Santa Anita training title extra special to Philip D'Amato

ARCADIA >> There’s no question trainer Philip D’Amato leaed his lessons well. A little more than 10 years as the late Mike Mitchell’s chief assistant were all D’Amato needed to break out on his own and become one of the leading conditioners in Southe Califoia.

D’Amato, 40, took over full time for Mitchell in April 2014 when the latter retired because of a brain tumor that took his life a year later at 66. He hasn’t missed a beat since, and Sunday he clinched his first Southland training title during closing day of the track’s 79th winter meet.

Despite saddling 39 fewer horses than ruer-up Doug O’Neill this meet, D’Amato prevailed, 41-34, by wiing with 24 percent of his starters. He finished in the money 55 percent of the time.

“To me, it’s a great accomplishment,” D’Amato said. “I really didn’t set out to win the title at the begiing of this meet. It just so happened everything came together. I had fit-and-ready horses to run, put ’em in the right spots and we got it done more times than we didn’t.

“It’s really brought my whole team together. When it looked like we had a chance a couple of weeks ago to possibly win the title, they were all on board. I’m just really proud of the team I have. I’m very grateful for the achievement.”

It means even more to D’Amato because the title came almost to the day of the one-year aiversary of Mitchell’s death. Mitchell, who won 19 Southe Califoia training titles, is fifth in lifetime victories at Santa Anita and was a poster boy for consistency at The Great Race Place, wiing two titles and finishing among the top five conditioners 14 times.

“There’s not a minute I don’t think about him at some point in the day when we’re ruing these horses,” D’Amato said. “Just the little Mike-isms and all that stuff. It’s a good feeling. I know Mike would be proud. We always shot to be leading trainer in this meet when I was with Mike.”

Mitchell was a father figure to D’Amato. But along with the many life lessons D’Amato leaed from one of the finest claiming trainers in the sport’s history, he also took careful note of what helped make Mitchell so successful on the track.

“There were a lot of things I took from him ... but always put your horse in a position to win,” D’Amato said. “It does the owner or it does the horse no good to put him in a spot where he’s in over his head. If you can give him that chance, then you can kind of build upon that. But always put your horse in the right spot.”

Advertisement

D’Amato has achieved so much success in two short years that he’s branching out and has sent a small string of 10-12 horses to Kentucky for the meets at Keeneland and Churchill Downs.

“Just to kind of give us another venue to run some of these horses that might fit better over there in the Midwest,” he said. “I plan on keeping just a very small string through Churchill (Downs) over there and then they’ll come back to Califoia ... we’ll kind of have a little hub over there to where we can bounce around stakes horses, looking for the most optimum spot.

“We’re just testing the waters in Kentucky to see how that tus out.”

But D’Amato said he has no plans to pick up and leave Califoia for other parts of the country.

“I’m a big advocate of Califoia racing, especially their state Cal-bred program, which is super,” he said. “I recommend more owners out there that can get into the game to try to find some Cal-breds, because the program here is great.

“It’s just more of a case where you might have multiple stakes horses in a certain category and one might fit better at Churchill and the other one might fit best at Santa Anita. To have a home base over there in Kentucky, we’ll be able to campaign in both states.”

• The Southe Califoia racing scene shifts to Los Alamitos on Thursday when the Orange County track opens its inaugural spring thoroughbred meet.

The 12-day season concludes Sunday, May 1. Post time is 2 p.m. daily.

Racing resumes at Santa Anita on Thursday, May 5, and the spring meet will run through Sunday, July 10.