Phil D’Amato Is Ready To Push His International Ambitions

GOLD PHOENIX is ‘hiding’ in the corner of his box to one side of his stable door, head ducked out of view, his chestnut frame in deep shade. The Grade 1-winning six-year-old isn’t interested in all the folks wandering by the Del Mar barns this Thursday morning, two days out from his assignment in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Turf.

Hang The Moon is more curious, though. The G1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf contender is happily munching from her door-side hay net while observing passers-by. They are among the eight horses Phil D’Amato has engaged in the Breeders’ Cup races at Del Mar.

The handler is a big player on the Southern California circuit – he recently notched his 1000th win – mixing it with the powerhouse Bob Baffert barn, vying with the Hall Of Famer for titles here and at Santa Anita. D’Amato, 48, has banked around US$76 million in career prize money, has six meet titles at Santa Anita to his name and a growing list of big-race wins, 20 of them Grade 1s.

He beckons towards his stable office, situated at the end of the barn row, a hotch-potch, functional room: he pulls out a couple of foldable plastic chairs and sits beside a long, plastic-topped table positioned against the wall and cluttered with a couple of coffee cups, an empty soda bottle, notepad, pen, a spreadsheet, and a bunch of other objects.

He only has about 20 minutes, he says apologetically, he has horses going out on the track.  

D’Amato, thick-framed, wears a blue Barbour vest, lightly quilted for San Diego’s cool Halloween dawn, the type that could be seen at any stables from royal Sandringham to Saratoga: here on the west coast it is paired with a blue and grey, insignia-ed, baseball cap and it works just fine.  

First impressions are that he is an affable guy, easy-going in conversation, perhaps a little more Gold Phoenix than Hang The Moon: he also strikes as a hard-working man, unobtrusive, and concerned with achieving big, rather than talking big.

But as the conversation moves on it is evident that D’Amato is not one for hiding in corners, Gold Phoenix-like, he has ambitions: like Hang The Moon, he has an outlook beyond his immediate environs.

D’Amato wants big races and more titles at home, yes, but he also wants in on the international scene, the lucrative features in Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong, even Australia. And Gold Phoenix might be the first to venture out.

“Originally, it was take a look and see, but the more we looked at it …” he says of the Group 1 nominations Gold Phoenix, Hang The Moon and their stablemate Balnikhov hold at the Hong Kong International Races in December.

“I’ve talked to Umberto Rispoli who’s ridden in Hong Kong for many years, and we kind of thought, after we talked about it further, that maybe a horse like Gold Phoenix would have a decent shot to make some noise in the race over there. If he comes out of this race at the Breeders’ Cup in good shape, we’re going to take a serious look at Hong Kong.”

Gold Phoenix and Balnikhov are nominated for the Hong Kong Cup and Hong Kong Vase, Hang The Moon for the Cup only.

“I’d say probably not Hang The Moon, but those owners are always interested in taking big swings so you never know,” D’Amato adds.

He confirms that any runner offshore would be his first outside of the United States.

“We’ve been looking at possibly having a runner in Dubai or Saudi and it just hasn’t worked out in these last couple of years, but we still, every year, look to venture out there and run for some big money and just have a new adventure; so I’d love to visit Hong Kong, never have, and what better way to do it but with a nice horse and have an experience,” he says.

U.S. horsemen, generally-speaking, have a reputation of being inward-looking, largely unconcerned with what is happening in the sport outside of their borders, whether they be state or national. D’Amato is not one of those and believes it is imperative to look outward in the climate of the sport’s increased globalisation.

“I think it’s important, if you want to further your career and your success … and at the same time, I’m looking to try to experience racing in different ways,” he says.

“We’ve been looking at possibly having a runner in Dubai or Saudi… run for some big money and just have a new adventure.”

D’Amato was “California born and raised” and got hooked into horse racing thanks to his parents who owned shares in race horses with friends and family.

“I’d go to the track with them a lot and I just got the bug that way,” he says. “When I was little, I thought I could someday do this. Little did I know how hard it was going through that to get to where I’m at today. But I wouldn’t have changed anything, I’ve had a great time getting here and hopefully can keep it going.”

He graduated from the racetrack programme at the University of Arizona and took his first job with the late Chuck Simon, who passed away this past September.

“I got hired at Churchill Downs and literally the next day I shipped with my boss to Saratoga and I worked the whole meet at Saratoga, that was really the first racetrack experience I had. Through Chuck Simon I did the circuit between Kentucky, Florida and New York, and got to experience all those racetracks, which was a great experience.

“I got exposed to all those different racetracks and kind of the ins and outs that have become helpful to me over the years, and also with a specific training style there.”

D’Amato eventually moved back to California and worked for the late Mike Mitchell. He took over the barn not long before Mitchell passed away as the result of brain cancer in 2014 and credits his old boss with being one of the best teachers he ever had.

“I was with him for more than 10 years,” he says. “He treated me like his son and every little thing he could possibly teach me, I like to think he did. He was an excellent horseman; he had Grade 1 winners sprinting on the dirt and he had Grade 1 winners going long on the grass.

“I became a student of the West Coast training style. At that time I returned to California I think there was a very big difference between how you trained horses in the West Coast versus the Midwest and the East. The West Coast is much more geared towards speed and everything is about infusing as much speed as possible, and back East everything is more stamina driven, getting horses fit and having them finish in races, it’s just more of a different style.

“So, I got to experience that diversity and that helped me early on to start forming my own style.”

Mitchell helped him further, trusting him to go to England, to Tattersalls sales in Newmarket to buy horses.

“That was really helpful to me, watching the various yards in Newmarket and how they trained and bought horses, and it helped further my career. That gave me another insight into the European horses which we seem to have had a lot of success with over the last couple of years,” D’Amato says.

Gold Phoenix himself is an Irish-bred bought out of Ireland at age three after winning a Dundalk maiden first-up; other European imports include, among others, his 2022 G1 American Oaks heroine Rhea Moon and his only Breeders’ Cup winner to date, the 2016 Turf Sprint hero Obviously.

“I’ve been really turf-tinged this last couple of years and a lot of that had to do with my experience of going to the sales at Newmarket and buying horses over there a decade ago, but I think that kind of further helped me understand how they train. Any good horseman will tell you they’re trying to learn every day, and if you can do it and enjoy the game in the process, I think that’s an added benefit,” he says.

“I’ve implemented a lot of that training I saw in Europe here in the States and I’m hoping going to Hong Kong and Dubai and Saudi – maybe Australia, one of the owners was talking about – will increase my understanding, and at the same time enjoy this game through running horses all over the world.”

D’Amato can train them on the dirt, too, of course. Why wouldn’t he? This year his G1 Santa Anita Derby hero Stronghold became his first Kentucky Derby runner, and that experience of taking one back east to compete in the ‘Run for the Roses’ only added to his desire to look outward for opportunities.  

“That was another new experience for me, we had a great time,” he says, pointing out that having his family there with him made it all the more special. “Stronghold finished a valiant seventh and he gave us a thrill at the top of the lane when he had the lead.

“Everyone said to me, once you have your first Derby runner, you get that Derby fever and you can’t wait to get back, and I can see exactly what they were talking about: the intensity and the energy around the Derby. I’ve had plenty of runners over the years on the undercard races that day but there’s absolutely nothing like having a runner in the Kentucky Derby.”

Yet even that most American of races has in turn fed D’Amato’s desire to test himself and his horses beyond America’s borders.  

“Stronghold came back and ran some nice races and we’re hoping to see if we can run him abroad next year, maybe Dubai or Saudi or something like that,” he says.

“I imagine as well,” he adds, “that there’s nothing like running horses in these big events all over the world.” ∎