“I was a little shocked at how close, but at the same time how easily he was doing everything,” said jockey Junior Alvarado, taken by surprise at how easily Sovereignty overtook everyone at Saratoga to win the 157th Belmont Stakes. Now, ending the most scintillating five-week stretch of horse racing with two of the Triple Crown race wins, the 3-year-old colt can finally revel in his triumphs. However, his human colleagues weren’t so sure that things would pan out as they did.

After winning the Kentucky Derby, Sovereignty was given rest by skipping the Preakness. Naturally, the fans were excited to see if the break would affect the thoroughbred’s performance at Saratoga. It didn’t, as the Bill Mott-trained horse defeated the morning-line favorite Journalism for the second time in five weeks. But the trainer himself wasn’t devoid of scepticism ahead of Saturday’s race.

A post by the official Belmont Stakes account on X from June 8 shared the Hall of Famer’s feelings after winning the third jewel of the Triple Crown. On being asked how he was feeling, Mott confessed, “It’s like letting the air out of a balloon. I feel like.. I feel relieved.” However, the candor wasn’t something he harbored before Sovereignty’s massive victory at Saratoga.

“I mean there was a lot of build-up to the race, a lot of anticipation, you know,” Mott said, “We had high hopes for him. We thought we had a good chance to win. He got the job done. But you know, once he got it done, it’s like, it’s just it’s a relief to have it over with, and that it turned out so well.” Relief it was, indeed. Sovereignty came from behind to win the 1 1/4 mile race in 2:00.69.

With 2-1 odds, Sovereignty was the second favorite horse to win the Belmont. However, he showed his mettle in the final stretches of the race by edging past both the Bob Baffert-trained Rodriguez and Journalism, who was the clear favorite to win the Saturday race with 8-5 odds. With the victory, the son of Into Mischief repeated his feat from the Derby. However, that wasn’t the only connection with the race from Churchill Downs.

The top three finishers at Saratoga were the same as the 151st Kentucky Derby. Journalim crossed the finishing line in second place, three lengths behind Sovereignty, and Baeza came in third. Justifiably, the victory warranted some relaxation for this year’s double Triple Crown race winner. And he did seem to be in a peppy mood, as Mott revealed.

The trainer was heard saying in the X post that Sovereignty enjoyed all the food that was given to him and didn’t show any signs of being exhausted after the Belmont win. “He looked good, he was around for a lot of pictures this morning, and by 9:00 he went in and he finally laid down and took a nap,” Bill Mott said about how the Godolphin poster boy spent his day following the scintillating win at Saratoga.

However, while both Mott and Sovereignty are currently hovering above Cloud 9, they might have unknowingly stirred one pot that hasn’t quite gotten any rest in recent weeks.

Sovereignty’s win reignited the flames of the scheduling debate

The debate over the Triple Crown’s schedule has been the talk of the town ever since Sovereignty was scratched from the Preakness in May. Horse racing pundit Randy Moss pointed out how skipping the Preakness has become a trend in recent years during an NBC Sports episode. “The one-two-three finishers of the Derby have only come back in the Preakness now twice in the last 17 years,” Moss couldn’t stop grumbling about the traditions that made the Triple Crown what it is, being ignored.

“The system is broken,” Moss was livid. And yet, despite the expert’s frustration, Bill Mott was hard on his stance: he wanted Sovereignty’s life to be bigger than the Triple Crown. “We want the career to last more than five weeks,” the HoF trainer wouldn’t budge from his decision. With the thrilling conclusion to the Triple Crown season, that debate once again got some air fueled into its fires. But Michael Banahan, Sovereignty’s owner, was on Mott’s side.

“I think the quality of racing is probably what draws people in. I think if we get better horses in all those races, I think they’ll get the casual to tune into those as well. Good competition, good horses in there; that happens by having a little more time between to rest. That’ll be good for us,” Banahan told KSDK, hinting that spreading out the races of the Triple Crown could even help to rope in more audiences by offering a better talent pool.

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