Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott drew a crowd Sunday morning at Barn 19 at as he and Godolphin’s director of bloodstock Michael Banahan reviewed the previous day’s proceedings at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.
And major proceedings they were.
Their Godolphin charge, the sleek Into Mischief colt Sovereignty, had run the race of his brief career on a sloppy Churchill Downs strip to come away a length and a half winner in the $5-million Kentucky Derby in front of 147,406 cheering fans and tens of millions of television viewers across the world.
With Mott’s go-to rider – Junior Alvarado – in the saddle, Sovereignty overcame a series of obstacles in his mile and a quarter journey, chief of which was the dead-game colt Journalism whom he encountered entering the stretch in a showdown that had the crowd roaring. Digging in like the good horse he is, Sovereignty started to inch clear, then eased out front to his final margin at the finish line.
Trainer Bill Mott and Godolphin’s Michael Banahan address the media on the morning after Sovereignty’s Kentucky Derby victory
Nellie Carlson photo
“You know,” Mott said Sunday, “I’ve been in this game a long time and I’ve dreamed about having my horse go across the finish line first in the Kentucky Derby. And now it’s finally happened and it feels very good.”
The trainer noted that his horse suffered “a small scrape – about four inches” on his right front pastern during the running, likely when he clipped heels with a rival right out of the gate. He said it was nothing serious, but that anything to do with a horse’s legs are always a concern.
“When I got back to the barn last night after the race,” he noted further, “he’d already eaten up, his tub was empty. Probably did it in 20 minutes. That’s unusual for a horse that had to run a race as hard as he did.”
The trainer said he’s likely give the horse two or three days off as he and the horse’s ownership connections considered whether to take the next logical Triple Crown step in Baltimore for the Preakness.
“We’ve got to consider all options with him,” he stated. “We certainly respect the Triple Crown and what it means, but we’re not dead set on it. We’ll have to let the horse tell us how he’s doing in the next little while and then we’ll go from there.”