Pulling through the Oklahoma Training Track stable gate on East Avenue always feels a little different in the offseason.
And different basically means quiet. Long gone are the barricades, bike rack fences, traffic cones and parking attendants that become ubiquitous with the summer race meeting. There are no tour busses lined up near the starting gate, nor are there near as many golf carts zigging and zagging around Horse Haven or down the pavement toward the Whitney Viewing Stand. A small red stand with a couple security guards posted sits a few hundred feet inside the gate to keep tabs on who comes in and who goes out.
“Sovereignty today,” one of the guards said a little past 7:30 a.m. while a few sets trained just off his shoulder and before the first break.
He didn’t need to say much more.
Sunday was all about Sovereignty, as the Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes and Travers Stakes winner and presumptive Breeders’ Cup Classic favorite was slated for his final workout before shipping west to Del Mar this week.
Sundays became trainer Bill Mott’s work date of choice for Sovereignty since Sept. 28, when the son of Into Mischief got a little more serious with a 5-furlong move in 1:02.82. He followed that Sunday work with another in 1:01.44 Oct. 5, and another in :59.80 Oct. 12.
Sovereignty’s last Saratoga work came on a cool but comfortable Sunday, in company with Playa Del Mar, and in a strong 1:01.39. Under Neil Poznansky, Sovereignty started the work a little ahead of Playa Del Mar and finished well clear of his workmate. He powered through the stretch and past the wire, with NYRA clockers catching him galloping out 6 furlongs in 1:14.60.
A crowd of about 100 showed up for the workout and they lined up from the top of the stretch to the Whitney stand and all the way past the finish toward the gap at the end of the stretch. Mott watched it from one of the new wooden viewing stands near the clocker’s stand and came away pleased.
“He looked good,” Mott told the NYRA notes team. “He is not one of those horses that works and breaks the stopwatch. He has good solid works, good useful works, that is kind of him. He does what he has to do and what you have him do.”
All Sovereignty has done all year is just that. Aside from a runner-up finish in the Grade 1 Florida Derby, Sovereignty sports a 5-for-6 record with earnings of $5,692,020. Owned and bred by Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin, Sovereignty is all but assured of the Eclipse Award for champion 3-year-old male and could lock down Horse of the Year in the Nov. 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic. Sovereignty heads to California Wednesday and Mott said he would work the colt Sunday or Monday at Del Mar.
“I don’t have any reason to think he wouldn’t adapt quickly or well enough,” Mott said. “I’m going just a little bit early. A lot of guys like to do their last work and ship and that’s fine, the only reason I want to go a few days early is travel problems, you know what I mean, get it over with.”
Sovereignty appeared on the cover of The Saratoga Special no less than six times in 2025. We say no less because it could be seven since a set of Mott trainees appeared on the first edition of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival June 5 and at least one looks an awful lot like him.
We know for sure he appeared on the Belmont Day Preview edition June 7 and after his win over Journalism and Baeza in the Belmont Stakes Recap edition June 8.
A month later there he was again, with the headline “Back to Work” in advance of the July 26 Jim Dandy Stakes. We called him “Head of State” after his Jim Dandy score, recapped in the July 30 edition.
Two more covers awaited North American racing’s biggest star late in the meet, first on Travers Day Aug. 23 with the headline “Home Rule” and then Aug. 27 with the headline “Spa Reign.”
And who could forget Sovereignty’s two appearances in the Bill Mott Fasig-Tipton Stable Tour?
He wound up the third horse mentioned in his first appearance, not long after his debut fourth a few days before. Check it below and read the whole tour here.
Sovereignty: Godolphin homebred son of Into Mischief finished a late-running fourth on Travers Day. “Finished up good. Closed from last. It looks like once he figures it out…Did you see him? That was 6 the other day and he was closing well. At 7 furlongs, he’s going to be in the game. He should get a mile. How long? I don’t know. He’s very muscular. When you say real long, you’re talking a mile and a quarter. But when you start talking nine and 10 furlongs, then I think you’re talking sometimes about a different type of animal. I don’t know. Maybe he does. I’m not ruling it out. He’s out of a good family. First dam is Crowned. The second dam is Mushka, who I won the Spinster with. The third dam is Sluice, who I won a stake with in Chicago. The fourth dam is Lakeway who was trained by Gary Jones. She won a bunch of Grade 1 stakes. I didn’t train the mother, but this would be the fourth generation that I trained out of the family. It would be pretty cool for me if he turned out OK just because of Sluice and Mushka. And I still train for Mr. Rutherford, who had Lakeway.”
And finally, in Issue 20 of our 25th season of The Special. Mott talked about 34 members of his stable, with Sovereignty third from the end of the group, but only because of how he walked through the barns with The Special’s Sean Clancy.
Sovereignty: Same stall. Different story. Godolphin’s homebred made the Stable Tour last year after making his debut six days earlier. Fourth that day, the son of Into Mischief has developed into the best 3-year-old in the country with wins in the Fountain of Youth, Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes, Jim Dandy and Travers this year. As Mott looked at the bay colt, a groom dumped another scoop of feed into his front corner tub. “He gets his fifth feeding of the day. The others eat three or four times. He eats at 3:30, 11, if he eats up noon, then 5 and then 8. He’s never missed an oat that I know of.”
