BILL Mott leaned on the outside rail deep in the trees near the half-mile pole of the Oklahoma Training Track early Friday morning. Alone. A horse trainer and his horse.

Sovereignty and exercise rider Jimmy Quispe galloped past, loping the first time, rolling the second time. The Kentucky Derby winner’s final gallop went smoothly, a train on tracks, just like every gallop, every race, every day.

“How’s he?” Mott asked. “Good,” Quispe said. It was that simple. The most questioning five weeks in Mott’s Hall of Fame career were about to come to an end.

“It’s been good,” Mott said when asked about Sovereignty’s time between the Derby and the Belmont Stakes. “I guess we were getting criticised for it, but my only obligation is to Sovereignty and Godolphin. It wasn’t a hard decision. It never occurred to me to load him up and take him to Pimlico.”

Mott loaded Sovereignty up from Churchill Downs after an authoritative win in the Kentucky Derby and delivered Godolphin’s home-bred son of Into Mischief to Saratoga, into the same stall, third one from the end, he had occupied as a two-year-old in Mott’s main barn on the edge of the Oklahoma training track. And began a five-week plan to win the Belmont Stakes.

Win, lose or draw

Sovereignty made the decision easy and the 10 furlongs of the Belmont even easier.

The one-run closer pulled jockey Junior Alvarado closer to the pace than ever before, cruised through each furlong, allowed Journalism to get first run, swung outside and mowed down the favourite to draw off by three lengths. Baeza, third in the Derby, wound up third after a mile and a quarter in 2:00.69 over the good track.

“Before the race I said, ‘Hmmm. I’m pretty calm today, we’re no cinch to win but whatever happens, I’ll ****** eat it,’” Mott said on the way to the Carmen Barrera Room as fans bellowed out his name from the Jim Dandy Bar. “Win, lose or draw, glad to be here, glad to have a Derby. I thought we could win this race, but you prepare yourself for anything. You learn that. You learn that you’ve got to make decisions. That’s it.”

Mott made a decision as a trainer of a horse. Not as a keeper of the sport. Godolphin was lockstep in that decision. They stood by it. And Sovereignty stood up for it.

“It never came up at all, in the whole time, through the winter. It was Derby, Derby, Derby. That’s what we want to win. We’ve won the Preakness and we’ve won the Belmont before. The goal was to win the Derby,” Godolphin’s Michael Banahan said. “We had a brief conversation after the Derby and for a couple of days. We regrouped again, Bill and us as a group at Godolphin felt like the right thing to do was to come here for the Belmont.”

Most of the decision was based on how Sovereignty had done in the four weeks between winning the Fountain of Youth and finishing second in the Florida Derby and how well he had done in the five weeks between the Florida Derby and winning the Kentucky Derby.

“He ran a really good race in the Derby and this was an elevated performance again,” Banahan said. “When you see the performance today. Was that the right thing to do for the horse? Yeah, it probably was. We’ve seen horses get burned up in the Triple Crown. We want a horse for a career and maybe next year as well. He’s some horse. He has it all, physically, pedigree, talent. He’s the top we’ve ever had. Bernardini was an exceptional horse, but this horse is something else. He’s one for the ages.”

Confident ride

The Belmont was one for the ages. Certainly, as good as the third leg of the Triple Crown can get without a Triple Crown on the line.

Sovereignty broke sharply from post two as Alvarado hovered motionless and allowed Mike Smith and Wood Memorial winner Rodriguez to clear from post three. Luis Saez hustled Uncaged and John Velazquez allowed Crudo to move forward into the next tier. Journalism broke outwardly under Umberto Rispoli but moved quickly into fourth.

Flavien Prat angled Baeza inside and the Derby third jumped on the bridle, forcing Prat to pick up his hands and tap the brakes. They set up next to Sovereignty, briefly. Peter Pan winner Hill Road and British-based Heart of Honor lagged at the back.

Rodriguez doled out the first quarter mile in :23.42 as Sovereignty pulled Alvarado inside Crudo and into a close-up third. A surprising position, even to Alvarado.

“Never would I have expected that because he’s a closer,” Alvarado said. “But the five weeks off gave him good energy and he put himself into a good spot.”

Rodriguez led Crudo through a half mile in :47.60 as Journalism moved outside Sovereignty and the rest packed up behind them. Through three-quarters in 1:12.20, Alvarado continued to sit and wait, checking off rivals in his head but not daring to check them off on the track. That could wait.

“I’m looking how everybody is traveling and everybody is looking like they’re taking two steps to my one. He was so comfortable,” Alvarado said. “At the half-mile pole, he switched leads and took two big, big breaths. I was like, ‘Oh boy, they’re in trouble right now.’ ”

Leaving the backside, Rodriguez led but was on borrowed time. Crudo stalked but that wouldn’t last. Uncaged slipped through on the inside, nothing more than a spurt.

Journalism swung into third, in the clear, unlike his Preakness miracle. Baeza was the first of the big three under pressure, unable to latch onto Sovereignty. And still Alvarado sat, in the three path, splitting his view between Rodriguez and Crudo but watching Journalism and Baeza.

“I took a peek and Baeza was riding, I was like, ‘All right, he’s not going to block me, let me just follow Journalism,’” Alvarado said. “I knew I had him at that point. I never had a doubt.”

Nearing the quarter pole, Journalism rolled past Rodriguez and Crudo as Alvarado angled Sovereignty outside them, still a lane inside Journalism but knowing where he was going and how fast he could get there.

Raw talent

“It was just a matter of time,” Alvarado said. “I unleashed him and he went after him right away.”

Passing the quarter pole, Alvarado switched and turned his whip over at the same time, gave Sovereignty one left-handed flick and another. A flurry of double crosses, reins wide and strides strong, Sovereignty blew past a game Journalism at the eighth pole.

Inside the 16th pole, Alvarado took a quick look at the infield big screen, throttled it all down, two pats along Sovereignty’s neck and a pumped-fist finish in the Belmont Stakes.

“Big horse. Big, big, big, big solid nice horse,” Alvarado said. “Who knows when he’s going to stop getting better. He’s still just figuring out what he’s meant to do. He’s just a raw talent.”

Past the wire, Alvarado stood tall in his custom blue irons with white stenciled lettering (Mr. Mott. Godolphin. Sovereignty. Alvarado) and pointed to the sky, a kiss, a pat of his heart and a raised finger. Behind him, Rispoli saluted Journalism, the only horse to compete in all three legs of this year’s Triple Crown, with a soft touch between his ears and four long, slow pats along the right side of his neck.

Yeah, it was that good.

Back in the jocks’ room at the end of a long day in Saratoga, jockey Dylan Davis asked Alvarado the question no one had asked him.

“Would he have won the Triple Crown?” Davis asked.

“I don’t know,” Alvarado said. “That will always be a no.”

“I want your opinion,” Davis pressed. “I want your opinion.”

“Yes, I think so. Absolutely,” Alvarado said. “But I still love the decision. Listen, I want a Triple Crown, but I also want a long horse for the whole year.”

71 days to the Travers (August 23rd).