The two horses who were supposed to finish first and second in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby did just that, only not in the order most people expected. Over a sloppy Churchill track, Sovereignty — the second choice on the morning line — outlasted favored Journalism in a thrilling stretch duel to earn trainer Bill Mott his second Derby win.
On to the Preakness then, right? Wrong. On Tuesday, Mott informed Preakness officials that Sovereignty would skip the May 17 race and instead point to June’s Belmont Stakes at Saratoga.
“We want to do what’s best for the horse,” a then-noncommittal Mott told Daily Racing Form correspondent David Grening on Sunday in what would prove to be a telling string of remarks. “I think, over the years, people realize spacing these horses out a little bit gives you the opportunity to make them last a little longer, and I think we’re looking at a career. We want the career to last more than five weeks.”
It’s worth noting that Mott skipped the Preakness with his only other Derby winner, Country House, who wound up never racing again after Maximum Security’s disqualification elevated him to the winner’s circle in 2019. And after winning the 2022 Derby as an extreme longshot, Rich Strike, trained by Eric Reed, skipped the Preakness to focus on the Belmont, where he finished a distant sixth. Although he turned in a few game performances after his Derby upset, Rich Strike would never win another race.
As for Journalism’s potential Preakness participation, trainer Michael McCarthy said, “We’ll speak to everybody and come up with a game plan. You’re always anxious to try it again, and he’s run well off of short rest. We’ll see. If he’s good, you have to think about it.”
Among the other 17 Derby competitors, only 16th-place finisher American Promise, trained by six-time Preakness winner D. Wayne Lukas, is fully committed to running in the Preakness. Horses not running in the Derby who are pointed toward the Preakness include Rodriguez, the Wood Memorial winner who scratched out of the Derby field with a foot injury two days before the race; River Thames, the third-place finisher in the Blue Grass whose connections chose to skip the Derby despite qualifying for the race; UAE Derby runner-up Heart of Honor; Lexington Stakes winner Gosger; Federico Tesio Stakes winner Pay Billy; and Hot Springs Stakes winner Clever Again.
While virtually every racing fan in America and beyond might disagree, Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen, who trains Clever Again, couldn’t care less if the top two Derby finishers run in the Preakness.
“They don’t ever list on the trophy who skipped the race,” Asmussen told Grening.
A son of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, Clever Again is a lightly raced but extremely intriguing colt. He’s won twice in three races, earning a 101 Beyer Speed Figure for his Hot Springs victory. In that one-mile race, he defeated Grade 1 winner Gaming, who went on to finish third in this past Saturday’s Pat Day Mile on the Derby undercard.
“I thought to go from a maiden win to running against a Grade 1 winner and handling him the way he did is unbelievably encouraging,” Asmussen said. “And how do we reward him for that? Jump a higher fence.”
While winning the Preakness in just a horse’s fourth start is a daunting task, it’s happened before. Cloud Computing and Early Voting accomplished the feat in 2017 and 2022, respectively, and neither horse ran in the Derby.
