DEL MAR \u2014 To begin with, he is a beautiful horse \u2014 a big, powerful, statuesque, 8-year-old chestnut gelding with distinctive white leg markings.<\/p>\n
And he has a great personality.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a happy horse,\u201d close associate Phil D\u2019Amato said Thursday morning. \u201cWhen he sees you in the morning, he sticks his ears out. He\u2019s intelligent. I look forward to seeing him every day. He\u2019s a member of our family.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just fun to be around \u2026 a big, beautiful horse who would be a dream for any horse owner.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not why Gold Phoenix has become a favorite among racing followers at the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club.<\/p>\n
He wins.<\/p>\n
Gold Phoenix seeks to extend two Del Mar records and tie an international mark Saturday when he seeks a fifth straight win in the Grade II Del Mar Handicap \u2014 a demanding 1 1\/8-mile marathon on the turf course.<\/p>\n
Only two other horses in the history of racing have won the same stakes race five straight times \u2014 the legendary Kelso in the Jockeys\u2019 Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park between 1960-64 and Manikato in the William Reid Stakes in Australia from 1979-83.<\/p>\n
Plus, Gold Phoenix will be attempting to win his seventh stakes at Del Mar after winning the Grade II Eddie Read a second time on July 28, running down favored Formidable Man in the stretch.<\/p>\n
Gold Phoenix has six wins in 11 career starts at Del Mar with two third-place finishes. He has earned $1.44 million at the track.<\/p>\n
\u201cGold Phoenix\u2019s success at Del Mar over the past four years has been a total team effort to keep him healthy and happy,\u201d said D\u2019Amato, who is the trainer of the Irish-bred champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the owners (Agave Racing Stables and Little Red Feather Racing) to the grooms, to the riders in the morning to the jockeys in races and more, he\u2019s treated with loving care by people who love him and all horses.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s warmed all our hearts how special this horse is. He\u2019s a winner because he wants to win. You can see that in the way he runs late in races. And I have a strong personal connection to Gold Phoenix.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just a throwback horse. He\u2019s hard-knocking and gives you his all every day. The late, great Mike Mitchell brought me along as a trainer. Mike loved the old grass marathon horse. Gold Phoenix was his horse to a tee. I think about that every day I see Gold Phoenix.\u201d<\/p>\n
It took some trial-and-error for D\u2019Amato to see Gold Phoenix was suited to marathon races on the grass.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe bought him as a two-turn horse,\u201d said D\u2019Amato. \u201cAs we brought him along, we started tailoring his races to a marathon style. He responded positively. The longer distance we ran him, the stronger he was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gold Phoenix won his first Del Mar Handicap by a head in 2022 with Flavien Prat aboard. He won in 2023 by 1\u00bc lengths with Juan Hernandez riding. In 2024, the Del Mar Handicap victory came by a neck with Kyle Frey up. And last year, Gold Phoenix won by a neck under Prat.<\/p>\n
Hector Berrios, who is considered one of Del Mar\u2019s stronger riders on the turf, was aboard Gold Phoenix on July 26 when he won his second Eddie Read Stakes by a nose. He will again be aboard for Saturday\u2019s record-setting bid.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a lot of his popularity with fans is how he wins races. No matter the length, he has something left late and finishes strong. That\u2019s how it was in the Eddie Read last month against Formidable Man. But I think a lot of things go into his popularity starting with his name. Then there\u2019s his accomplishments and his style.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut those of us close to him also know there\u2019s something else \u2026 just who he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Should he win, Gold Phoenix could return a year from now and seek to extend his records to a sixth straight graded stakes win and a sixth straight Del Mar Handicap.<\/p>\n
But there can\u2019t be a bid for a seventh. California racing rules say horses can\u2019t compete past their 9-year-old seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo long as he\u2019s good, he can run,\u201d said D\u2019Amato. \u201cWe\u2019ll let him tell us. But he\u2019s got a lot of farms fighting over where he will retire. He\u2019ll have a great home and a lot of visitors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Notable<\/p>\n
Thanksgiving racing will return to Del Mar this year as the holiday program kicks off both the final weekend of the 13-day meet and the season-ending Turf Festival with the $100,000 Red Carpet Stakes. The meeting runs Nov. 7-29. Races will be held Friday through Sunday each week with the first post at 12:30 p.m., except for the final weekend, which begins with the Thanksgiving program on Thursday starting at 11 a.m.<\/p>\n
Joel Rosario leads the summer meeting with 32 wins and is second in with 29 second-place finishes and tied for second with Antonio Fresu with 26 third-place finishes. Hernandez won the final two races Thursday to give him 27 on the season.<\/p>\n
Umberto Rispoli was named the jockey of the week by the Jockey Guild for winning the Grade II stakes Del Mar Mile (King of Gosford) and Green Flash (Sorrento Sky) last weekend. He had two wins Thursday to give him 20 for the summer meeting, moving him into third in the standings.<\/p>\n
Jockey Antonio Fresu will relocate to New York when the new Belmont Park opens on Sept. 18. He currently ranks fourth in the Del Mar jockey standings with 18 wins.<\/p>\n
Knightsbridge\u2019s win in the Pacific Classic has boosted him into third in the rankings for the Breeders\u2019 Cup Classic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DEL MAR \u2014 To begin with, he is a beautiful horse \u2014 a big, powerful, statuesque, 8-year-old chestnut…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":828398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,5536,2558,3,99,452,453],"class_list":["post-828397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-horse-racing","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=828397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}