Fourth Top Trainer Title to Mott for Unforgettable Year

A season chock-full of high-profile wins by accomplished older horses and newcomers delivered Bill Mott his fourth Eclipse Award as outstanding trainer.

Mott, 70, has been running his own training stable since 1978, though he actually began conditioning horses when he was 15. In a career enriched by more than 1,000 black-type wins, of which 554 were in graded/group races, and more than $348 million in earnings worldwide, the 2023 racing season will be one of the Hall of Fame trainer's most memorable.

A gifted horse with an extraordinary story named Cody's Wish   has taken Mott and his team on a remarkable journey. The Godolphin homebred by Curlin   was named after the late Cody Dorman, a young man who suffered from debilitating Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome. Dorman and Cody's Wish connected during a trip to Gainsborough Farm arranged by the Make-A-Wish Foundation. They kept that connection throughout the horse's remarkable career highlighted by seven graded stakes wins—two in the 2022-23 runnings of the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile (G1).

"It's probably one of the most memorable rides that we've all been on, and I think it's meant so much to so many people. Sometimes it's a small group of people that gets to enjoy the win, but I think this one's been for a lot of people," Mott said after the 2023 Dirt Mile, which Dorman attended. 

Cody's Wish contributed only part of the fireworks for Mott during Breeders' Cup weekend. He also saddled Juddmonte's Elite Power   to a second consecutive win in the Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) and captured the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) with George Krikorian's homebred Just F Y I . Both Cody's Wish and Elite Power are finalists for Eclipse Award honors in the older dirt male and male sprinter divisions, while Just F Y I, by Justify  , is a front-runner for champion 2-year-old filly.

Other top performers for Mott throughout 2023 include grade 1 winners Art Collector , Casa Creed , and War Like Goddess .

War Like Goddess beat males in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Stakes (G1T) for the second consecutive year. Krikorian's 6-year-old daughter of English Channel added $563,000 to her career earnings, raising the total to $2,535,184. 

Just for 2023, Mott won 103 races—24 in graded stakes—out of 649 North American starts and banked $17,437,147 in purses, fifth-highest among all North American trainers this season and a career-best for Mott. He was the co-second-highest-ranked trainer by number of grade 1 wins with 10 alongside Todd Pletcher and behind Chad Brown and Brad Cox who each had 12.