SARATOGA SPRINGS, NEW YORK – JUNE 06: Golden Tempo with Jose Ortiz up, wins the 158th running of the Belmont Stakes with with Commandment and John Velazquez up finishing second at Saratoga Race Course on June 06, 2026 in Saratoga Springs, New York. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
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With no fuss and long tons of brio, Golden Tempo defied his outside draw as well as the Saratoga track’s proclivities against closers and did what he does best – which was to close magnificently – to snatch victory in the 158th Belmont Stakes. In manufacturing his win, he seemed a preternaturally focused contender, which is to say, he needed no special choreography of speed or any other early narrative playing out in front of him as he had at Churchill. He seemed aware of the distance and what he had to do, and he brought his run with dispatch.
His efforts paid a tidy $14 to win because quite a bit of the money had been thinking that the track’s own bias toward stalkers and speed would see him beaten. A delightful irony, that. It was as if Golden Tempo had been reading his own press and set out to teach a master class in what could be done in a shorter Belmont on a disadvantageous track. Fending off a charging Commandment in the stretch, Golden Tempo made it look as if the Belmont was never not going to be his race.
His adroit jockey Jose Ortiz reflected as much. He said: “He wasn’t going to get that setup as he did in the Derby. We all knew that, and I was a little worried about it. He needed some kind of setup. But today, there wasn’t one and he showed up today and won.”
Along the way, the colt lofted his trainer Cherie DeVaux to yet a more exalted rung in the history books. DeVaux, a Saratoga Springs native essentially racing at her home track, is now the first female trainer in American racing history to win multiple Triple Crown races, the only woman to win the Derby and the Belmont, and further, the only woman to have accomplished that with one horse. DeVaux said, “I think he needed to do this to kind of show that he was meant to win the Derby and that he is a horse that belongs in that conversation of being one of the top 3-year-olds.”
This article was originally published on Forbes.com
