CNN
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Sovereignty, the 2025 Kentucky Derby winner, won the 157th running of the Belmont Stakes in Saratoga Springs, New York, on Saturday.
The Godolphin-owned 3-year-old – who came into the race as the 5-2 favorite – narrowly beat the other favorite and Preakness Stakes winner, Journalism, by a margin of three lengths.
The win means Sovereignty has won two legs of horse racing’s Triple Crown. The horse’s team made the call after the Derby to not enter Sovereignty into the Preakness last month and instead focus on the Belmont.
Baeza took third place – the same 1-2-3 as the Kentucky Derby last month.
Sovereignty jockey Junior Alvarado called his first wins at two of the most prized races “surreal.”
“There was a point in my career, maybe five or six years ago, I could see everything fading away to be honest. And here I am,” Alvarado told the Fox broadcast. “… My family always my rock, big supporters. Helped me through tough moments in my life.”
A now two-time Belmont Stakes winner and Sovereignty’s trainer, Bill Mott, said the decision to stay out of the Preakness “turned out good.”
“If we wouldn’t have won today, we would have taken a lot of criticism,” Mott said. “It turned out good. Sometimes you make the right decision and a lot of times you make the wrong ones. But today, it really worked out well.”
The Triple Crown hasn’t been won since 2018, when Bob Baffert’s Justify won the 105th Belmont Stakes to achieve the vaunted feat.
It was the second consecutive year Saratoga Race Course hosted the Belmont Stakes due to renovations being done to Belmont Park. The race is expected back in Elmont, New York in 2027.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
