SARATOGA SPRINGS, NEW YORK – JUNE 07: Sovereignty with Junior Alvarado up wins the 157th running of the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Race Course on June 07, 2025 in Saratoga Springs, New York. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
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The decisive Kentucky Derby and Belmont victor Sovereignty has been busy at work in residence at Saratoga since May 8, just a few days after his commanding Kentucky Derby run, and a short month before his commanding three-length win in the Belmont. It’s been seven weeks since that latter, most clearly tactical three-length win, and his trainer, the rock-steady William Mott, has made no radical changes in his champion’s regimen. Mott’s thinking is that the colt came out of his Triple Crown gauntlet fine and has, in the Dakota-born trainer’s understated parlance “…continued to do well.”
Obviously, with its characteristically short field of five, and minus Journalism and a few other threats that we could name, the Jim Dandy won’t pose the many pointed questions for Sovereignty that the Kentucky Derby or the Belmont did. At 2-5 in the view of the sage NYRA oddsmakers, the champion remains the hands-down favorite, and he’s breaking from the outside.
So much for the basics. It’s race day, so, first, a refresher of the the Jim Dandy field:
Post Position, Horse, Jockey, Trainer, Morning Line
1) Baeza, H. Berrios, J. Shirreffs, 3-1
2) Sandman, J. Ortiz, M. Casse, 6-1
3) Mo Plex, M. Franco, J. Englehart, 10-1
4) Hill Road, I. Ortiz Jr., C. Brown, 12-1
5) Sovereignty, J. Alvarado, B. Mott, 2/5
(Source: NYRA, 7/26/2025)
Despite Sovereignty’s obvious demonstration of power and control in the Derby and the Belmont, his two Triple-Crown victories could not have been more different. Closing deep from no less than 13 lengths back in the (for other runners) quite difficult Louisville mud, the champion powered by Journalism and took the win by a resounding length-and-a-half. It should be recalled that that feat — extraordinary in any race — was executed against a field of eighteen other runners. And on top of that, in a Kentucky Derby. Even for the ordinarily unflappable Mott, that was admittedly a bit too much of a challenge to arrange for oneself.
By contrast, in the Belmont, jockey Junior Alvarado adroitly kept Sovereignty closer to the pace, up in the mix, no time to lay back and do that Sovereignty thing of melting into the rear. He did not languish further back than third. It paid off in his winning margin, which doubled over that of the Derby, but in a deeper way well registered by his Hall of Fame trainer, Alvarado’s keeping Sovereignty up front also kept the horse’s racing mind more engaged with the contest unfolding around him. Although there was plenty of grit supplied by the Derby, the Belmont was grittier in a different, more technical way. Out by his athlete’s stall in the Saratoga barns last week, Mott admitted as much, saying: “Sovereignty showed a little more tactical speed (in the Belmont), so hopefully he shows some of that (in his race) on Saturday.”
None of which means that there’s no threat to Sovereignty’s dominance, Mott went to pains to point out. Like all trainers in the race save Jeremiah Englehart, Mott rightly directs a goodly portion of his concern at newcomer (and Ohio Derby winner) Mo Plex, the known speed of this little peloton. “Mo Plex looks to be the lone speed in the race,” Mott told the Saratoga correspondents with characteristic understatement. “Naturally we wouldn’t want him to get away from us.”