A Legend in his Own Time - Racehorse Trainer Bill Mott
By Greg Evans
The photo is from Wikipedia. Taken in 2023.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY - He doesn’t grace the cover of People Magazine or Time. He doesn’t make apple sauce and he doesn’t have a street in Chinatown named after him. Born in Mobridge, South Dakota and the son of a veterinarian, it was evident from an early age that Bill was somewhat of a horse whisperer, or at least a horse training prodigy, who also made a career out of helping animals. In his case, the animals he helped were horses, helping to turn them into champions.
He started training horses at the age of 15 with his family. Before he was out of high school his horses won two races.
As he grew he continued working in the horse training world in different capacities including an exercise rider and assistant trainer to Hall of Fame great, Jack Van Berg. For three years he apprenticed under Van Berg before heading out to carve his own path in 1978.
With a love of horses and the sport of racing, he went into his laboratory and built, by hand, like a lego master, thoroughbreds as if chiseled out of marble, accumulating 5,472 victories and counting.
Mott is the youngest horse trainer ever to be inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1998, by age 45, and is a recipient of the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer four times (1995,1996, 2011, & 2013).
He has six American Classic wins including two this year at the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes with Sovereignty, and 15 Breeders’ Cup wins (Turf, Classic, Distaff, and Mile). Don’t forget he also won the Travers Stakes at Saratoga this year with Sovereignty (who will also be racing in the Breeders’ Cup Classic later this year, Saturday, November 1st. Mott explained that Sovereignty will remain in Saratoga for training.
To date, Mott’s greatest success with an individual horse, was with Cigar, a horse that had a slow start and didn’t initially show a great deal of promise. Cigar, originally racing in California was shipped across the country to the East coast so that trainer Bill Mott could give it a shot at getting results.
After a year under Mott’s supervision, Cigar was considered the best thoroughbred in the United States winning all ten major races jockeyed by Jerry Bailey (a Texas jockey with over 5,800 career wins to his credit).
Then the magic happened. From October 28, 1994 to July 13, 1996, Mott and Cigar would rack up 16 consecutive victories. Cigar was voted the 1995 & 1996 American Horse of the Year, one of the Eclipse Awards recognizing success at the highest level of the profession.
His next race is with sovereignty at the Breeders’ Cup and you’d have to be living on Mars to miss this race in November.