SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — The last horse off the pace won again. Five weeks after rolling from dead last to take the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, Golden Tempo reproduced the act at Saratoga Race Course on Saturday, sweeping past Chief Wallabee on the far turn and holding off Commandment to win the 158th Belmont Stakes in 2:03.49.
The victory made Golden Tempo the 13th horse to win both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont in the same year without completing the Triple Crown — a feat that required skipping the Preakness Stakes in Maryland last month. Trainer Cherie DeVaux, who became the first woman to win the Kentucky Derby when Golden Tempo crossed the wire at Churchill Downs on May 3, now holds a second piece of history: she is the first woman to train two separate Triple Crown race winners.
Jockey Jose Ortiz kept the colt at the back of the nine-horse field as Powershift set a moderate pace up front, far slower than the frantic fractions at Churchill Downs that had set up Golden Tempo’s sweeping close five weeks earlier. The skeptics took note. Going into Saturday’s race, Golden Tempo was the fifth choice at 6-1, a notable retreat from the post-Derby conversation that had elevated the colt. Renegade, trained by Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher and the runner-up in the Derby, was bet down to 8-5 at post time, the presumptive beneficiary of a setup that seemed to favor front-runners.
It did not work out that way. Around the final turn, Ortiz began threading Golden Tempo through horses. The colt came wide entering the stretch, went neck-and-neck with Commandment briefly, and then drew away to win by a length and a quarter. Renegade, who had tracked the pace more closely, finished third. The $2 exacta paid $111.34; the $1 trifecta returned $102.64.
The outcome immediately reopened a debate that DeVaux had tried to close. Golden Tempo’s connections announced after the Derby that the colt would skip the Preakness, forfeiting any chance at the Triple Crown. The decision blended horse welfare considerations with a broader skepticism about whether the three-races-in-five-weeks format is appropriate for modern thoroughbreds. Sovereignty, last year’s Kentucky Derby winner, made the same choice and won the Belmont, too. No horse has completed the Triple Crown since Justify in 2018.
“It’s not something I want to think about,” DeVaux told Fox’s Tom Rinaldi in the winner’s circle, when asked whether the colt could have swept all three legs.
That reticence may be understandable, but the sport is left in a position it has struggled to resolve. The economics and dynamics of the Kentucky Derby already reward the most prominent horses, and when Derby winners consistently bypass the Preakness, the Triple Crown’s narrative weight erodes with each passing year. Whether that demands scheduling reform or acceptance as the price of a more welfare-conscious sport is a question racing’s governing bodies have not answered.
What is not in dispute is Golden Tempo’s ability. Critics had argued after the Derby that the colt only won because Churchill Downs’ pace scenario was historically fast, turning the race into a sustained sprint that rewarded the deepest closers. The Belmont pace on Saturday was the opposite: manageable, honest, unlikely to produce a wide-open final turn. Golden Tempo won anyway, finishing the 1¼-mile race in 2:03.49 on a track that was playing fair.
DeVaux sent the colt to Saratoga with a single workout after the Derby, a conservative training approach that drew questions in the industry but produced the same result. For Ortiz, one of the most decorated jockeys currently riding in the United States, the back-to-back victories in America’s two most storied races represent the defining chapter of his career so far. He kept Golden Tempo settled, patient, and unhurried even when the race appeared to be setting up against them.
The 158th Belmont was held at Saratoga for the third consecutive year while Belmont Park, the race’s traditional home on the Queens-Nassau County border, undergoes a $550 million reconstruction. As CBS News reported, the facility is expected to reopen this fall, with the 1.5-mile Belmont Stakes returning to its historic home in 2027. Saratoga, which runs the race at 1.25 miles rather than the traditional distance, has served as a natural substitute, though some in the sport have contended the shorter course changes the race’s character in ways that complicate historical comparison.
The complete order of finish: Golden Tempo (1st), Commandment (2nd), Renegade (3rd). Chief Wallabee, who had been second on the morning line at 3-1, faded in the stretch. Long shots Powershift, Growth Equity, Ottinho and Vitruvian Man finished out of the money. One bettor at the track collected on the pick-six, according to Fox News, correctly selecting six consecutive race winners on the card.
Saturday’s crowd brought the sport’s complications to the back of the mind. A brief rain shower before post time produced a loud reaction from the packed Saratoga grandstand. Then the gate opened, Golden Tempo stumbled slightly at the break, settled into last place as the field found its stride, and began to move around the far turn. It had happened before. It happened again. What remains unanswered is whether anyone will ever find out what that horse could have done on a Saturday in May at Pimlico.
