Among his who’s who of outstanding horses, Bill Mott trained Cigar, the great thoroughbred whose statue overlooks the paddock walking ring at Gulfstream Park.
Nine times, Mott has won the training title at Gulfstream. Twice he has won the Kentucky Derby. Sixteen times he has won a Breeders’ Cup race. And in 1998, at age 45, he became the youngest trainer ever elected to racing’s Hall of Fame.
There isn’t much Mott hasn’t accomplished, except this: he has never won the Florida Derby.
Saturday, that blank on Mott’s resume would be filled if Chief Wallabee reaches the wire first in Gulfstream’s signature event, one of the nation’s most critical Kentucky Derby preps.
“Absolutely, I’d love to win it,” Mott said.
Chief Wallabee is listed as the slight 2-1 program favorite to win the $1 million stakes, receiving the track oddsmaker’s nod over 5-2 second choice Commandment.
The 75th Florida Derby — a top race that has produced 26 Kentucky Derby winners — shapes up as this year’s biggest prep heading into the May 2 Run for the Roses. Three of the top four contenders in the Daily Racing Form’s top 20 ranking of Kentucky Derby hopefuls are entered for Saturday’s 1 1/8-mile race at Gulfstream.
Along with Chief Wallabee and Commandment, Nearly (3-1) and The Puma (9-2) also figure prominently in the expected field of nine.
Chief Wallabee, a son of 2014 Florida Derby winner Constitution, doesn’t have a wealth of racing experience. He didn’t race as a 2-year-old and has raced just twice at 3, including an impressive second-place finish behind Commandment in Gulfstream’s Fountain of Youth Stakes last month.
On experience alone, Chief Wallabee is no Sovereignty, the Mott-trained horse who finished second in last year’s Florida Derby before going on to win the Kentucky Derby and 2025 Horse of the Year honors.
“I don’t like to compare horses. I think that’s a mistake,” Mott said. “Sovereignty had a foundation in him. He had three races as a 2-year-old He had two good races [going into the Florida Derby] as a 3-year-old. This horse has only had two races total. So, I think it’s a big ask. It’s a huge ask, and I realize that.”
Still, Chief Wallabee, who is owned by Michael and Katherine Ball, has shown enough promise to merit favoritism — and possibly get Mott into the Florida Derby winner’s circle for the first time. Mott has finished second three times in the Florida Derby, with Sovereignty last year, Hofburg in 2018 and Blue Burner in 2002.
One reason is that Mott, who started training in South Florida in the 1970s, hasn’t run that many horses in the Florida Derby. Part of that, he said, is he didn’t have the kinds of 3-year-olds that fit the race.
“I never had the horses for it,” he said. “There are some [trainers] who wake up in the morning and that’s the only thing they think about. Believe me, we’re enthusiastic about it, and maybe more so now than ever. But you’ve got to have the right horses.”
Perhaps, Mott said, his cautious training style played a role, as well as his reputation early in his career for developing top turf horses.
“I’m sure of it,” he said. “It kind of got started like, I didn’t like to rush my horses. I liked to take my time. I liked to take care of them. I wouldn’t push one to go to the Derby, which was somewhat true. But I didn’t have any horses to push.
“Before Country House [who won the 2019 Kentucky Derby on a disqualification to Maximum Security], if I had a true Derby contender, I’d like to know who it was. I don’t know who it would have been before that, where you look back and say, wow, this horse was a Derby horse. He just screwed him up.”
But Mott, who is 72, has a contender in Chief Wallabee.
“I still try to be realistic about it,” he said of getting a horse to the Kentucky Derby. “Naturally, it is a lot of fun, big race. If you’ve got the right horse, it’s great. It’s not so much fun if you know you’ve got the wrong horse and you’re trying to do it.”
Chief Wallabee on Saturday will try to show to Mott he’s the right horse.
John Devine has worked with the Miami Herald since 1996. He has worked as a Broward sports editor, Broward news editor, assistant sports editor and deputy sports editor before he became executive sports editor in 2021.