SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY – JUNE 8: Sovereignty gets some relaxation time in his stall in trainer Bill Mott’s barn at the Oklahoma Training Track after his win in the 157th running of the The Belmont Stakes during the Belmont Festival at the Saratoga Race Course Sunday June 8, 2025 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Skip Dickstein/ for the Times Union (Skip Dickstein/Albany Times Union via Getty Images)
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Immediately after Sovereignty’s decisive win over Baeza and Hill Road in the Jim Dandy stretch, trainer William Mott was, for a reserved South Dakotan, emotive. “It was good,” he said to the assembled press. “It was a winning trip, a winning ride, a winning run.” That’s about as excited, or relieved, as one can find the trainer.
His athlete had just brought one of his usual deep closing runs to take the win, and in fact for a few strides he was running dead last as he and jockey Junior Alvarado fired up. The run was not simply in time to hit the wire at a mile-and-an-eighth; it had been something else, too, bringing the trainer a flash look of confirmation that he and the team had been on the right track since the June 7 Belmont, nearly two months back.
Quickly, Mott recovered himself. “Hopefully he comes back good and trains as well for the Travers. We’re trying to get ready for the Travers and that’s the main objective for everybody,” the trainer said.
Quite a lot of the playing public thought Sovereignty would pull it off, perhaps not with the cliff-hanging moment he provided, but still. Going off at an expectedly low 1-2, Sovereignty paid $3.00.
For his part, Junior Alvarado was never in doubt. “It was everybody else moving and at that time I was just like, ‘Alright let me now kind of start picking it up. I had 100% confidence. I knew what I had underneath me.”
Baeza and Hill Road did begin their moves before Sovereignty, but they were no match for the Belmont and Derby champion down the lane. Of the two challengers, Baeza proved the more fit, holding on by a length to place. Fading in back of him, Hill Road cross the line a little more than nine lengths behind Baeza.
Michael Banahan, Sovereignty’s owner Godolphin’s director of bloodstock in the U.S., was on hand for the win and, like Mott, has his eye firmly trained on the end of August. He said, “It was nice to get that behind him. He trained well into it but obviously he wasn’t cranked up all the way. So, go out there, get the win, and move on to the next one, just like a basketball tournament. Hopefully this will set us up nicely for the Travers. There are going to be new shooters in (the Travers) which you can’t take lightly. So, we’ll want to have our running shoes on that day as well.”
Jeremiah Englehart’s pre-race confidence that his entertaining speed horse Mo Plex would stick to the job out front in the latter half of the race was summarily dashed in the second turn. Mo Plex finished fourth, and the slightly better touted Sandman ran last.
Alvarado observed that Sovereignty broke well, perhaps, the jockey suggested, even better than in the Belmont. But it was Mott who broke down the tactical stretch run thusly: “When he came out of the turn, it looked like things were going our way. I thought he put a little more distance on Baeza approaching the eighth pole. It looked like Baeza came back at him a little bit. I think 70 yards before the wire, we were pulling away again.”
Said another way, over the two extra furlongs in the mile-and-a-quarter Travers on August 23, that one-length winning finish could well increase.