VERSAILLES, Ky. (LEX 18) — Mary Beth Moore usually walks the grounds of Gainsborough Farm every day after work, a place she's been since 2007. Moore watched Sovereignty as a foal and named him.
Moore, the stallion accountant for Darley Stallions, says the naming of horses for Godolphin Racing is very much a team effort.
"Every year we get to do this," Moore said.
Each year, Moore receives a list of all horses that need a name for Godolphin Racing. The goal is to get every two-year-old named before they ship to their trainers. Moore always starts with the ones born at Gainsborough Farm.
Kentucky Derby 152
Godolphin employees "take pride" in the process naming horses
"They give us this list... It's such a process to do, because you come up with the name you submit it to the jockey club to see if it's been taken. If it hasn't, you just write it down and go on to the next," Moore said.
When it came time to naming Sovereignty, Moore knew his dam was Crowned and set out to find something that fit a royal theme.
"I was trying to stay with the royal theme, and I went down that rabbit hole and everything was taken, and I finally actually gave up on it," she said.
Then one evening, the answer came from an unlikely place. What she heard changed everything.
"It was during that same week I had the news on," Moore said. "They were talking about some smaller countries they would try to break off from the larger countries like from the EU or something like that. They said they would be for sovereignty purposes."
Her reaction was immediate.
"I was like wow... So I googled it to see what it meant. It meant supreme power, and I thought, Well that's good,'" Moore said.
Getting the name approved was its own process — one Moore approached carefully.
"I actually put it into the jockey club twice just to make sure I didn't put it in incorrectly," Moore said.
From there, the name moved up the chain.
"It went to management, passed them, went to the jockey club, passed there, that was the moment — yeah that was the moment," Moore said.
That moment paid off on the first Saturday in May in 2025. Sovereignty's win at Kentucky Derby 151 marked the first victory for Godolphin in the Run for the Roses.
"It was incredible," Moore said.
Moore said the win resonated beyond her own role in naming the horse.
"It is just such a team effort, and I think that meant more to me that everybody could enjoy that had come in contact with that horse," Mooresaid.
Even the name itself has taken on a life of its own. Moore told trainer Bill Mott's crew she thought the name wasn't already taken because it is, in her words, "kind of a weird word." Mott's team told her that every time they write it down, they have to stop and look at it before moving on.
