Kentucky Derby Presented By Woodford Reserve (Grade 1)

IT’S late in the Saratoga meet. One final issue of The Saratoga Special. Waiting for the big one. The Stable Tour with Bill Mott.

Plant the seed. Walk away. Mention it again. Drift away. Come back tomorrow. The next day. The day after. Don’t force it. That won’t help. Be ready. Be available. Be in eyesight, not earshot. Hover don’t harass. Wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for it.

The Hall of Famer always delivers. And always at the last hour.

Finally, eventually, predictably, Mott walks to the outside rail of the Oklahoma Training Track where a golf cart sits idle, and a reporter sits idolizing.

“You want to do this…”

It’s part question, part demand.

Batteries checked. Phone charged. Notes in hand. Let’s go.

We begin our annual walk. A walk of stars which has included Hall of Famer Royal Delta, Horse of the Year Cody’s Wish, Saratoga legend Casa Creed and so many others. Mott says he’s pressed for time each year, then spends an hour, two hours going stall by stall, horse by horse, thought by horseman thought.

We get to the third stall, the third horse. I know the horse. I’m giddy just to hear his name.

“Sovereignty. Fourth the other day. Finished up good. Closed from last,” Mott says.

He picks up my giddiness.

“Did you see him?”

See him? I typed ‘Will win Kentucky Derby 2025’ on my Equibase Virtual Stable. I nod. The 71-year-old South Dakotan opens the screen, clucks to the imposing bay colt who walks to the front of the stall like he read my note.

“Looks like once he figures it out…I don’t know how far he goes. That was six the other day and he was closing well. At seven furlongs, he’s going to be in the game.”

I start to lead the witness.

“He’s going to want to go long, long, right?”

“How long? I don’t know.”

“Really…” I ask, thinking about the first Saturday in May but not daring to mention it.

“He’s very muscular,” Mott says. “A mile. When you say real long, you’re talking a mile and a quarter. But when you start talking nine and 10 furlongs, then I think you’re talking sometimes about a different type of animal. I don’t know. Maybe he does. I’m not ruling it out.”

Then, 249 days later, Sovereignty ruled it all in.

Sidled over

Bred and owned by Godolphin and ridden by Junior Alvarado, Sovereignty sidled over from stall 16 to lane two, settled in 16th in the field of 19 over a sloppy, sealed track at Churchill Downs.

The son of Into Mischief bided his time, swung five wide while following favorite Journalism and drew off to win by a length and a half over Journalism and Baeza, completing the one and a quarter miles in 2m 02.31secs. Sovereignty earned his first Grade 1 stakes race win while improving his record to three wins from six starts for $3,672,800.

Bill Mott and Michael Banahan on the presentation podium

Taking the long, slow road that Mott knows so well, Sovereignty stretched to a mile in his second start, finishing second at Aqueduct in September. Stepping off that worn road, Mott chose the Grade 3 Street Sense at Churchill Downs for his third start, Sovereignty crushed future Derby foes Tiztastic and Sandman.

Battle lost. War won.

Freshened up, Sovereignty breezed six times before winning the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park in March. A month later, he broke from the outside and closed to finish second in the Grade 1 Florida Derby at Gulfstream. Battle lost. War won. Three works and five weeks later, Mott had won his second Kentucky Derby.

“I’m so proud of the horse. I’m so proud of everybody that had anything to do with getting this horse to this point, and it takes a lot of people. It takes a family, and it takes a community to get him ready, really,” Mott said.

“I didn’t have any reservations about him, you know what I mean? You’ve got to go out there and run the race. But the way the horse was doing, I really couldn’t have asked for anything different since his last race.

“When it goes that smoothly and you know you’ve got a talented horse and one that’s capable of probably winning a race like this, it gives you a lot of confidence.”

Mott and Godolphin opted to skip the Preakness and aim at the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga in June. The Travers in August is on the calendar. And so is the Stable Tour.

“HE’S out of a good family. First dam is Crowned. The second dam is Mushka, who I won the Spinster with. The third dam is Sluice, who I won a stakes with in Chicago. The fourth dam is Lakeway who was trained by Gary Jones. She won a bunch of Grade 1 stakes.

“I didn’t train the mother, but this would be the fourth generation that I trained out of the family. It would be pretty cool for me if he turned out okay just because of Sluice and Mushka. And I still train for Mr. Rutherford, who had Lakeway.”

ON a very wet weekend, the Derby Day crowd of 147,406 was down 6% from last year’s 156,710. The record attendance is 170,513 in 2015.

All-sources betting on the Kentucky Derby card reached $349 million, up 9% from last year’s record $320.5 million.

Betting on this year’s 19-horse Derby race totalled $234.4 million, up 11% from last year’s record $210.7 million in a 20-horse Derby.

With 17.7 million peak time viewers, the 2025 Kentucky Derby was NBC’s most-watched Saturday programme since the NFL Wild Card Playoffs in January 2024 (excluding Paris Olympics).

LEADING sire Into Mischief sired his third Kentucky Derby when Godolphin homebred Sovereignty splashed to victory at Churchill Downs. The Spendthrift Farm sire is the first stallion since Bull Lea in 1957 to sire three Kentucky Derby winners. He sired back-to-back winners of the Derby in 2020 and 2021 with Authentic and Mandaloun.

WINNING rider Junior Alvarado said he lost track of how many times he had used the whip to encourage Sovereignty forward, and went over the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority’s six-hit limit.

HISA’s rule states that riders can use the crop on the horse’s hindquarters “no more than six times and in increments of no more than two strikes before allowing horse to respond for at least two strides.”

Alvarado appeared to use the crop at least seven times. The penalty is 10% of the jockey’s portion of the purse

The $5 million Kentucky Derby has $3.1 million first prize with the jockey usually receiving around 10%.