SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Standing on the rail at the Oklahoma training track Saturday morning, trainer Bill Mott mused about the beautiful morning and the day ahead.
“It’s a great day for the fans,” Mott said, referring to the comfortable weather conditions and the 14-race card on tap. “I hope we don’t disappoint anybody.”
Of course, Mott is the trainer of Sovereignty, the star attraction of Saturday’s Travers Stakes. All eyes from the 48,255 in attendance at Saratoga would be trained on Sovereignty.
He did not disappoint.
With the ever-confident Junior Alvarado aboard, Sovereignty ran away from Bracket Buster in the final furlong to win the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers by 10 lengths. It was another 10 3/4 lengths back to Magnitude in third. McAfee and Strategic Focus brought up the rear.
Sovereignty added the Travers to his victories in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes, as well as the Fountain of Youth back in February. Thunder Gulch, the 3-year-old champion of 1995, was the last horse to win all four of those races as a 3-year-old. Sovereignty’s lone defeat this year came when he finished second to Tappan Street in the Florida Derby.
The victory gave Mott his first win in the Travers with his 14th starter. His first came in 1995 with Composer.
“It’s something I’ve been waiting on,” Mott said. “There were two or three races on my bucket list, one was the Met Mile, which we got done with Cody’s Wish [2023]. The one that was left was the Travers. For me, racing primarily in New York now, the Kentucky Derby was great but I must say, for me, the Travers is a great race to win and it’s very satisfying and gratifying to get that done.”
Sovereignty did it with style. After racing between horses early down the backside in a five-horse field, he wound up third behind Magnitude and Bracket Buster at the three-eighths pole.
Approaching the top of the lane, Bracket Buster surprisingly put away Magnitude, but was soon tackled by Sovereignty. The two ran together until the eighth pole before Sovereignty pulled away.
Sovereignty ($2.60 to win), a son of Into Mischief owned and bred by Godolphin, ran 1 1/4 miles in 2:00.89. That equates to at least equaling the fifth-fastest Travers time. Arrogate, General Assembly, Honest Pleasure and Epicenter have run faster. When Easy Goer won the race in 1989, he had a final time of 2:00.80 when the races weren’t timed in hundredths.
Sovereignty earned a 115 Beyer Speed Figure.
“His races have been very, very impressive,” Mott said. “The final furlong of this race was very good, probably equal to the [Kentucky] Derby. The Derby, the way it was run and on such a sloppy track and he had to overcome so much, [18] horses. A much smaller field today, but the way he looked out there on the racetrack was incredible. From the eighth pole to the wire I said ‘Wow, he's looking pretty magnificent right now.’ ”
Alvarado, who also won his first Travers, said while he may have kept Sovereignty in between horses longer than usual, he never had any anxious moments.
“That was a first for me being in between horses for a little while longer than what I’ve been before, but I didn’t want to keep pushing the pace going into the first turn and go four or five,” Alvarado said. “So I pulled back a little, tucked in a little bit to try to save some ground and ended up myself between horses. But he was traveling beautifully. When everybody started dying, my horse, he was actually coming alive.
“I have respect for all the horses,” Alvarado added. “But I knew the mile-and-a-quarter, not many horses can do what my horse does and that’s why I was so confident with him today.”
The connections of Bracket Buster were thrilled to be second.
“I’m really proud of him,” trainer Vicki Oliver said. “He ran a big, big race. I think it’s hard to say you have a shot at that horse, but turning for home I thought we were going to run tough. We just got beat by a better horse.”
Magnitude, dominant winner of the Risen Star in February and Iowa Derby in July, was expected to be the major rival to Sovereignty. While he made the lead under Ben Curtis, the horse wasn’t moving like he had in those two victories.
“He was in trouble the whole way,” trainer Steve Asmussen said. “He jumped well the first jump, he didn’t drag his ass up there like he had been.”
Asmussen, the trainer with the most wins by any trainer in history and who has conditioned Hall of Fame runners Rachel Alexandra and Curlin, marveled at what Sovereignty has done.
“The winner … how good is he?” Asmussen said. “That son of a [gun] might be generational.”
Sovereignty will likely get to prove that when he takes on older horses in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 1 at Del Mar.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.