LOUISVILLE – Bill Mott remembers the moment May 6, 1967, when he heard his first Kentucky Derby.

That day at Churchill Downs, Proud Clarion ran down Barbs Delight in the stretch to win by a length. Mott was more than 1,000 miles away in Fort Pierre, S.D., a 13-year-old sitting in a GMC van with an AM radio tuned to the broadcast.

“At that point in time, I couldn’t even imagine being at Churchill Downs or coming to Churchill Downs,” Mott said Saturday. “I never thought I’d get out of South Dakota, to tell you the truth.”

Mott made it out of his home state, all right, and became one of America’s most decorated thoroughbred trainers. He’s a Hall of Famer and Eclipse Award winner whose horses have won one Belmont Stakes and 10 Breeders’ Cup events.

And Mott’s especially enjoyed success at Churchill Downs, where he held the all-time wins record from 1986-2017.

Still, Mott never experienced victory in the track’s premiere event. He was 0-for-8 all time in Kentucky Derby starts, most recently in 2018 when Hofburg finished seventh.

Mott finally broke through Saturday, albeit in chaotic fashion.

One of Mott’s two entries, Country House, crossed the line second Saturday at Churchill Downs behind apparent Kentucky Derby winner Maximum Security.

Country House’s jockey, Flavien Prat, filed an objection. He claimed Maximum Security drifted wide from the inside at the 5/16ths marker and interfered with horses running directly to his outside.

After 22 minutes, track stewards ruled in favor of Prat’s objection. Maximum Security was taken down from first place, ruled to have veered out and stacked up rivals Bodexpress, Long Range Toddy and War of Will.

“Those horses were all affected, we thought, by the interference,” chief steward Barbara Borden explained afterward.

With that ruling, Country House – a 65-to-1 long shot – was elevated from second place to first. Mott had his first Derby win, albeit in what he called a “bittersweet” fashion.

Mott said he felt the win was “diminished” because the controversy surrounding Maximum Security’s disqualification weighed so heavily over Country House’s victory.

“But with that being said, I’m damn glad they put our number up,” Mott said.

Mott trained a horse expected to be a Kentucky Derby front-runner, but it wasn’t Country House.

Tacitus, another Mott trainee, went to the starting gate at 6-to-1 – the third betting choice behind Improbable (4-to-1) and Maximum Security (9-to-2). That horse notched wins in each of its three starts prior to the Derby, including last month in the Wood Memorial.

Saturday brought a third-place finish for Tacitus, who emerged from a five-wide battle at the turn and rallied. He crossed the line fourth but was elevated to show after Maximum Security’s disqualification.

Mott’s other entry, Country House, never won a stakes race before Saturday. He finished second in February’s Risen Star, fourth in March’s Louisiana Derby and third in April’s Arkansas Derby.

Even if Country House didn’t pile up the wins on the prep circuit, his on-the-board finishes equaled valuable points for the Kentucky Derby’s entry system.

Mott described Country House as a “big and tough and durable horse” who he found “well-suited” for the race’s mile-and-a-quarter distance.

“I’ve been telling people all winter that … if this horse ever wakes up and figures out, really, what he’s doing, that mile and a quarter of the Kentucky Derby is certainly within his reach and not to discount him,” Mott said. “And we were right today.”

Country House backed up his trainer’s confidence. The No. 20 horse broke well from the far outside gate and settled in the middle of the field three-wide off the first turn.

He was outside four-wide on the second turn when Maximum Security’s interference took place.

Prat had Country House wide enough that the incident left his horse largely unaffected. So Country House was there to chase Maximum Security down the stretch, coming up what turned out to a temporary second.

In speaking about the ruling, Mott compared Saturday’s Kentucky Derby to “an ordinary race on a Wednesday.”

By Mott’s logic, if Maximum Security’s incident occurred in a race with a far lower profile, the move would’ve been ruled interference. Even if the stakes of the race may be higher, Mott said the letter of the law should be applied just the same.

“This is kind of an unusual way to get to the winner’s circle with having the DQ in the race,” Mott said. “But I would say the stewards, in my opinion, I think they made the right call.”

Fifty-two years after Mott first listened to the Kentucky Derby as a teenager in South Dakota, he celebrated Saturday as the race’s winning trainer.

The victory came in unusual and controversial fashion, but it was Mott’s victory nonetheless.{&end}