an excellent horseman and an excellent listener,” said Billy Koch, the founder and managing partner of Little Red Feather. “I think from all the people he’s been around, up to and including Mike Mitchell – one of the best of all time – he took the best his predecessors gave him and put his own style on it.
“He has a calming presence. He has a nice style when working with owners. He’s well educated, which is a plus in any business. In our business, the game has changed, and he’s one of the guys who was able to adapt, which is why owners are attracted to him. He’s great with our partners. And it’s nice to have an intelligent conversation with him.”
D’Amato said he’ll still seek Mitchell’s counsel. They were close as workers, their bond strengthened further by the health issues Mitchell dealt with two years ago, when first found with a brain tumor. Though his prognosis initially was bleak, it is now more than two years since Mitchell underwent surgery, and he came back to finish sixth in the Del Mar standings last summer.
“It’s like a member of your family if they get sick,” D’Amato said. “When he had a bad day, you had a bad day. But he’s doing really good right now, for which we’re all thankful. He’s a fighter. He’s come through it all very well. So, being able to share with him what we’ve done the last few years and having him around now, that makes it all the more special.”