If trainer Tom Amoss isn’t nervous during Saturday’s Virginia Derby, it may be because he’s already suffered enough Colonial Downs-related anxiety for a lifetime.

Amoss will send out Authentic Gallop (10-1) in the Virginia Derby, a $500,000 contest for three-year-olds that also offers 50 Derby points to the winner. That combination is sure to provoke a few butterflies, but 20 years ago in New Kent, Amoss saw his career flash before his eyes.

One day before the 2005 Virginia Derby, in which Amoss had entered Rush Bay, Amoss brought Virginia-bred Liveinthepresent to Colonial Downs to run in a lifetime claimer. The day of the race, he received a phone call from the stewards telling him that he trained the only horse left entered after scratches.

“What does that mean?” asked Amoss.

“You get the race,” was the reply on the other end. Provided, of course, that Liveinthepresent was saddled, appeared on the track, broke from the gate (with Horacio Karamanos aboard) and completed the mile-and-a-sixteenth carrying 119 pounds. 

Amoss thought “terrific,” but shortly after disconnecting the phone realized that this was not going to be a simple walkover.

“This was a horse that would never do anything right on the racetrack unless he had a companion,” remembered Amoss. “And now here I am running in a one-horse race and no competition and feeling that I might be the first guy ever to lose a one-horse race.”

If you imagine bungling an open layup, missing a base on the home run trot, or dropping the football casually on the wrong side just before crossing the goal line as embarrassments, consider them a papercut compared to the wound Amoss feared he might suffer.

“If that happens it doesn’t matter whatever I do with the rest of my career, this is what I will be remembered by,” joked Amoss.

Amoss was so fraught with nervousness that he decided to listen to the race nearby, on the side of the road, while being patched through to the press box by an older generation cell phone.

“And they’re off and Liveinthepresent goes to the front, hah, hah, hah,” Amoss remembered of track announcer Dave Rodman’s call. “And now Liveinthepresent is making a race of it as he is not negotiating the turn well.”

Which was just what Amoss had feared.

“He’s crossed the wire in a jog, so I didn’t lose the one-horse race but I came close,” the trainer recalled. Though the chart simply relates that Amoss’ horse “completed the course in a walkover,” there was more drama than that.

Karamanos was forced to keep his lonely mount to task, and they completed the 1 1/16 miles on dirt in a dawdling 1:51.75. After a reasonable opening half-mile in 48.88 seconds, Liveinthepresent’s antics – Amoss believes he tried to pull himself up in the stretch – led to a second half-mile that took just shy of 56 seconds to complete.

“He ran back at Arlington Park in his next start and won, but his prior performance was so poor he was 15-1,” recalled Amoss. “He was fine when he was with other horses.”

With 10 entered, the Virginia Derby isn’t likely to be a walkover for Authentic Gallop or anyone else.

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Authentic Gallop is a colt with direct lineage on his dam’s side to the most successful dirt horse in the history of Colonial Downs. Authentic Gallop is by 2020 Kentucky Derby winner Authentic out of the mare Galloping Ami, by Victory Gallop, who won two races on dirt in Colonial’s inaugural year prior to the construction of its signature turf course.

That was in 1997, and the following year, Victory Gallop went on to finish second in both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness before running down Real Quiet on the wire to win the Belmont by a nose.

Authentic Gallop was bred in Kentucky by Tall Oaks Farm.

“When we bought him at the sale, it was about the dam, the mother herself, Galloping Ami,” explained Amoss. “That’s a very active family. He’s got other members, brothers and sisters, that have also done really well. So, pedigree-wise, he has a really, legit pedigree.”

Galloping Ami, though unraced, has foaled three graded stakes winners, each earners of more than $400,000. Her sire Victory Gallop, of course, had significant impact on the future of racing at Colonial Downs.

On Colonial’s grand opening day in 1997, Victory Gallop won the New Kent Stakes and later in the meet annexed the Chenery Stakes with jockey Mark Johnston aboard for trainer Mary Eppler and owner Speriamo Stable.

Prior to the Triple Crown, he was purchased by Prestonwood Farm LLC and entered trainer Elliot Walden’s barn. Virginia racing fans were encouraged about the future of the new racetrack. Amoss was excited for his friend.

“Elliott is a friend of mine and I can remember thinking, not in a jealous way but certainly in bit of an envious way, that he’s getting his real chance at Triple Crown stardom with a horse like that,” recalled Amoss.

Amoss has had six starters in the Kentucky Derby starting gate with Mylute his best result, finishing fifth in 2013. He won a Kentucky Oaks with Serengeti Empress in 2019 and has three-year old fillies Low Key and You’ll Be Back entered in the Virginia Oaks run just prior to the Virginia Derby. The latter of those two is owned by Greenwell Thoroughbreds LLC, also the owner of Authentic Gallop.

Greenwell paid $300,000 to purchase Authentic Gallop as a yearling. The sophomore’s sire, Authentic, won the Kentucky Derby off a seven-week layoff during the fall of 2020’s Covid year. After Saturday’s Virginia Derby, the Kentucky Derby will be seven weeks away.

“He’s a horse that has to move forward for us to feel like the [Kentucky] Derby is a legit possibility,” Amoss said. “We know he is a good horse. We just don’t know if we’ve gotten to the point where he’s has matured enough to compete in anything other than a prep.”

There is upside. After taking five starts to break his maiden, he has won two of his last three starts all at 1 1/16 miles. His maiden score came over Caldera, who subsequently was second by a nose in the Sunland Derby, won by Virginia Derby favorite Getaway Car.

Authentic Gallop’s most recent start was a win at Oaklawn Park on February 7. With blinkers off for the first time since his debut, he made a nifty maneuver through a busy stretch to prevail by a head.

“He’s a horse that really took a while to get an understanding of competition,” explained Amoss. “That makes his last race at Oaklawn very significant. Turning for home, it was literally four horses across the track. I thought he really started to get an understanding of competition. He took a challenge from the inside and the outside, and in that sense, I thought the race was very good.”

Foaled on March 25, 2022, Authentic Gallop isn’t a full three years old yet. Perhaps his brain is catching up to his body.

“Despite when a horse is foaled, they really do mentally mature at different times,” notes Amoss. “With Authentic Gallop I think he was a late-maturing horse mentally.”

Javier Castellano gets the mount aboard Authentic Gallop Saturday for the first time on Saturday. 

“We do a lot with them in practice, to try to teach them about being competitive-make them finish up works, make them work against competition in the mornings,” said Amoss. “Taking the blinkers off was definitely an experiment, and we think we moved him forward.”

This time at Colonial, horse and trainer are much more mentally ready.