Sovereignty, the Kentucky Derby winner and North American Horse of the Year in 2025, is back at Churchill Downs this week with a chance to return to the top of the national thoroughbred rankings midway through 2026.
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Saturday’s Stephen Foster Stakes for 4-year-olds and up matches Sovereignty (Junior Alvarado riding, 6-5 on the morning line) against White Abarrio (Irad Ortiz Jr., 3-1), who upset him and Journalism in the Oaklawn Handicap; Magnitude (Jose Ortiz, 7-2), the Dubai World Cup winner over Forever Young, and Baeza (Flavien Prat, 6-1), now a neighbor of Sovereignty in trainer Bill Mott’s barn at Saratoga.
The scratches of Hollywood Gold Cup winner Forged Steel and Pimlico Special winner Navajo Warrior leave a field of five for the 1⅛-mile race, with long shot Willy D’s (Luis Saez) expected to keep Magnitude from an easy lead.
The Grade I Stephen Foster has gained prestige in recent years, had its purse doubled to $2 million for this year, and looks like the strongest race in America in the first half of this season. The winner could jump over No. 1 Nysos in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association poll, a fair barometer of contention for Breeders’ Cup races and Horse of the Year. Magnitude, White Abarrio and Sovereignty rank 2-3-4 this week, Baeza 16th.
Four-year-old Sovereignty was racing for the first time in nearly eight months when he uncharacteristically dueled for the lead and was passed by 7-year-old White Abarrio in the stretch in Arkansas. Sovereignty should be able to avenge the defeat.
Both Sovereignty and White Abarrio aim to get to the Breeders’ Cup on Oct. 30-31 at Keeneland and soothe their connections’ 2025 disappointments. Sovereignty had a fever and missed the Breeders’ Cup Classic won by Forever Young at Del Mar in November. White Abarrio, the 2023 Classic winner at Santa Anita, was scratched by a regulatory veterinarian minutes before the race. (A lawsuit filed in in April in Los Angeles Superior Court by White Abarrio owners Gary Barber and C2 Racing Stable against the Breeders’ Cup, California Horse Racing Board and Del Mar is awaiting trial.)
But that’s looking ahead. The Stephen Foster shapes up as the classic of the first half-year.
AT LOS ALAMITOS
Bob Baffert tries to win the Los Alamitos Derby for the 10th time in a row and 16th overall Saturday. It would be the first time the Hall of Fame trainer wins the race (called the Swaps Stakes in its Hollywood Park days) with a maiden.
Sabino Canyon (Ricardo Gonzalez), a son of Maxfield who went 0 for 2 at Santa Anita, is part of a small and unimpressive field for the $100,000, 1⅛-mile race. It includes California-bred stakes winners Start the Ride (Armando Ayuso) and Fionello (Tiago Pereira), and Southern Melody (Armando Aguilar) and Fuego Del Sol (Pedro Flores).
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Los Al runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday, starting at 1 p.m. in the second of three weeks of daytime thoroughbred racing. The Orange County track won’t have Saturday night quarter horse races but will run Sunday night, featuring the Grade I Vessels Maturity.
SHORTENING UP
• Jockey Umberto Rispoli is named in entries for the first time since he suffering lower-leg injuries in a Jan. 24 fall at Gulfstream Park in Florida. Rispoli is scheduled to ride Faran, a $3.4 million colt making his racing debut for Baffert at Los Alamitos on Saturday. “Happy to be back,” Rispoli wrote on X over photos of morning workouts.
• CV Fdddinasty Shan is the top 2-year-old quarter horse at Los Alamitos after edging Faultless to win at 7-1 odds in the Grade I, $960,000 Ed Burke Memorial Futurity on Sunday night. It was the richest victory for jockey Armando Viramontes and trainer Lindolfo Diaz, and made for a nice Father’s Day for Diaz and CV Fdddinasty Shan’s owner, his dad J. Francisco Diaz.
• The idea that the Los Alamitos daytime thoroughbred meets’ lower-level racing helps to sustain smaller barns is borne out by this stat: The first 23 races of the meet that began Friday, June 19 were won by 22 different trainers, with Baffert the first repeater. That valuable role in the racing economy used to be played by all of California’s county fair tracks.
SAFETY WATCH
Slightly more horses have died in racing and training at Los Alamitos and Santa Anita so far in 2026 than in the same period in any of the past five years, according to an unofficial count based on data reported by the CHRB.
The 17th and 18th horses to die from all causes at the Southern California tracks were Just Deal, a claiming-level 4-year-old thoroughbred gelding who was injured and failed to finish the fourth race at Los Alamitos on Saturday afternoon, and Johnny Lightning, a 2-year-old quarter-horse gelding who was injured while finishing sixth in his racing debut at Los Al on Saturday night.
An average of 15 horses died from Jan. 1 to June 21 in 2021-25, after 29 died in that span in 2020, the year the racing board began posting fatalities.
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Follow horse racing correspondent Kevin Modesti at X.com/KevinModesti.
SANTA ANITA TOTALS
(Dec. 28-June 15 winter-spring season, Classic Meet and Hollywood Meet combined)
Jockeys / Wins
Emisael Jaramillo / 70
Juan Hernandez / 69
Armando Ayuso / 66
Antonio Fresu / 64
Kazushi Kimura / 60
Hector Berrios / 43
Tiago Pereira / 33
Ricardo Gonzalez / 31
Edwin Maldonado / 27
Joel Rosario / 26
Trainers / Wins
Doug O’Neill / 46
Phil D’Amato / 40
Mark Glatt / 39
Jeff Mullins / 31
Michael McCarthy / 31
George Papaprodromou / 31
Bob Baffert / 28
Steve Knapp / 26
John Sadler / 25
Richard Baltas / 17
UPCOMING STAKES
LOS ALAMITOS THOROUGHBREDS
Saturday
• $100,000 Los Alamitos Derby, 3-year-olds, 1⅛ miles
LOS ALAMITOS QUARTER HORSES
Sunday
• $150,000, Grade I Vessels Maturity, 4-year-olds and up, 400 yards