D'Amato reached milestone with Acclimate's San Juan Capistrano win
ARCADIA, Calif. - Phil D’Amato, who led all trainers in wins at the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting that ended Sunday, reached a milestone with Acclimate’s victory in Saturday’s Grade 3 San Juan Capistrano at about 1 3/4 miles on turf.
D’Amato became only the third trainer in the race’s 83-year history to win three consecutive runnings, joining Buddy Hirsch (1952-54) and Charles Whittingham (1970-72 and 1983-87).
“It’s an honor,” D’Amato reflected Sunday morning in his backstretch office. “Growing up, it was one of my favorite races to watch.”
As a young fan and later in his earlier years of direct involvement in the sport, the 45-year-old D’Amato has first-hand accounts of the longest stakes run at Santa Anita. The race begins at the top of the track’s unique hillside turf course before joining the main turf course with slightly less than 1 1/8 miles remaining. Acclimate completed the course in 2:49.74.
Now worth $100,000, the San Juan Capistrano was once a Grade 1 race worth $400,000, but has lost its prestige in recent decades. The marathon turf division in California does not have the depth it once did. The passing of legendary Hall of Fame trainers such as Whittingham and Bobby Frankel contributed to the widespread decline.
As recently as the mid-1990s, Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin Racing shipped Red Bishop from overseas to win the 1995 San Juan, which was worth $400,000 that year.
Whittingham won the San Juan a record 14 times, between 1957 and 1989. Frankel won the race three times.
D’Amato worked as an assistant for the late Mike Mitchell when the stable won consecutive runnings of the San Juan Capistrano with On the Acorn in 2007 and Big Booster in 2008. In those years, the San Juan Capistrano was worth $250,000.
In recent years, the San Juan Capistrano has largely been an affair for locals, though Midwest trainer Ian Wilkes won the 2018 running with Nessy.
D’Amato won the race for the first time in 2019 with Acclimate, and last year with Red King. On Saturday, Red King finished third, beaten five lengths. Both Acclimate and Red King are 7-year-old geldings.
“I’ve had some hard-knocking veterans in there and they want to run long,” D’Amato said.
D’Amato hopes to have a runner in 2022, perhaps with Acclimate and Red King. D’Amato finished the Santa Anita winter-spring with 52 wins, seven more than Peter Miller.
Acclimate races for the family of the late Bud Johnston, Timmy Time Racing and Ken Tevelde. A California-bred, Acclimate has won 7 of 25 starts and has earned $557,872. The San Juan Capistrano was his sixth start of 2021, first win of the year, and seventh start since returning last November from a 12-month layoff caused by a sesamoid injury.
Acclimate was ninth in the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita before being sidelined.
“He had a little injury and they gave him more time off than needed, and that was to his benefit,” D’Amato said. “He’s been strong since he came back.”