Before the third race at Churchill Downs July 2 became official, phones were ringing and ringing and ringing. When a young horse does what Damon's Mound did on that cloudy day in Louisville, that tends to happen.
Damon's Mound rolled to a 12 1/2-length win in his first career start.
"The owners were getting calls before the horse cooled out," Michelle Lovell, the trainer of Damon's Mound, said by phone from her summer base at Colonial Downs Racetrack in Virginia. "I can't even count all the offers."
The owners, Texas-based Cliff and Michele Love, weren't counting, either. And they were not even thinking about selling.
Damon's Mound, a son of freshman sire Girvin , might be a horse that could do some good. In fact, he might be special.
That's why Lovell loaded Damon's Mound on a van and shipped him north to Saratoga Race Course, where he will run in the $200,000 Saratoga Special (G2) at 6 1/2 furlongs Aug. 13 against four other 2-year-old colts.
While phones were blowing up after that maiden score, the plans were already being set in motion for a trip to the Spa. Lovell is confident her horse can make a dent in the big leagues.
"I think he will fit perfectly," Lovell said. "I have a lot of confidence in him. He is very talented, real intelligent, a real classy horse. I'm excited about it. Obviously, he is going to face a real nice horse in Steve Asmussen's Gulfport."
Gulfport, a son of Uncle Mo and owned by William L. Heiligbrodt, Corinne Heiligbrodt, Jackpot Farm, Whispering Oaks Farm, and Coolmore Stud, has won his two career starts by a combined 19 1/4 lengths, including a 12 1/4-length runaway in the Bashford Manor at Churchill July 4.
This will be the first horse Lovell, who has been training since 2003, has ever started at Saratoga. However, she has competed here. She was a jockey, riding under the name Michelle Hanley, from 1989-94 and also in 1999. Lovell said she rode at Saratoga in 1993 and had "two or three seconds" and roomed with Hall of Fame rider Julie Krone.
Florida-bred Damon's Mound is the first horse she has had with the Loves. Damon's Mound, a homebred, is the first foal from Love's stakes-placed mare San Antonio Stroll, who won three of 14 career starts. Love named the colt after a place in Texas where he spent time as a child.
The Loves, who will not be at the Saratoga Special, have started 107 horses since 2013, according to Equibase, and have 17 wins.
In Damon's Mound's debut, he and jockey Gabriel Saez broke slowly but finished a pole in front of everyone else in the six-furlong race that went in 1:09.84.
"That was the only flaw," Lovell said. "He broke a little slow but he got himself, as we thought he would, into the race pretty quickly."
Lovell has won three grade 3 races in her career—two with her 6-year-old mare Change of Control and the other with another 6-year-old mare, Fault, who also claimed the Santa Margarita Stakes (G1) for trainer Phil D'Amato.
The Saratoga Special field, in post position order, is made up of: Lea Farms' Super Chow, who broke his maiden at Gulfstream Park July 2 in his first try for Jorge Delgado; Damon's Mound; Celeritas Racing and Rudy Rodriguez's Valenzan Day, ninth in Saratoga's July 16 Sanford Stakes (G3) for Rodriguez; Gulfport; and Michael McLoughlin's Owen's Leap, second in the Bashford Manor for Tom Amoss.
