Sovereignty Wins 2025 Kentucky Derby, Pulls Off Upset of Favorite Journalism

Sovereignty won the 151st running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on Saturday, holding off the favorite Journalism down the back stretch.

The late Derby entrant Baeza finished third, followed by Final Gambit and Owen Almighty.

1. Sovereignty
2. Journalism
3. Baeza
4. Final Gambit
5. Owen Almighty
6. Burnham Square
7. Sandman
8. East Avenue
9. Chunk of Gold
10. Tiztastic
11. Coal Battle
12. Luxor Cafe
13. Neoequos
14. Publisher
15. Citizen Bull
16. American Promise
17. Render Judgment
18. Flying Mohawk
19. Admire Daytona

Sovereignty entered the Kentucky Derby having finished first or second in each of his past four races. He won at the Grade 3 Street Sense Stakes in Churchill Downs last year before winning the Fountain of Youth Stakes on March 1 this year. A second-place finish at the Florida Derby four weeks later followed that result.

On Saturday, he earned a career-defining victory on a sloppy track, finishing with a time of 2:02.31.

Junior Alvarado, a 38-year-old jockey from Venezuela, found the winner's circle and captured his first-ever Triple Crown victory. He previously won the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile in 2022 and 2023 and has 2,236 victories lifetime.

William Mott is Sovereignty's trainer. This marks his second Kentucky Derby win after Country House won in 2019. It's his third Triple Crown victory, having trained Drosselmeyer in the 2010 Belmont Stakes. Mott also has 10 Breeders' Cup wins.

It was a rainy, cloudy and dreary Saturday in Louisville with on-and-off showers, but that didn't stop a massive crowd from gathering for the proceedings, where over 147,000 people gathered to watch The Run for the Roses.

The event has been an unpredictable spectacle of late given that horses with long odds have made the winner's circle in recent years. According to Jason Frakes of the Courier-Journal, the last four victors from 2021 to 2024 all had closing double-digit odds: Mandaloun (26-1), Rich Strike (80-1), Mage (15-1) and Mystik Dan (18-1).

That trend didn't hold on Saturday, as Sovereignty closed at 9-1.

This year's field featured the usual group of superstar trainers and Triple Crown race winners, including Bob Baffert (Citizen Bull), Brad H. Cox (Final Gambit), D. Wayne Lukas (American Promise) and Mott.

Baffert, officially a six-time Derby winner, made his return to Churchill Downs after a three-year ban. His 2021 entry, Medina Spirit—initially the winner—tested positive for corticosteroid betamethasone. That led to a disqualification and a win for Mandaloun.

The headline jockeys for Saturday's Run for the Roses were Flavien Prat (Baeza), Brian Hernandez Jr. (Burnham Square), Joel Rosario (Tiztastic), and Javier Castellano (Owen Almighty).

Journalism, from the No. 8 post position, was the early favorite with his odds shifting from 3-1 to 7-2, per Horse Racing Nation. Other horses with single-digit odds included Sandman at 5-1, Sovereignty at 9-1 and Luxor Cafe at 9-1.

Other notable entries included a true long-shot story in Chunk of Gold, who was purchased for just $2,500 and trains at nearby Turfway Park in Florence, Kentucky. He's trained by 32-year-old Ethan West, who's only been a licensed trainer for seven years. But he's made a precipitous rise in the sport, and he and the horse's connections engineered a big win just by making the field.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, 72-year-old trainer Lonnie Briley entered a horse into the Kentucky Derby for the first time with longshot Coal Battle, who came to Louisville touting four straight wins before an impressive third-place finish at the Arkansas Derby.

“Never even dreamed about it, in truth,” Briley said about being in the Derby, per Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated. “Just didn't think I was going to get here. You watch the Derby on TV, but you don't think about running in it. You go buy horses and stuff, and you’re looking for a good horse, a race horse, but you don't know he's going to be a Derby horse.”

In the end, Sovereignty emerged victorious, and now he'll look toward the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, May 17, in hopes of solidifying his Triple Crown bid.