Sovereignty beats out favorite Journalism to win the Kentucky Derby

Sovereignty won the Kentucky Derby, finishing the race in 2 minutes and 2 seconds on a rain-soaked track in Louisville, Ky., on Saturday. 

Out of the 19 horses that competed this year in the 151st edition of the iconic race, the colt, Journalism, was favored to win. Journalism took second place. The last time a favored horse won the race was in 2018 when Justify crossed the finish line.

The victory hands Venezuelan jockey Junior Alvarado his first career win in the Kentucky Derby. Sovereignty’s trainer, Bill Mott, has won the Kentucky Derby once before — the result of a disqualification in 2019.

A day of races culminated in the Kentucky Derby — a 1 1/4 mile race lasting about two minutes. Although the horses that compete in the race complete a series of qualifying races, America’s oldest, most famous horse race is like no other because many of the 3-year-old horses competing have not raced that long of a distance before. Many of them also have not raced with that many other horses on the track with them, or with such a large crowd watching.

“That’s not necessarily a natural thing for a horse to deal with,” Amy Lawyer, the chair of equine administration at the University of Louisville’s business school, told NPR earlier this week. “So, it’s a lot of new experiences that the horse is going through, and it makes it really exciting and really unpredictable.”

Coined “the most exciting 2 minutes in sports,” the crowd of some 140,000 people watched as the horses ran at a speed of 35 miles an hour, all at a shot to win $5 million and one of the most coveted titles in American horseracing, reported NPR.

Rain at the Louisville course, Churchill Downs, left a muddy track for the horses to traverse. The weather added another unknown variable to how the race would unfold, as horses react differently to wet tracks and some have never raced in such conditions.

Decorated but controversial trainer Bob Baffert returned to the race this year — for the first time since his ban from the Kentucky Derby — with his horse, Citizen Bull. Previously, his horse, Medina Spirit, tested positive for drugs after winning the 2021 Kentucky Derby. The horse later collapsed and died while training in 2022. As a result, Churchill Downs suspended Baffert from competing at the track for three years.

If Citizen Bull had won, Baffert, who has won six Kentucky Derbies, would have accomplished “a feat that no trainer has ever done in racing before,” Molly Rollins of the racing industry publication the BloodHorse, told NPR earlier this week.

Churchill Downs has also faced scrutiny in the last few years. The famous racetrack shut down in 2023 after 12 horses died at the track within a month. Rollins told NPR that the racetrack has implemented changes since then to protect the horses, including making the surface of the track safer for horses and ensuring closer observation of competing horses by veterinarians in the week leading up to the race. “These changes have so far proved effective,” Rollins said. “There were no breakdowns during the Derby week last year.”