Mott’s Career Now Capped by Uncluttered Derby Score

A reporter entrusted once asked Bill Mott to appoint the most difficult on the training of pure blood racing. Mott responded in a flash:

“Say no”.

And there you have it. It was easy, but when Motted said no to preakness bets (G1) for Godolphin’s Sovereignty The glorious first winner of Sheikh Mohammed of the Kentucky derby (G1), the coach was more than faithful to a falsified code for a long time in the high plains of South Dakota in the side father, a veterinarian.

“With this horse, the goal was to always take it to the derby,” Mott said about Sovereigtty, a son of In the mischief . “And I know that for that is the guy I work for, that I respect me so much, that is the career I know, that leg that tries to win for a long time.”

Five days downstream of the derby, Mott returned home in Saratoga Springs, NY

“It has been a long weekend,” Mott said, suffocating cough. “And, of course, I got cold on. Now we are configuring things here in Saratoga. Sovereignty arrived today (May 8) from Churchill, and he was breathing fire that came out of the one of”.

Mott’s direct approach for both the media and for his professional has earned him the benefit of a considerable doubt. In the truth, he thought, nothing about his high curriculum of the Hall of Fame suggests that he would once be inclined to run a pure young blood in two weeks after a complete winning effort of 1 1/4 miles on a test race. It doesn’t matter if the race is called preams stakes or grassmick handicap. Win or lose, the participation of sovereignty in the second section of the Triple Crown 2025 was never really in the letters.

“In fact, every time I talked to Godolphin’s team, even that Pride and Michael Banahan, I don’t remember having a conversation about the preakness before the derby,” Motted said. “And the preakness was not mentioned after the races until I mentioned it, because I knew we would be asked about it.”

So sovereignty will be executed on June 7 at the 157th Belmont Stakes (G1), directly from its cozy place in Saratoga career course. That is where his trip extends with nine works prior to his first race there on August 24, 2024, when he disagreed or 11-1.

Three days after Belmont, win or lose, Bill and Tina Mott will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. Tina was next to the husband for the Derby, throughout her son, coach Riley Mott, and his wife, Megan. The daughter of the Motts, Olivia, lives in Asheville, North Carolina, and her other son, Brady, is an adventurer who trotted in the world that currently works for a company formed to bring rains harvested to schools in unattended regions of developing countries.

“I had been in Bali until a few days ago, and now it’s in Thailand,” Mott said. “With the Internet, he knew about the derby immediately and called. He was delighted.”

Mott turns 72 at the end of July. At times like the thesis, the past tends to end up in the form of family and friends who have left but never forgot.

“I would have a great bone to have had my mother and my dad there, and who knows, Ray Goehring could have a leg there in spirit,” Motted said. “I think I waited too much to do it.”

His parents, Tom and Olive Mott, died in the early 1990s, while Goehring, South Dakota Ranchero and horse coach, was Mott’s mentor and lifelong friend. He died in 2015.

There was also a lot of space in the stand of the winner of the derby for Jack of Berg, the late member of the Hall of Fame that introduced the Mott wizard with its duration of the upper rope of the west medium of the 1976 season of Berg, along with the blacksmith Jim Bayes and the veterinarian Michael Hauser.

“They would have the leg in the cloud nine for us,” Motted said.

They knew the Mott bill that took their first corridor to Kentucky derby in 1984, at 29, had a firm hand with his horses and a short fuse that was on only when necessary. That week, while preparing the Blue Grass Stakes winner (G1), Taylor, Mott assumed the opportunity for national exposure when the upper part was flew after a long black limousine rolled and parked hours of training.

The limousine contained Howard Cosell, with the intention of an interview with Derby’s rookie.

“My dad always thought it was the most fun,” Mott said, and laughed. “I mean, there is only one entry at 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 disability of vanity (G1) in Hollywood Park with the heatherten mare, which was on a seven -run streak that included the Handicap of Hempstead (G1) in Belmont park And Blossom Handicap (G1) apple in Oaklawn Park. Stable in what went through a stable of bets, Mott was far from being impressed with the bars housing and the bald grass patch so little to soften the effect.

“There,” Mott said, throwing a handful of alfalfa in front or Heather Deer. “This is how we graze in California.”

May 3 celebration events were far from the consequences of Derby 2019, when Foreth Longshot moved Cottage To finish second, only to be promoted first in the interference disqualification of Maximum security .

After a career to win almost any other important career that is worth the effort, it was not supposed to be the way Mott finally won the Kentucky derby, going back in danger after an agonizing investigation. If there was a guy who did not deserve an explanatory asterisk anywhere near his record, it was Bill Mott.

At the same time, Motted does not need Kentucky’s derby to validate his position. In fact, the Derby needed the clean victory of Soverigtty with Mott to fill a hole in its history. It was already difficult to explain why Frank Whiteley went to his grave without winning a derby, like John Nerud, Bill Winfrey, Eddie Nloy, Allen Jerkens, Angel Penna Mr., Elliott Burch and Bobby Frankel.

None of them longed for the universal recognition granted to the coach of a Derby winner, although, at quiet times, they all admitted that it would have been pleasant. His fame was derived from the dozens of large horses and important events, Ather that Derby, adorning his plates from the Hall of Fame.

Even before the Derby of 2025, Mott and his fans, we called our Mottley team, they were marking the 30th anniversary of the 1995 season during which Cigarro, then 5, won the 10 races, eight of them in graduated bets. Mott ran the cigar once a month from January to July, then ended with a flowering with three races at three weeks intervals in September and October, climax for a monumental performance on an unpleasant track in Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) in Belmont Park.

Sovereigtty is not a cigar: nothing was cigar at age 3, but Mott is determined to give him all the opportunities to make his own special history. If that happens, omitting the preakness is a small price to pay.