Sovereignty wins 2025 Belmont Stakes to close horse racing’s Triple Crown season
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- Sovereignty won the 2025 Belmont Stakes, capturing two of this year's Triple Crown races.
- Sovereignty won the Belmont after not running in last month's Preakness Stakes.
The battle for the 2025 Belmont Stakes came down to the same two horses who dueled in the stretch run of the Kentucky Derby last month.
And the same outcome occurred.
Sovereignty — trained by Bill Mott and ridden by Junior Alvarado — cruised past Journalism to win the 157th running of the Grade 1, $2 million Belmont Stakes by three lengths on Saturday night over a fast main track at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Sovereignty, a Godolphin homebred, won the Belmont Stakes in a time of 2:00.69.
The victory means that Sovereignty won two of the three races in this year’s Triple Crown series. Sovereignty is the first horse to win both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes since 2018, when Justify did it as part of his Triple Crown-winning campaign.
Additionally, Sovereignty is also the first horse to win both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, but not the Preakness Stakes, since Thunder Gulch in 1995. This double was achieved after Sovereignty’s connections opted to skip this year’s Preakness Stakes, the middle race of the Triple Crown.
“We looked at the opportunities that were going to present themselves for him after the Derby and we felt that the best thing for him, and to have a career through the whole season and maybe into next year as well, was spacing his races a little bit,” Michael Banahan, Godolphin’s USA director of bloodstock, said Tuesday about the choice to skip the Preakness. “Bill Mott, who’s trained horses for us for a long time, is very judicious about where he wants to place his horses and we put a lot of faith in the recommendations that he would give us as well.”
That faith paid off handsomely in the Belmont.
Saturday’s Belmont Stakes was contested for the second straight year at a shortened distance of 1 1/4 miles at Saratoga. The Belmont is normally held at the traditional distance of 1 1/2 miles at Belmont Park, but that track is undergoing renovations.
Journalism — the prerace and post time favorite who previously finished second in the Kentucky Derby before winning the Preakness Stakes — finished second in the Belmont. Baeza, who finished third in the Kentucky Derby, also ran third in the Belmont.
The Belmont Stakes produced the exact same order of top three finishers as the Kentucky Derby did.
Bob Baffert’s Rodriguez was fourth in the Belmont. Hill Road finished fifth, with Heart of Honor in sixth, Uncaged in seventh and Crudo the last of the runners in eighth.
A $1 trifecta with Sovereignty, Journalism and Baeza paid $13.80. A $1 superfecta with those three horses plus Rodriguez paid $40.50.
Mott now has four wins in classics as a trainer. Two came in the Kentucky Derby with Country House (2019) and Sovereignty (2025), and two have now come in the Belmont Stakes with Drosselmeyer (2010) and Sovereignty (2025).
Both of Alvarado’s wins in classics have come this year with Sovereignty, who now has four wins from seven career starts.
Sovereignty won Saturday’s Belmont Stakes from post position No. 2.
Once again, there’s no Triple Crown winning horse in 2025
It’s been known for some time now, but horse racing’s 2025 Triple Crown season has now officially come and gone without a horse winning all three classics.
Sovereignty claimed the Kentucky Derby on May 3 and Journalism won the Preakness Stakes on May 17, before Sovereignty returned to capture the Belmont Stakes.
As such, the last Triple Crown-winning horse remains Justify in 2018.
Thirteen horses have won all three classic races in the same year: Sir Barton (1919), Gallant Fox (1930), Omaha (1935), War Admiral (1937), Whirlaway (1941), Count Fleet (1943), Assault (1946), Citation (1948), Secretariat (1973), Seattle Slew (1977), Affirmed (1978), American Pharoah (2015) and Justify (2018).
More Triple Crown changes are coming in 2026
Saturday’s Belmont Stakes was the second straight edition of the race to take place at a different distance and at a different location than normal.
Both the 2024 and 2025 editions of the Belmont have been contested at a distance of 1 1/4 miles at Saratoga. This differs from the traditional distance of 1 1/2 miles when the race is run at Belmont Park, which remains closed due to ongoing renovations.
According to the Times Union newspaper in New York, the Belmont is likely to be run again in 2026 at Saratoga. The construction timeline for Belmont Park still calls for the project to be completed in September 2026, which would be several months after the Belmont’s early June race date.
A New York Racing Association official said the location for the 2026 Belmont Stakes will be finalized and announced in the coming weeks.
Aside from a return to Saratoga for a third straight year, the other option on the table would be holding next year’s Belmont Stakes at a partially completed Belmont Park. The 2027 Breeders’ Cup has already been awarded to Belmont Park. The 2026 Breeders’ Cup will be returning to Central Kentucky and will be held at Keeneland.
This means two of the three Triple Crown races in 2026 could be run at alternate locations.
The Kentucky Derby isn’t going anywhere. The Run for the Roses will still be held at Churchill Downs in Louisville.
But next year’s Preakness Stakes is expected to be run at Laurel Park in Laurel, Maryland, while Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore is rebuilt.
This story was originally published June 7, 2025 at 7:20 PM.
