Gold Phoenix earns berth in Eclipse Stakes, but D'Amato weighing options

ARCADIA, Calif. – The invitation is tempting. The details, however, are daunting.

With a win in Saturday’s Grade 2 Charles Whittingham Stakes at Santa Anita, the 7-year-old gelding Gold Phoenix earned a berth in the Group 1 Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park, near London, on July 6.

The $752,000 Eclipse Stakes is one of Britain’s leading races at 1 1/4 miles. With its prize money and prestige, the race annually draws a terrific field, one that left trainer Phil D’Amato on Sunday thinking more about a domestic campaign than an international trip for Gold Phoenix.

“I have to talk to the owners, but I imagine you’d run against some monstrous horses,” D’Amato said.

D’Amato is correct. Consider the credentials of the last five winners of the Eclipse Stakes from 2019-23 – Enable, Ghaiyyath, St. Mark’s Basilica, Vadeni, and Paddington.

Enable won the 2019 Eclipse as the 10th victory of a 12-stakes winning streak that included the 2018 Breeders’ Cup Turf and consecutive wins in the 2017 and 2018 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

Ghaiyyath won the 2020 Eclipse as the second of three consecutive wins in Group 1 races. St. Mark’s Basilica was even better the following year. His win in the 2021 Eclipse was his third of four consecutive Group 1 wins.

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In 2022, Vadeni won the Eclipse Stakes in his first start against older horses following a win in the French Derby. He was later second in the Arc that year.

Last year, Paddington won the Eclipse Stakes as the third of four consecutive Group 1 wins.

Gold Phoenix won the Grade 1 Frank Kilroe Mile at Santa Anita in 2023 and later in the year was fourth in the BC Turf at Santa Anita. The win in Saturday’s Whittingham Stakes at 1 1/4 miles ended a three-race losing streak since the Grade 2 Del Mar Handicap last September.

D’Amato watched the Whittingham from the Churchill Downs backstretch, shortly after Stronghold finished seventh in the Kentucky Derby. The D’Amato-trained Prince Abama, a two-time graded stakes winner in 2022 and 2023, finished second in the Whittingham, beaten a head.

D’Amato credited jockey Kyle Frey for giving Gold Phoenix an aggressive ride in the Whittingham. Gold Phoenix was fourth and then third in a stalking position before taking the lead in the final sixteenth.

“Hats off to Kyle Frey,” D’Amato said at Santa Anita on Sunday afternoon. “You need to put [Gold Phoenix] in the race. Sometimes, he’ll dillydally back there if you don’t put him in the race.

“It worked out well.”

Gold Phoenix races for the partnership of Little Red Feather Racing, Sterling Stables, and Marsha Naify. Last summer, Gold Phoenix was the leading turf stayer at Del Mar, winning two Grade 2 races – the Eddie Read Stakes at 1 1/8 miles and the Del Mar Handicap at 1 3/8 miles.

The same races have significant appeal this year, D’Amato said.

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The winner of the $300,000 Del Mar Handicap on Aug. 31 earns a fees-paid berth to the Breeders’ Cup Turf on Nov. 2 at Del Mar.

“We want to be in the Del Mar Handicap mode,” D’Amato said.

The Eclipse Stakes winner may start in California. The winner receives a berth to the Grade 2 John Henry Turf Championship on Sept. 28, which this year will have a purse of $750,000, increased from $200,000 last year.

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