After Triple Crown success, Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty is racing again

Cameron Drummond, Lexington Herald-Leader on Jul 25, 2025

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LEXINGTON, Ky. — After winning two of this year’s three Triple Crown races, Sovereignty is back on the racetrack.

The Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winner will be part of Saturday’s five-horse field in the Grade 2, $500,000 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Saratoga was also the site of Sovereignty’s victory in the Belmont in early June.

Still trained by 71-year-old Bill Mott and to be ridden once again by Junior Alvarado — who has been aboard the horse for six of his seven career starts, including the Derby and Belmont — Sovereignty is, unsurprisingly, the morning-line favorite for the Jim Dandy.

Sovereignty, a Godolphin homebred with four wins from seven career starts, opened at 2-5 morning-line odds and will begin the Jim Dandy from post position No. 5, the furthest outside gate.

The Jim Dandy is a 1 1/8-mile race (9 furlongs) for 3-year-olds. Post time Saturday is 5:41 p.m.

The Jim Dandy is considered a major prep race for the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes on Aug. 23. Mott has never won that race, which is also run at Saratoga.

But Mott has plenty of experience winning the Jim Dandy. He’s conditioned four winners of the race: Chief Honcho (1990), Composer (1995), Favorite Trick (1998) and Good Samaritan (2017).

Sovereignty — who remained at Saratoga following his victory in the Belmont — completed his most recent work before the Jim Dandy last Saturday. In that work, the two-time Classic winner covered a half-mile in 49.82 seconds over Saratoga’s Oklahoma dirt training track.

The five-horse field for the Jim Dandy includes several other accomplished thoroughbreds.

Baeza — the John Shirreffs trainee who ran third in both the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes behind Sovereignty and Journalism — is in the No. 1 gate. Baeza’s namesake is hall of fame jockey Braulio Baeza, who won the 1969 running of the Jim Dandy aboard Arts and Letters.

Baeza’s jockey for the Jim Dandy will be Hector Berrios, who was aboard the horse for his maiden win as well as his second-place effort in the Santa Anita Derby. Flavien Prat rode Baeza in both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes.

Sandman (seventh in the Derby and third in the Preakness Stakes) will leave from post position No. 2. Sandman will run with blinkers on in the Jim Dandy.

Mo Plex — a New York-bred trained by Jeremiah Englehart who won the Grade 3 Ohio Derby in June — will leave from post position No. 3. A perfect 2 for 2 in his racing career at Saratoga, Mo Plex is the lone runner in the Jim Dandy who wasn’t on the Triple Crown trail.

And post position No. 4 will be filled by Hill Road for trainer Chad Brown. Hill Road was a winner in the Grade 3 Peter Pan Stakes in May before coming in fifth in the Belmont.

With Sovereignty, Baeza and Hill Road all set to run, more than half of the Jim Dandy field most recently ran in the Belmont, which was also held at Saratoga while Belmont Park undergoes renovations.

Behind Sovereignty in the morning-line odds are Baeza (3-1), Sandman (6-1), Mo Plex (10-1) and Hill Road (12-1).

Earlier this year, Sovereignty became the first horse to win both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes since 2018, when Justify did it as part of his Triple Crown-winning campaign. Furthermore, Sovereignty became the first horse to win both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, but not the Preakness Stakes, since Thunder Gulch in 1995.

Sovereignty’s connections — including his trainer, Mott, and ownership, Godolphin — opted to skip this year’s Preakness.

Journalism — the horse that emerged as Sovereignty’s rival on the Triple Crown circuit this year — won last week’s Haskell Stakes at Monmouth Park. Journalism ran second to Sovereignty in the Derby and Belmont, and won the Preakness, in which Sovereignty didn’t run.

Looking further down the line, it seems likely that Sovereignty and Journalism will battle each another again in the Breeders’ Cup Classic in November at Del Mar in California.