Lovell survives buyers' gauntlet and remains trainer of Damon's Mound

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Damon’s Mound had not yet made it back to the winner’s circle following his blowout debut win on July 2 at Churchill Downs, when trainer Michelle Lovell’s phone started to blow up.

The thrill of victory soon dissipated.

“As soon as I turned around, I got a text message from a big agent,” Lovell recalled Thursday morning. “I said ‘I’m not going to be able to enjoy this race because I’m not going train him for his next win.’ It was a roller-coaster ride for about five minutes. Then the text messages kept coming.”

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The roller-coaster ride continued for a few more weeks as more offers - some reaching $1 million - were pouring in for Damon’s Mound, a son of Girvin who won that race by 12 1/2 lengths while relatively in hand under Gabriel Saez.

“I talked to people that I don’t talk to,” said Lovell, referring to agents who represent clients who frequently overpay to purchase horses privately.

Lovell recalled getting one call from an agent who during the course of their conversation “threw that comment in, ‘You know he’s not going to be in your barn for long, right?’”

Wrong.

Ultimately, owner Cliff Love told Lovell that he was keeping the colt.

“He said, ‘This is why we bred him and raised him so we want to enjoy it,’” Lovelle said Love told her. “I said, ‘Phew.’ ”

Following the colt’s maiden victory, the Grade 2, $200,000 Saratoga Special on Saturday made the most sense for Damon’s Mound’s second start from a timing perspective, Lovell said. Eventually, Lovell wants to stretch Damon’s Mound out around two turns in a race like the Iroquois at Churchill Downs on Sept. 17.

“I’m happy he ran the way he did,” Lovell said. “He’s not a great gate horse, so the way he did it and the way he gallops out and the way he trains in the morning, he does not slow down. He does it really kind, in hand, I think.”

Lovell said her success with veteran sprinters Just Might, a nine-time stakes winner, and Total Control, a six-time stakes winner, caught the attention of Love. This is the first horse Love and Lovell have together.

“He said, ‘I think you take really good care of your horses and I want you to train my horse,’” Lovell said.

Damon’s Mound will represent Lovell’s first starter at Saratoga as a trainer. In 1993, when she was known as Michelle Hanley, she rode five races at Saratoga including one on a horse named Frio, who finished eighth in the maiden race won by Tabasco Cat, who in 1994 won the Belmont Stakes.

Of her five mounts at Saratoga, three finished second. She hopes to go one better on Saturday.