Golden Tempo seized the spotlight at the 158th Belmont Stakes, powering down Saratoga’s stretch just five weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby. Jose Ortiz guided him past Commandment in the final moments, and they crossed the finish line at 6-1 odds, leaving race favorite Renegade settling for third.
“Golden Tempo is amazing. Jose is amazing,” said DeVaux in an interview with The Guardian, who was born in Saratoga Springs and raised in Englewood, Florida. “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 three-year-olds.”
Trainer Cherie DeVaux keeps rewriting racing history. After becoming the first woman ever to train a Kentucky Derby winner, she’s now the second female trainer to claim the Belmont in the past four years, following Jena Antonucci’s 2023 victory with Arcangelo. DeVaux stands alone as the only woman to win multiple Triple Crown races.
While Saratoga’s race didn’t unfold at the blistering pace of the Derby, it didn’t matter. Golden Tempo closed with authority, handling the mile and a quarter in a swift 2:03.49. The field was strong; nine horses charged for the wire, but he played his closing kick at just the right moment.
This marked Belmont’s third and final year at Saratoga. The old Belmont Park, straddling Queens and Long Island, remains under reconstruction but should welcome the race back next year.
“He wasn’t going to get that setup as he did in the Derby,” Ortiz said in an interview with The Guardian. “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.”
