After a year filled with heart-stopping finishes, seismic upsets, and the never-ending search for greatness, the Breeders’ Cup represents the perfect way to bring the curtain down on a blockbuster campaign. On Halloween weekend, the 2025 instalment of America’s most lucrative race meeting will take place, with the headline showdown being a Breeders’ Cup Classic dominated by one name: Sovereignty.
Bill Mott’s superstar has enjoyed a spectacular 2025, romping to glory at both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, beating the highly rated and better backed Journalism on both occasions. In fact, had his storied trainer entered him in the Preakness, the three-year-old could well have become the first Triple Crown winner since Justify stole the show back in 2018. With Sovereignty’s stellar year firmly in mind, online horse racing providers have installed the Derby champion as the one to beat at Del Mar.
The latest Bovada horse betting odds currently list the American showstopper as a mightily short 6/4 favourite to crown a stunning year with his biggest win to date. However, he is flanked by a slew of formidable challengers. The iron-willed Sierra Leone was last year’s Classic hero and is expected to contend again, while the firebrand Fierceness is a Pacific Classic winner who is galloping into Del Mar with revenge burning in his stride.
Sovereignty +200 cashes ✅💰 https://t.co/SpHbGoNwWk
— Bovada (@BovadaOfficial) June 7, 2025
How the story of the 2025 Classic will be written is currently unknown. Will the heavy favourite be able to live up to the billing, or will he be upset on the grandest stage by longshots such as 50/1 Dubai World Cup winner Hit Show? That chapter right now is unclear, but the story of the last four Classics certainly isn’t. Here’s what went down.
2024: Sierra Leone’s Classic Coup
Few races in modern history have captured the unpredictability and drama of the sport quite like last November’s Breeders’ Cup Classic. The pre-race headlines belonged to City of Troy, with Europe’s best securing top billing ahead of Japan’s game challengers, led by Forever Young. But just seconds after the gates slammed open, raw American speed took control.
Fierceness set his sights on glory, turning for home, his white blinkers flashing as he surged clear. But outside, under a collected Flavien Prat, Sierra Leone assembled energy like a coil about to snap. What followed was a display of heart and closing brilliance unseen in years. The thoroughbred, trained by Chad C. Brown, unleashed a relentless, piston-like drive that saw him win by a nose in 2:00.78 to secure a redemption-earning victory after Kentucky Derby heartbreak earlier in the year.
2023: White Abarrio Seizes the Spotlight
Santa Anita’s 2023 Classic, on paper, was a murky puzzle: Arcangelo, the favourite, was a late scratch, opening the door for international stars to loom, and local hopefuls to bristle at the newfound window of opportunity. Arabian Knight tried to blitz them out the gate with unrelenting pace. But quietly, White Abarrio, ignored by many, sat poised with Irad Ortiz Jr. in the saddle.
Come the stretch, what seemed tactical restraint exploded into an outright blitz—Ortiz tipped the grey out and, with one jaw-dropping burst of pace, swept past Derma Sotogake. A one-length win, yes, but seized in a manner that ended the debate once and for all. For Rick Dutrow, it was the resurrection story; for White Abarrio, raw electricity brought to life on Santa Anita’s grandest stage.
2022: Flightline Becomes a Legend
It is difficult, even now, to conjure words that do justice to Flightline’s Keeneland Classic. Undefeated, unchallenged—he invaded the Breeders’ Cup not with the arrogance of a champion, but the inevitability of a natural force. As Life Is Good threw down brutal fractions and the crowd braced for a stretch duel, Flightline and Flavien Prat simply waited.
Then—almost as if physics itself bent—he moved. In less than an eighth of a mile, Flightline cracked the race apart, bounding away to win by eight and a quarter lengths, the clock frozen at 2:00.05 after one of the most dominating Classic victories in recent memory. It was performance as prophecy fulfilled: unbeaten, untouched, unmatched. One for the ages, a bar set almost impossibly high.
2021: Knicks Go and the Art of the Front-Runner
Del Mar in 2021 was the setting for another masterpiece—rendered not in late drama but wire-to-wire domination. Knicks Go broke like a sprinter, dared Medina Spirit and Essential Quality to keep pace, and simply never came back. The figures—1:59.57 for the distance, a near-record time—only begin to describe it.
Joel Rosario’s hands were loose but decisive; Brad Cox’s plan, executed without a single flaw. By the quarter pole, it was a formal procession. By the finish, a 2¾-length crushing. Horse of the Year honours were inevitable; so too was Knicks Go’s reputation as one of the finest speedsters of the era.