Mott's Career Now Capped by Uncluttered Derby Score

Bill Mott once was asked by a nosy reporter to name the toughest thing about training Thoroughbred racehorses. Mott answered in a flash: "Saying no." And there you have it. It wasn't easy, but when Mott said no to the Preakness Stakes (G1) for Godolphin's Sovereignty, Sheikh Mohammed's glorious first winner of the Kentucky Derby (G1), the trainer was being nothing more than true to a code forged long ago on the high plains of South Dakota at the side of his father, a veterinarian. "With this horse, the goal always was to get him to the Derby," Mott said of Sovereignty, a son of Into Mischief. "And I know that's what the guy that I work for, who I'm so respectful of, that's the race I know he wanted, that he's been trying to win for a long time." Five days downstream from the Derby, Mott was back home in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. "It's been a long weekend," Mott said, stifling a cough. "And of course I caught a cold on top of it. We're just now getting things set up here in Saratoga. Sovereignty arrived today (May 8) from Churchill, and he was breathing fire coming off that van." Mott's straightforward approach to both the media and his profession has earned him the benefit of considerable doubt. In truth, though, nothing on his lofty Hall of Fame résumé suggests he'd ever be inclined to run a young Thoroughbred back in two weeks after a full-throated winning effort at 1 1/4 miles over a testing racetrack in a fishbowl surrounded by 147,000 fans. Doesn't matter if the race is called the Preakness Stakes or the Grasmick Handicap. Win or lose, Sovereignty's participation in the second leg of the 2025 Triple Crown was never really in the cards. "In fact, whenever I talked to the Godolphin team, including Dan Pride and Michael Banahan, I don't ever remember having one conversation about the Preakness before the Derby," Mott said. "And there wasn't any mention of the Preakness after the race until I brought it up, because I knew we'd be asked about it." So Sovereignty will run next June 7 in the 157th Belmont Stakes (G1), right out of his cozy stall at Saratoga Race Course. That is where his journey began with nine works leading up to his first race there Aug. 24, 2024, when he was fourth at odds of 11-1. Three days after the Belmont, win or lose, Bill and Tina Mott will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. Tina was at her husband's side for the Derby, along their son, trainer Riley Mott, and his wife, Megan. The Motts' daughter, Olivia, lives in Asheville, N.C., and their other son, Brady, is a globe-trotting adventurer who currently works for a company formed to bring harvested rainfall to schools in underserved regions of developing countries. "He had been in Bali until a few days ago, and now he's in Thailand," Mott said. "With the internet, he knew about the Derby right away and called. He was thrilled." Mott turns 72 at the end of July. At times like these, the past tends to intrude in the form of family and friends gone but never forgotten. "It would have been great to have had my mom and dad there, and who knows, Ray Goehring might have been there in spirit," Mott said. "I guess I waited too long to get it done." His parents, Tom and Olive Mott, died in the early 1990s, while Goehring, South Dakota rancher and horse trainer, was Mott's all-around mentor and lifelong friend. He died in 2015. There also was plenty of room on the Derby winner's stand for Jack Van Berg, the late Hall of Famer who entrusted assistant Mott with his upper Midwestern string during Van Berg's record-setting 1976 season, along with farrier Jim Bayes and veterinarian Michael Hauser. "They would have been on cloud nine for us," Mott said. They knew the Bill Mott who took his first runner to the Kentucky Derby in 1984, at age 29, possessed of a firm hand with his horses and a short fuse that was lit only when necessary. That week, while preparing Blue Grass Stakes (G1) winner Taylor's Special, Mott squandered a chance at national exposure when he blew his top after a long black limousine rolled up and parked during training hours. The limo contained Howard Cosell, intent on an interview with the Derby rookie. "My dad always thought that was the funniest thing," Mott said, and laughed. "I mean, there's only one entrance on each end of the barn, and we were ready to go with a set. What were they thinking?" That summer, Mott headed West for the Vanity Handicap (G1) at Hollywood Park with the mare Heatherten, who was on a seven-race win streak that included the Hempstead Handicap (G1) at Belmont Park and the Apple Blossom Handicap (G1) at Oaklawn Park. Stabled in what passed for a stakes barn, Mott was far from impressed with the barren accommodations and balding patch of grass that did little to soften the effect. "There," Mott said, tossing a handful of alfalfa in front of Heatherten. "That's how we graze in California." The celebratory events of May 3 were a far cry from the aftermath of the 2019 Derby, when Mott sent forth longshot Country House to finish second, only to be promoted to first on the interference disqualification of Maximum Security. After a career of winning just about every other major race worth the effort, that was not supposed to be the way Mott finally won the Kentucky Derby, backing into the dang thing after an agonizing inquiry. If there was one guy who did not deserve an explanatory asterisk anywhere near his record, it was Bill Mott. At the same time, Mott did not need the Kentucky Derby to validate his standing. In fact, the Derby needed Sovereignty's clean win with Mott to fill a gaping hole in its history. Already, it was hard to explain why Frank Whiteley went to his grave without winning a Derby, as did John Nerud, Bill Winfrey, Eddie Neloy, Allen Jerkens, Angel Penna Sr., Elliott Burch, and Bobby Frankel. None of them craved the universal recognition bestowed upon the trainer of a Derby winner, although, in quiet moments, they all admitted it would have been nice. Their fame was derived from the scores of great horses and major events—other than Derby—adorning their Hall of Fame plaques. Even before the 2025 Derby, Mott and his fans—we call ourselves the Mottley Crew—were marking the 30th anniversary of the 1995 season during which Cigar, then 5, won all 10 of his races, eight of them in graded stakes. Mott ran Cigar once a month from January to July, then finished with a flourish with three races at three-week intervals in September and October, climaxed by a monumental performance on a nasty track in the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) at Belmont Park. Sovereignty is no Cigar—neither was Cigar at age 3—but Mott is determined to give him every chance to make some special history of his own. If that happens, skipping the Preakness is a small price to pay.