Sovereign Debt and Ruth Carr - Revisited

 Sovereign Debt and Ruth Carr - Revisited

Sovereign Debt's longevity is admirable. He ran 63 times, from May 2011, to August 2018. What made him so tough and consistent?

He came to me as an 8yo on the retirement of Dandy Nicholls. I trained him in the twilight of his career from April 2017 to August 2018. He had a fair amount of wear and tear on his joints by this time which we managed with help from the vets, herbal supplements and lots of daily turn out to keep him moving about and stop stiffening up. 

When he first arrived at your yard, did you think he was above average? 

On arrival he was the highest rated horse I’d had anything to do with since Grandad trained Quito and I was absolutely delighted to have him sent to me but did think to myself we might be "on a hiding to nothing" as Dandy had done so well with him and he joined me on the back of a £92k win in Doha! How was I going to do better than that?


He's had many days in the sun, what was your highlight? 

Probably Epsom on Derby Day. We came into the race having won the AW Mile Championship at Lingfield and a G2 at Sandown for which he had a penalty. He was giving weight all round and as a smallish trainer from the north there were no big expectations. A great ride from Jimmy Sullivan on a tricky track that he rarely visits, Sov came home by a neck. His three wins on the bounce were fantastic, raised the profile of the yard massively, the press interest was huge too. After winning the Diomed at Epsom I had a little taste of what it was like to be Aidan O'Brien, surrounded by journalists, microphones and cameras! 

Was he the best horse you've ever trained? If so, what made him different?

He is definitely the best horse I’ve trained so far and being grey he had a sizeable public following. He was so straight forward and tried so hard in his races. I've not seen many horses put their heads down and battle harder than Sov did.


In your own words sum up his racing career, and what he meant to you personally? 

When Sov won at York in June 2018 the reception the local crowd gave him when he came into the winners enclosure was amazing and being York born and bred it brought a lump to my throat. He stood in the winners enclosure and posed for the crowd and the camera with a presence you don’t see in many horses. I definitely received plenty of horses on the back of Sov’s first three wins for us so as well as a lot of media attention. It was sad to retire him in August of 2018 but he owed us nothing and he is still strutting his stuff in retirement, quickly qualified for the Retraining of Racehorses National Championships at Aintree and the Horse of The Year Show in 2019 before Covid put a stop to most of the 2020 showing season.

Sovereign Debt was a legend of a horse, I'm sure many of us have some fond memories of him! Thanks again to Ruth, it's great to see how much you loved him. To be able to share that sort of insight into his time with you is brilliant! 

I hope you've enjoyed this edition of Revisited. There are plenty more horses to look back on, stay tuned!