Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty officially got on the work tab about a year ago and made his first start last August, but Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott’s association with the family goes back more than a quarter-century. He put the tack on great-granddam Sluice for her career debut in July 2000 and has since handled a few generations of this family.
“It’s really kind of a neat thing to be able to train those families and those generations of horses,” Mott said. “It might be telling my age a little bit, but it really makes it pretty special.”
Sluice was produced by the outstanding mare Lakeway, a Mike Rutherford homebred trained by Gary Jones.
“She was, I think, probably a name that almost anybody would remember,” Mott said.
Lakeway won four Grade 1 races in 1994, taking the Las Virgenes, Santa Anita Oaks, Mother Goose, and Hollywood Oaks. She also was second in the Kentucky Oaks and the Alabama. As an older filly the following year, she was a Grade 2 winner and was third in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff behind Hall of Famers Inside Information and Heavenly Prize, and finishing ahead of another Hall of Famer, Serena’s Song.
Lakeway’s second foal was the Seeking the Gold filly Sluice, whose pedigree made her a $1.5 million Keeneland July yearling. Mott trained her for Diana and Guy Snowden.
“She wasn’t an exceptionally big filly, but well balanced,” Mott said.
Sluice won the 2001 Misty Isle Stakes at Arlington and placed in additional stakes at Monmouth and Kentucky Downs. She then went on to produce the Empire Maker filly Mushka, a $1.6 million Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling purchase in 2006 by Zayat Stables.
“A beautiful filly, absolutely gorgeous,” Mott said.
Mott sent out Mushka to win the Grade 2 Demoiselle Stakes as a juvenile. At the 2008 Keeneland November sale, Mushka, now a graded stakes winner with good looks from her exceptional family, brought $2.8 million from Brushwood Stable. Mott said he was “lucky enough” to continue to train the filly for new ownership.
Mushka went on to win the Grade 1 Spinster and the Grade 3 Glens Falls for Brushwood. She placed in four other stakes, including a runner-up effort in the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
Moving into her broodmare career, one of Mushka’s early foals was the Pennsylvania-bred filly Crowned, by Bernardini. Godolphin struck for the daughter of one of its prominent champions, going to $1.2 million at the 2014 Keeneland September yearling sale.
“Unfortunately, she had a few niggles, never really made it to the racetrack,” said Michael Banahan, Godolphin’s director of bloodstock in the United States.
Crowned, who died in 2024, according to records from The Jockey Club, has produced two winners from three starters to date. Sovereignty is the first stakes horse under this generation of the family – fittingly, in Mott’s care.
“It really is amazing how, sooner or later, it comes through, and it came through on this horse, and he’s a gorgeous individual,” Mott said.
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