Kentucky Derby Winners Who Skipped the Preakness: Who Went on to Win the Belmont Stakes?

Key Takeaways:

• To date, only five Kentucky Derby winners have left the Preakness uncontested and raced in the Belmont.
• In 2025, Sovereignty will attempt to buck this trend, becoming the sixth horse to try this strategy under trainer Bill Mott’s careful planning.
• Of the five previous horses to take this route, Aristides (1875) (the very first Derby winner) and Gato Del Sol (1982) came closest to victory, each finishing second in the Belmont.

Though the very first Kentucky Derby winner, Aristides, went on to skip the Preakness and run in the Belmont, it is historically an uncommon route for a Kentucky Derby winner to take. As common as it is for horses to race in the Kentucky Derby, not win, and resurface in the Belmont Stakes? Only five horses have ever won the Kentucky Derby, not contested the Preakness, and raced in the Belmont.

That tally is expected to rise to six in 2025. Trainer Bill Mott announced a few days after the run for the roses that Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty would not head to Pimlico Race Course. Instead of trying to join the roll of Triple Crown champions, Sovereignty would be given five weeks between races and return in the Belmont at Saratoga Race Course.

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Sovereignty Bypassing the Preakness

Though that decision is uncommon when looking at recent decades of Triple Crown history, it tracks with Bill Mott’s cautious reputation and his tendency to give more than a two-week turnaround between races. After Sovereignty held off favorite Journalism to win the Kentucky Derby, he demurred when asked whether his horse would be in the Preakness starting gate. Mott told reporters that he wanted to make a decision based on the horse’s long-term interests.

A few days later, Mott confirmed that Sovereignty would point toward the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga, five weeks after the first Saturday in May. It wasn’t unprecedented, even for Mott, to spurn the Preakness with a Kentucky Derby winner: when he won the 2019 Kentucky Derby with Country House, after the race-day disqualification of Maximum Security, he was quick to rule that Country House was not Preakness-bound.

This raises a question, though, of whether there is a historical precedent for Kentucky Derby winners to skip the Preakness and do well in the Belmont Stakes.

Kentucky Derby Winners Who Bypassed the Preakness and Raced in the Belmont Stakes

Five Kentucky Derby winners raced in the Belmont Stakes without starting in the Preakness Stakes. It almost looked like a tradition was unfolding at first—Aristides and Baden-Baden, two of the first three Kentucky Derby winners, did not race in the Preakness but did turn up in New York. However, it has only happened three times since.

All five horses who have taken this route have one thing in common: they have not won the Belmont Stakes. Two horses have come close to winning the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont without running in the Preakness: Aristides and Gato Del Sol, 107 years apart, finished first in Churchill Downs’ signature race and second in the Belmont. Baden-Baden also hit the board in the Belmont, finishing third.

These are the horses who won the Kentucky Derby, did not start in the Preakness, and did start the Belmont Stakes:

Sovereignty Goes for Horse Racing History

If Sovereignty wins the last of the Triple Crown races in 2025, he will make history. Though Sovereignty will be the second Derby winner in four years to skip the Preakness to point toward the Belmont Stakes instead, it has been an uncommon trajectory, and it has never resulted in victory. Sovereignty and trainer Bill Mott would be the first to win the Belmont in that way.

Winners of the Kentucky Derby and Belmont But Not the Preakness

Even though skipping Preakness day has never been the road from a Derby win to a Belmont win, that does not mean that winning every Triple Crown race but the Preakness is unprecedented.

11 horses have won the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont, but have not won the Preakness Stakes. However, all of them did contest every leg of the Triple Crown:

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