LOUISVILLE, Ky. – You conduct a phone interview with Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott. You ask a question. A second or two, nothing happens, that thick silence that cloaks a paused telephone conversation. Mott speaks. His answer is short, cursory. Another pause. Something more coming? You begin another query, gently prodding, but Mott has started talking again. He builds on his initial response. Pause. This time you wait. Mott resumes. The sentences expand. The door has opened. “I had ridden for Mott in the 70s in Chicago,” retired Hall of Fame jockey Jerry Bailey said. Now it was summer of 1994, probably at Saratoga. “He was standing underneath a tree grazing a horse. I walked up to him and said, ‘Is there any reason I can’t ride more horses for you?’ Like Mott is, he had to think about it for two minutes.” Slow to reply, Mott acted decisively. Within a couple months, Bailey picked up the mount on the great Cigar. “Mott and Bailey” – the names, combined, became shorthand for racing success. Junior Alvarado was a 9-year-old in Venezuela when Cigar, Mott, and Bailey won the first Dubai World Cup in 1996. Alvarado, the son of a jockey, went to a Venezuelan jockey school, started his riding career, moving in 2007 to Florida searching for better opportunities. The next year he hit his stride at Arlington Park. There Alvarado rode four summers, won the jockey title in 2009. In 2010, ready to step up in class, Alvarado made the move to New York. Newcomers break into the elite New York colony during winter. Spring, summer, and fall – don’t even bother. Veteran agent Mike Sellitto took Alvarado’s book. Sellitto had represented some of the world’s best-known riders. “Even though he’s a jockey’s agent, he’s a friend of mine,” Mott cracked. Sellitto got Alvarado’s foot in the door. Alvarado always has worked hard. Rode hard, lived well. At first, he didn’t realize what that winter 14 years ago meant. “I wasn’t probably completely aware at the time of who I was riding for,” Alvarado said. “Maybe a few months you start riding for him and people are saying, ‘Oh, you’re riding for Mott, you’re riding for Mott!’ ” He’s still riding for Mott, riding more than ever, riding nearly all the stable’s best horses, winning Breeders’ Cup races, a Pegasus World Cup. Drab shivery winters at Aqueduct traded in for warmth in verdant Florida, and out of Florida comes a serious Kentucky Derby hope for this Mott and Alvarado pairing. Sovereignty, pouncing like a jaguar in the shadow of the wire, won the Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream making his first start at 3, the 50 qualifying points he earned sufficient to make the Kentucky Derby field. That allowed Mott to do what Mott does – train with patience and purpose. The Florida Derby became not a major goal so much as a bridge to Churchill Downs. Sovereignty finished second behind Tappan Street, who was injured Saturday and is out of the Derby. That leaves on paper one horse, favored Journalism, potentially keeping Mott and Alvarado from Derby glory, but no American race diverges more sharply than this one between how things look on paper and what transpires on the track. Mott has one Derby win from a dozen tries. Country House, an implausible 65-1 shot in 2019, was elevated to victory after Maximum Security’s disqualification. Think of Mott as Bob Baffert’s inverse. Baffert’s program revolves around the Triple Crown, the Derby. Mott winds up there by accident. But Sovereignty is different, the best Derby prospect Mott has brought to Churchill. He’s placing his trust in Alvarado, whose best finish from six Derby mounts was Mohaymen’s fourth in 2016. Still, Mott places his trust in Alvarado, and Alvarado believes he’s on the right horse. “Nothing bothers him,” Alvarado said. “He’s on the quiet side, doesn’t take too much pressure with the things around him. When I came out to ride him in the Fountain of Youth and I saw him, he looked like the dad of the other horses. He’s big, but he’s not awkward big. He does things very easily. I know Mr. Mott hasn’t gotten to the bottom of him.” Yes, Alvarado, 38, often refers to Bill Mott, 71, as Mr. Mott. It’s not some hollow public show of respect. Alvarado, the years unfurling, his bond with Mott and Mott’s trust in him annealing, has come to see what anyone paying close attention to Bill Mott discovers. “He’s been somebody I really look up to,” Alvarado said. “The way he works. I work hard and I cannot get close to him. He has a hell of a work ethic. And the way he handles things with everyone – he just amazes me with how he handles everything. A horse will be just jumping around the shed row; he takes the reins, and they come down. He’s a special horseman. “I don’t feel like I ever stop learning from him, how he sees things, how he approaches things, how he approaches people, his staff at the barn, his jockeys.” Alvarado’s was a slow education. There’s no other kind with Professor Mott, who, some 55 years after saddling, in South Dakota, his first horse as a head trainer, remains a student of the game. “If I keep doing this until I’m 90, think about how good I could be,” Mott said. That’s as close as Bill Mott comes to a boast. :: DRF Kentucky Derby Package: Save on PPs, Clocker Reports, Betting Strategies, and more. Mott’s first stint as a trainer grew out of his family’s relationship with horses. He rode, he groomed, he trained. Spreading his wings, Mott caught on as an assistant with Hall of Fame trainer Jack Van Berg before going out on his own for real. When Bailey first rode for him in Chicago, Mott had his feet underneath him, an established presence, but hardly a household name. By the time Bailey walked up to him that Saratoga morning, Mott had gotten one of his big breaks, landing the late Allen Paulson’s powerful stable as a client. Paulson’s operation centered on turf horses – Cigar was supposed to be one – and thus, Bill Mott became, in many minds, a turf trainer. Some racing folks have a saying: A turf trainer is a trainer with turf horses. Mott – he just was a damned good trainer. “I liked him, and I liked riding for him,” Bailey said. “I could start a move a sixteenth of a mile before anyone else because Mott’s horses were so fit. The other guy would run out of stamina.” Bailey and his agent, Bob Frieze, also discovered that tying in with Mott required a different level of commitment. “Everything is so deliberate with him. He didn’t decide if he’d run his horse until the last minute. Some guys will mark your whole condition book up, where and when and who. Bill, to his credit, he needs to see how the horse is training up to the minute, and the good riders are taken by then. But a rider will wait if they know it’s worth the wait,” Bailey said. Enter Junior Alvarado. Actually, that’s the wrong phrase. More like an evolution on geologic time than bursting onto stage. No doubt, the New York move paid off for Alvarado, whose purse earnings in 2010 more than doubled in 2011 to almost $11 million. Mott thought enough of Alvarado to give him consistent and increasing business, and by 2015, Alvarado, thanks in great part to Mott, had become an East Coast fixture. Alvarado has three kids. He’s married to an American woman, Kelly Alvarado, who taught him English while Alvarado taught her Spanish. Like he said, Alvarado works hard. His peers respect him as a rider and a person. Don’t stop there. Junior Alvarado isn’t your everyday cat, not in an unusual or eccentric way, but in a deeply human one; open heart, emotional intelligence, a rare willingness to look inward, see shortcomings, process them and grow. “To be honest, I don’t feel today that I was ready in 2014 and 2015 for horses like this. I would have said at the time, yes. Now, I would say I needed to learn,” Alvarado said. It goes back to what Bailey said about working closely with Mott. A dozen years ago, Alvarado, by virtue of his more workmanlike stature, could give Mott something he couldn’t find in the elite riders – commitment. “It’s just a battle to try and get those guys to ride one sometimes more than once,” Mott said. Mott, through Sellitto, knew he could get Alvarado. He also – slowly, quietly, subtly – must have concluded Alvarado was worth committing to. And quietly, subtly, slowly, Alvarado began understanding that this man was teaching him things he didn’t even know he needed to learn. Sometimes, Alvarado chafed, at least to himself. I’m good enough to ride the everyday horses, but not good enough for the stakes horses? He’d win a race and would come back to hear Mott talking about mistakes. “He’d say, ‘You won this race, but you look like a jockey from Charles Town.’ I look at the replays – he’s spot on. I would just be going along, hitting, hitting, hitting, without being smart and trying to ride a race. Those little points, I started seeing what he wanted,” Alvarado said. “I know I have messed up many races. I don’t think any other trainer would have handled my mistakes.” Mott’s instruction wasn’t meant to wound, nor was it voluminous. Alvarado began to get it: Pay heed to whatever carefully chosen words Bill Mott sends your way. Don’t just listen when he talks to you: Hear him speak to other riders, to assistants and grooms, watch everything he does. Alvarado started feeling the Mott rhythm, and then, after acting like the Buddhist monk looking for a shortcut to nirvana, discovered he had it all wrong. “I was willing to do things to please him but without having that real understanding,” Alvarado said. The understanding in the end is horsemanship. Alvarado, through Mott, through the years, learned to feel the horses, not simply ride them. At every moment contemplating: What does the horse like and dislike? How can we get in sync? Now, Alvarado says, he can feel all this almost as soon as he sits on the animal. :: KENTUCKY DERBY 2025: Top contenders, odds, point standings, news, and more “Working with the babies, developing them, that’s when I started realizing it was for the horses, that he was teaching me at the same time without telling me. He was going to let me find it on my own. Believe me – it’s unbelievable.” The babies. Mott sends 2-year-olds to off-season Saratoga. He’s not in a hurry. But before long they’re breezing, usually not very fast, often without distinction. “They all just worked five-eighths in 1:02,” Bailey recalled of the Mott stock. “It was very difficult for me to ascertain which horses were sitting on good races. They were all 1:02, steady maintenance stamina.” Alvarado breezed Sovereignty last summer before the colt debuted Aug. 24 – apparently. “I worked him a couple times. To be honest, before I rode him the first time, I don’t even remember who he was. He never was a great work horse, he never caught my eye,” Alvarado said. Did Sovereignty catch his trainer’s eye? Of course, because that eye observes, digests, and synthesizes everything his horses do. Mott takes the long view without losing sight of the immediate, the growing, changing animal in front of him. Does that mean Mott saw a future star in an unformed Into Mischief colt? The evidence, beyond Mott saying, “We always liked him,” says he did. Last of 10 partway through his six-furlong debut, Sovereignty came barreling through the Saratoga stretch, finished a close fourth, and galloped out far in front. Second out, a one-turn mile at Aqueduct, Sovereignty stuck closer, made a run, lost again, this time by a diminishing neck. “Another two jumps and he’s ahead by a length,” Mott said. Mott has for years trained Godolphin homebreds like Sovereignty. He trains for another world racing and breeding power, Juddmonte, and often has dirt horses for both operations. In fact, Mott’s top recent runners, like Cody’s Wish for Godolphin and Elite Power for Juddmonte, were dirt horses. No secret: Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, Godolphin’s founder, covets a Derby. For that matter, so does Mott. So, when Mott sent a two-race maiden from New York to Churchill Downs for a stretch to two turns in the 1 1/16-mile Street Sense Stakes on Oct. 27, did he have another race, the one on May 3, 2025, in mind? “Yeah.” Okay, then. The Street Sense pace came up slow. Sovereignty was last of nine turning for home, ahead of him Tiztastic and Sandman, winners this year of the Louisiana Derby and the Arkansas Derby. Sovereignty won by five. Through the Florida winter, Mott thought he’d run Sovereignty on Feb. 1 in the Holy Bull at Gulfstream, a short-stretch track that doesn’t suit the horse at all, then perhaps go to long-stretch Fair Grounds, but a brief fever compromised Sovereignty’s training just enough that he couldn’t make the race. Instead, his 3-year-old debut came March 1 in the Fountain of Youth. His work pattern was checkered, breeze video at Payson Park showing Sovereignty getting drummed by inferior workmates. Sovereignty churned around the far turn, flew his final furlong, and won by a neck. Of course, Alvarado had ridden all four races. That’s how it goes now with Mott and Alvarado. And that says enough. Don’t wait for Mott to sing Alvarado’s praises to the stars. “He’s good. He’s very steady. I think he’s improved a lot in the last five years. I think he did fine, but I think in the last five years he’s made better decisions, and I think he rides a better race.” On March 23 at Gulfstream, six days before the Florida Derby, a horse Alvarado was riding had a heart attack. Going down, Alvarado felt pain in his shoulder blade. “I knew it was broken.” The scapula. The doctor he saw wondered how his patient had fractured a flat bone rarely broken. You don’t know what I do, Alvarado said. Four to six weeks before he could ride again, doc said. Alvarado’s brain shot forward in time: I’m gonna miss the Derby. He got a second opinion from his own doctor: Don’t move your arm for a week. After that, start moving it. It’s going to hurt, but it won’t get worse. Three weeks and you probably can come back. Alvarado doesn’t only ride top horses for Mott. He won the $20 million Saudi Cup last year on Senor Buscador, trained by Todd Fincher. Roughly half his 121 graded stakes wins have come for Mott. But Alvarado might never come close to an Eclipse Award. He might never surpass his last few seasons. Alvarado took the pain from his fracture. He came back April 16 at Keeneland. He’s not looking back. He’s looking forward, thinking of his best chance, maybe his one real chance, to win the Derby. Alvarado spools the ideal trip through his mind’s eye. Sovereignty sits 10th or 11th. At the top of the stretch, he’s fifth, steadily progressing. Bill Mott trains the great beast beneath him. He trained Alvarado, too. The Derby’s Saturday. Interview over. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.