Sovereignty pulled out of his box Sunday morning for one final photo call as a racehorse before loading into the horse float for his next journey. That was to be a short ride from the Keeneland backstretch barns to Godolphin’s Jonabell Farm, about an eight-minute drive to the other side of Lexington airport.
It should be noted that it has been to the sport’s benefit and Godolphin’s credit that the short journey to the stud farm didn’t happen a year ago, as it might have; that Sovereignty was given the opportunity to prove his measure of greatness, taking on all-comers, facing this year’s Triple Crown horses, conceding weight, and winning as most of the true champions do.
Bill Mott’s star set his own champion legacy in stone when he wrapped up a brilliant career with victory in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Classic Saturday night. And in the darkness of 6:30am – a few minutes more than 12 hours after – he had drawn a crowd of about 30 people pointing cameras his way. The purple and yellow floral blanket only a Breeders’ Cup winner gets was hung just inside the barn as Mott spoke to the recorders.
“Well, he gave us a big thrill,” Mott said. “And (he) confirmed that he was as good as we always thought he was. I mean, it wasn’t just a one season sensation. He came back and he’s won two of the most important races that they offer in this country. He’s just, he’s done a lot.”
By “a lot” Mott means winning a Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes and Travers Stakes, as well as the G2 Fountain Of Youth and G2 Jim Dandy Stakes, at age three last year to claim the Horse of the Year title. And coming back as a four-year-old to overcome adversity in two defeats to then reign supreme in the G1 Whitney – in which he slammed yesterday’s dominant Distaff heroine Nitrogen – and wrap it all up imperiously in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
The Classic was billed as a clash between the Godolphin colt and Japan’s Horse of the Year Forever Young, last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic winner in Sovereignty’s absence. Such races can only happen when horses race on beyond their three and even their four-year-old seasons, when owners put off the lure of the stallion fees for another year and let their horses prove they’re real-deal champions.
If the five-year-old Forever Young had won, we could have been looking at a Japanese horse emerging as the U.S. Horse of the Year for 2026. As it was, the raider ran below par in fifth, leaving Mott and Godolphin looking almost certainly at back-to-back Horse of the Year honours for Sovereignty, while trainer Yoshito Yahagi and owner Susumu Fujita were left with a question mark hanging over Forever Young’s future.
The Hall of Fame was even being talked about in the half-light of morning: “I think that would probably be very important for (Godolphin) to have a horse that is in the Hall of Fame,” Mott said. “That’d be wonderful. It’s a lot to ask, but he’s a lot of horse. He’s had a lot of marvelous moments in his career.”
The same can be said of Forever Young: a year ago at Del Mar he had the champion’s floral garland, he was the focus of adulation after his historic Breeders’ Cup Classic win.
But the scene was different over at the Japanese barn just after 7am where the bowed champion walked laps then ate grass with only one or two people to see it. Even T O Elvis, Japan’s sensational winner of the G1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, hadn’t drawn a crowd: such is the pull of the Breeders’ Cup Classic winner.
Forever Young’s future will no doubt be decided in the coming days. His run lacked the fire and grit he has shown so often in his career, even when he had been beaten. He showed signs this week that might suggest he is not as eager for the race as he used to be: the rearing in the paddock, the tail flashing one trackwork morning, being ponied to the track of a morning, the aversion to being saddled on race day. But none of that should diminish what the horse has accomplished.
Yahagi said post-race: “He never ran this badly. Usually if things went against him, he would have shown grit and hung in there. I really can’t tell why at the moment. I just really don’t know. I wish there were any obvious reasons.
“I don’t think this loss will take away anything from him, and I am truly thankful where he has brought us so far. Perhaps he just didn’t want to race today! I really wish I could talk to him.”
The two wins in the G1 Saudi Cup – that epic against Romantic Warrior will long be remembered – his agonisingly close third in the Kentucky Derby two years ago, his Saudi Derby, the G1 Tokyo Daishoten, his Breeders’ Cup Classic victory last year, even his G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup win which Yahagi was not satisfied with, mark him as one of Japan’s all-time greats, certainly its greatest dirt track runner, and a real world star.
As Mott noted when talking generally about the necessity of having good horses: “A trainer can’t train a Billy Goat to win the Breeders Cup Classic.” And one late-career failure – perhaps the last race of his career – does not detract from Forever Young.
Yahagi’s hero also epitomises the international scope of horse racing a quarter of a way through the 21st century. A champion prepared to travel overseas and face whatever challenge is placed in their way – that’s a big part of what the Breeders’ Cup has always been about and what the sport needs.
And, in that vein, Breeders’ Cup Saturday brought with it talk of travels for some of its most exciting stars: Turf Sprint hero Bacio has entered quarantine for Australia, Turf winner and third Benvenuto Cellini and Diamond Necklace to Hong Kong, T O Elvis and his jockey Ryusei Sakai back to the United States.
Bacio scorched his way to victory in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, giving California-based ace Juan Hernandez a first win at the event. And trainer Wesley Ward not only confirmed the G1 Black Caviar Lightning Stakes at Flemington in February as the next target, but also threw down a challenge to Ka Ying Rising.
“We would love it!” Wesley Ward said to Idol Horse about the possibility of a race against the world’s top rated horse. “Hopefully we can meet in Australia on February 13. It would be great.”
Meanwhile, Aidan O’Brien, who equalled his record of 28 Group 1 wins in a year, is looking to hit Sha Tin in December. He explained that Benvenuto Cellini’s main late campaign aim was always this Breeders’ Cup into the International Races.
“Benvenuto Cellini would go to the Hong Kong Vase, the filly (Diamond Necklace) might go to the Hong Kong Cup over 10 furlongs,” O’Brien told Idol Horse.
Japan’s bright spot, T O Elvis, was a stunning deep-closing winner in the Sprint to nail his second Group 1 score, both in the U.S., and trainer Daisuke Takayanagi said the plan is to return to the States next year.
T O Elvis’s rider, Sakai, has the same intention. The 29-year-old has been ever-present through Forever Young’s 16 races and is a talent, but there is no question he would benefit from the experience of an extended spell or two riding in a competitive overseas environment if he is to take the next step and become a world-class jockey.
“I want to do a short stint in America next summer,” he said. “If I could get an opportunity to ride in Saratoga, I’d like that challenge to ride in America.”
Among all the outcomes over the two days, one in particular that could have a significant footprint in history was Billy Loughnane’s win on Libertango in the Juvenile Turf Sprint, his first winner at the event at the age of just 20.
Horse racing needs stars and Loughnane showed not only in his accomplished ride, but also in his joy-filled, exuberant celebration, that perhaps he is a personality who can connect with the public in the way some of the greats of the past have done. He’s not there yet, but the early signs are that he has the potential on all fronts to mature into a star who could be a much-needed face of the sport.
Sovereignty’s role in that regard is over. By the time he had finished his early morning pick of grass and Mott had said goodbye to the media pack, the European horses had all pulled out and headed to the airport. The likes of trainers George Boughey and Joseph O’Brien had already turned their attention to Australia and Tuesday’s G1 Melbourne Cup. The Japanese will leave Keeneland on Tuesday.
Sovereignty departs the scene with the legacy of a champion whose end was a brilliant climactic victory on the biggest stage. Forever Young’s ending might be different, but his racing legacy is no less powerful. Both are champions. ∎
