Run for the Roses: Kentucky Derby winner trained by South Dakotan
In 1967, Bill Mott stood in front of a one-ton GMC with which they had hauled horses to the Fort Pierre, South Dakota, racetrack, and listened to the Kentucky Derby for the first time.
“I remember listening to the derby on the AM radio: Proud Clarion was the winner, Bobby Ussery was the rider. Here we are at the races in Fort Pierre, South Dakota, and I’m listening to the Kentucky Derby run in Louisville, Kentucky. It seemed like they were in two different worlds.”
May 3, 2025, a dream too big for the teenage Mott to imagine became reality. Now a Hall of Famer and veteran trainer, Mott saddled Sovereignty, and then watched the colt come from behind in the stretch to claim the wreath of roses. Under jockey Junior Alvarado, Sovereignty finished the race in 2:02:31 on a sloppy track, crossing the line a length and a half ahead of Journalism, the race favorite.
Bill Mott described Sovereignty as “an imposing individual, a big, strong, well balanced horse with plenty of substance, you can tell by looking at him how strong he might be. You can’t tell by looking how fast they are, but you can tell when they look like a strong individual.”
Mott also trained Sovereignty’s second and third dams back in the 1990s, so he has a lot of history with Sovereignty’s equine family. He can see the resemblance between the three-year-old and his second dam, Mushka, “a big, beautiful mare.”
Godolphin, owners and breeders of Sovereignty, have been clients of Mr. Mott’s for years.
“The majority of horses I get from this owner are homebred,” Mott said. “They select a group of horses that they send to me as two-year-olds. They’re a long ways from the finished product when we get them.”
Going through the process of getting the young horses conditioned, gate broke, and well educated enough to run in a race takes time. Sovereignty’s willing attitude has made Mott’s job easier.
“He has an agreeable personality, he likes his job, he enjoys training and enjoys what we do with him,” Mott said. “When he’s finished he eats good and sleeps a lot. That’s always important when a horse is in heavy training; they need to continue to eat well and keep their condition.”
“Thoroughbreds are amazing animals, the ones that are able to get the speed factor and the durable factor are pretty special.”
Mott’s father, Dr. Tom Mott, worked as a veterinarian in the Mobridge, South Dakota area for over 20 years.
“I followed him around and worked with him with all different kinds of animals including horses, but mainly with cattle, doing whatever a vet did in that day and age,” Mott said. “We had riding horses and ranch horses when we were kids and we also had some cattle; Dad would buy some young stock, pasture them over the summer and sell them in the fall. I had a love for the animals; it was just part of the way we grew up.”
Dr. Mott also had an interest in race horses.
“When I was 14, Dad and Keith Asmussen from Agar, South Dakota, bought two or three racehorses and about 15 broodmares together. I took a summer job with the Asmussen family and went to the racetrack during summer vacation that year.”
From the perspective of his teenage years, training the Kentucky Derby winner was too far away to even consider.
“That would have been a pipe dream, something I thought was for somebody else,” Mott said. “We were racing around small tracks in South Dakota. I never imagined I would even set foot in Kentucky, let alone at Churchill Downs. I never dreamed that could even happen. I thought I was too far away to even consider it.”
Mott worked his way up through the ranks, training horses from tiny Jefferson, South Dakota, throughout the Midwest, including Colorado and Nebraska. Eventually he made his way to Detroit and Chicago, still working for other trainers.
“One fall in the mid or early 1970s I made a trip through Churchill Downs and got to experience being there,” he recalled. “I still never imagined winning the Kentucky Derby. Even though I had set foot on Churchill Downs, it was a long way to running in the Derby or even racing on Churchill Downs.”
A dozen or so years later, Mott was training on his own at Churchill Downs.
Mott credits his mother and father as the biggest influence on his career.
“They knew I had a passion and encouraged me to run with it,” he said. “They didn’t force me to go to college and let me make my own way. They supported me every step of the way and gave me the positive support to follow my passions.”
Training horses was a good fit for Mott.
“I really had a love of the horses and was also very competitive, so it was kind of a natural fit that I would do it,” he said. “I loved both ends of it.”
Mott said his passion lay with the competitive spirit of racing, not with the money to be won.
“I still feel this way,” he said. “If you’re passionate about something, follow your dreams and work hard, the financial part will come. It will either be a positive influence or it will break you, one of the two.”
People recognized that Mott loved training and that he was capable of doing a good job at it. Over time, more opportunities came his way.
“When I left home, I never really thought I would be doing it for anyone other than myself,” he said. “I owned a couple of my own and my dad owned a couple, it was just a family deal at the time.”
Eventually, Mott began to train for the public. He still owns a couple of his own racehorses, and may have up to 100 horses in his barn at any given time.
Regardless of whose name is on their papers, “I try to treat them like they’re my own,” he said.
In the amount of time it has taken Mott to tally nearly 5,500 wins, he has trained many exceptional horses.
“We’ve come across some very good horses,” he said.
One of the most notable, Cigar, came to Mott after a less than stellar beginning to his racing career. Mott gave him some time off and a second chance. Cigar proved himself the best racehorse in North America and was named Horse of the Year in 1995-96. In 1996, Cigar won the inaugural Dubai World Cup, and tied a record for 16 straight wins, set by 1948 Triple Crown winner Citation in 1950.
Under Mott’s training, Cody’s Wish –a horse who deserves a story of his own –won two Breeders Cups and was named Champion Older Horse and Horse of the Year. Named after Cody Dorman, a young man with a rare disease who visited the Gainsborough Farm on a Make-A-Wish trip, the foal later christened Cody’s Wish approached Dorman and bonded with him. Dorman watched Cody’s Wish race several times, and passed away in 2023 after Cody’s Wish won his second Breeders Cup.
Theatrical won Mott his first Breeders Cup.
“Theatrical was probably the horse that was a little bit of a life changer for me,” Mott said. “I had some good horses before him, but he was the first to put me on the national stage and gave me exposure nationally and internationally. He was very special, and went on to be a stallion.”
Even with the opportunity to work with so many good horses, only a few make it to a higher level of competition.
“I’ve been blessed with more than just one,” Mott said. “We strive to get a pretty good one every year if we can.”
Sovereignty began to stand out to Mott in late August of his two-year-old year.
“When he ran the first time we liked him going into the race, and we liked him more after the race. He finished fourth, but it was the way he did it; he came from the back and was passing the front horses at a short distance,” Mott said.
Sovereignty topped off his two-year-old year with a stakes race win at Churchill Downs.
“That was very significant and gave us confidence,” Mott said. “He ran well over the track, won a race with a little more distance, and set himself up for the potential for the Derby.”
“We were pretty impressed with him in that race, but horses change, other horses change. To get to the Derby, they have to keep improving and improving and improving; they have to grow and get tougher as well.”
There are no certainties until the race is over. Country House claimed Mott’s first Kentucky Derby win in 2019 against 65-1 odds. Country House finished the race in second place, but was given the victory after the winner, Maximum Security, was disqualified for causing other horses to break stride during the race.
“The winner had interfered with several horses in the race, causing them to lose any chance of winning,” Mott said. “You can’t bowl somebody over, you have to keep a straight course. The winner was rightfully disqualified and they put us up.”
That win was exciting and Mott was happy about it, but there was no denying the outcome of this year’s race.
“This year was better.”
Mott isn’t resting on his laurels.
“Once the Derby’s over you have to put it behind and go on to the next one,” he said. “There’s always something to look forward to.”
The “next one” in everyone’s mind is the Preakness Stakes, the second race of the Triple Crown, held just two weeks after the Kentucky Derby. Mott announced that Sovereignty will not run the Preakness, but will have time to recuperate before the Belmont Stakes, the final Triple Crown race. Speculative discussions have erupted on whether the Preakness should be rescheduled to spread out the time between Triple Crown races.
“It’s probably beyond my pay grade to make a decision on whether they should move the Preakness [to a different date] or not,” Mott said. “By not running, we’ve already made our statement.”
First and last, Mott’s horses are his priority.
“Spacing their races keeps them around a little bit longer,” he said. “At the end of the day, we all want to compete, we want to have a good horse, but I don’t think there’s anybody with a good conscience that could do it knowingly if they felt they were doing the wrong thing by running the horse. When they put you down as the trainer, you’re the protector of that animal while he’s under your care.”
The challenge of the racetrack never ends for Bill Mott.
“I’m still passionate about it, still passionate about the horses, still passionate about trying to do this to the best of our ability. We continue to have a fair amount of success, and I love the challenge of trying to develop horses that can win these bigger races.”
Shane Kramme
Shane Kramme, Fort Pierre racetrack manager and Verendrye Benevolent Association board member views the recent Kentucky Derby win as huge for South Dakota.
“Winning the Kentucky Derby is a crowning achievement for Mr. Mott and for South Dakota,” Kramme said.
Kramme has worked hard to keep horse racing alive in Mott’s home state of South Dakota.
“A lot of individuals from our state who have had success and moved on through the ranks have used South Dakota as a stepping stone, the beginning of their journey,” Kramme said. “I’m sure what Mr. Mott learned here about work ethic, knowledge of horses and tenacity had a lot to do with his success.”
South Dakota horse racing built Bill Mott and other successful trainers, Kramme believes. Within the past decade he has watched the sport dwindle to a single racetrack in the state. Kramme has struggled to keep the Fort Pierre track open, and attempted to reinvigorate horse racing in South Dakota for the past seven or eight years.
“How ironic to see all this success, to see what Bill Mott and others have accomplished, yet I find it difficult to understand why our legislature is not more supportive of racing in South Dakota,” Kramme said.
Money, the topic no one wants to talk about, is a big part of the issue. Funds were re-allocated, and Kramme said “it’s been an uphill battle” since then.
Off-track betting sites allow people to watch and wager on horse races via simulcast, but Kramme said South Dakota doesn’t have the licensing set up to send money from those wagers into the state budget and back to South Dakota racing.
“Montana’s program kicked back $400,000 for them last year,” he said. “Our inability to capture that resource has crippled South Dakota horse racing.”
After spending a lifetime involved with race horses, Kramme doesn’t own any at this time, due to the conflict of interest it would create with his work to raise funding for horse racing in South Dakota. But he believes the battle to keep the sport alive is one worth fighting.
Bob Johnson
Bob Johnson has trained racing Quarter Horses for decades, and is proud to see a fellow South Dakotan saddle the Kentucky Derby winner.
“It just takes one great one,” Johnson’s Uncle Andrew always said.
In their younger years, both Johnson and Mott worked for South Dakota horseman, Ray Goehring. Regardless of discipline, “a horse trainer is a horse trainer; horsemen are horsemen. Bill is a very fussy horseman; that makes him a good one.”
Bill Mott is highly regarded by his peers. He was the youngest man ever inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.
“Bill is a good man, very down to earth and a good horse trainer. It means a lot to me to see somebody from my home state do well at the big time,” Johnson said. “I always cheer for the hometown team.”
Larry Larson
South Dakota horseman and well known equine photographer Larry Larson grew up in Mobridge with Bill Mott.
“Bill was a year ahead of me in high school and both our families attended the same church,” Larson said. “He had a very strong interest and burning dedication to the Thoroughbred racing industry from an early age, getting his start at his father Tom Mott’s Veterinary Clinic on the north edge of Mobridge. I worked with him for a time in high school with the horses and remember a couple of those first ones – a mare named ‘My Assets’ and nicknamed Maude, and a gelding, ‘Kosmic Tour.'”
Larson recalls when Doc Mott first bought the bare acreage, put a sturdy fence around it and built his veterinary facility on the property.
“Bill then added a breezing track east of the barn that he kept well maintained,” Larson said. “He was meticulous in the barn with his horses. I admired the fact that he paid such close attention to detail as I always did with my own.”
From Mott, Larson learned the correct way to wrap legs and make the steamed mash grain for each horse at feeding time. The few stalls in the small barn were kept deeply bedded in straw.
“I recall some of those early win blankets from the track were sometimes displayed on the walls inside the vet clinic,” Larson said.
From those small beginnings, Larson said Mott has “become an icon in the racing industry.”
“Mobridge, and South Dakota, are very proud of his 2025 Kentucky Derby win with Sovereignty, his many years of career accomplishments and of course those early years here.”
