{"id":350104,"date":"2026-06-07T01:19:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T01:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/350104\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T01:19:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T01:19:25","slug":"kentucky-derby-winner-golden-tempo-wins-2026-belmont-stakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/350104\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky Derby winner Golden Tempo wins 2026 Belmont Stakes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Golden Tempo<\/a> closed out the Triple Crown season Saturday the same way he began it: In the winner\u2019s circle.<\/p>\n

The circumstances were different from the Kentucky Derby<\/a>, when the late-running son of Curlin was helped by a hot pace that tired out the front-runners.<\/p>\n

There was no such setup in Saturday\u2019s Belmont Stakes, but Golden Tempo showed he didn\u2019t need it.<\/p>\n

Ridden again by Jose Ortiz, the Derby champion stormed into the stretch and outfinished Commandment to win a thrilling stretch duel by 1\u00bc lengths at Saratoga Race Course.<\/p>\n

\u201cGolden Tempo is amazing. Jose is amazing,\u201d said trainer Cherie DeVaux<\/a>, who added to her historic win as the first woman to capture the Derby<\/a> by becoming the first woman to win two Triple Crown races.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazing feeling,\u201d she said on Fox Sports.<\/p>\n

Golden Tempo was sent off as the co-fourth choice with Commandment<\/a> at 6-1 and returned $14 for a $2 win ticket. Renegade<\/a>, the Derby runner-up, finished third as the 17-10 favorite and Chief Wallabee<\/a>, the second choice at 5-1, was fourth. The rest of the finishing order: Emerging Market, Growth Equity, Vitruvian Man, Ottinho and Powershift.<\/p>\n

This marked the second straight year the Derby winner also captured the Belmont after skipping the Preakness, with Golden Tempo following Sovereignty. It\u2019s the fifth time in the past six years that a horse used that formula to win this race.<\/p>\n

Could Golden Tempo have won the Triple Crown?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not something I want to think about,\u201d DeVaux said. \u201cWe made our decision and he won today and we\u2019re going to be happy about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Trainer <\/p>\n

Trainer Cherie DeVaux lifts the August Belmont Trophy as she stands next to winning jockey Jose Ortiz, left, after Golden Tempo\u2019s victory in the Belmont Stakes on Saturday.<\/p>\n

(Al Bello \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Golden Tempo, a homebred of owners Phipps Stable and St. Elias Stables, won for the fourth time in six starts. He earned $1.2 million from the $2-million purse to push his career total past $4.6 million.<\/p>\n

Despite his victory five weeks ago in Kentucky, the general feeling about Golden Tempo entering the Belmont was pessimism. Not one of the 19 experts surveyed in Saturday\u2019s Daily Racing Form selected him to win, with just two picking him second. The consensus was he would not finish in the top four.<\/p>\n

The lack of pace was one reason, and sure enough, the race played out pretty much as expected, with Renegade\u2019s stablemate, Powershift, dawdling through the first six furlongs in 1 minute, 12.38 seconds, about a second and a half slower than the same distance for the Derby (1:10.90).<\/p>\n

\"Golden <\/p>\n

Golden Tempo, ridden by jockey Jose Ortiz, crosses the finish line to win the Belmont Stakes on Saturday.<\/p>\n

(Yuki Iwamura \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

As he was in the Derby, Golden Tempo was last for more than half the race, but Saturday he trailed eight horses instead of 17 and never was more than about eight lengths behind the leader.<\/p>\n

Growth Equity, who had been stalking Powershift, took the lead as the field turned into the stretch, but he soon was passed by Chief Wallabee. Before the field had run another furlong, though, Golden Tempo had moved around Renegade to the front. Commandment was on Golden Tempo\u2019s outside but was unable to get past in the final furlong. In fact, the winner was pulling away as they reached the finish.<\/p>\n

The final time wasn\u2019t fast, 2:03.49 for 1\u00bc miles at Saratoga, which was hosting the Belmont for the third and final year while Belmont Park is rebuilt. The race started about five minutes after rain began falling in upstate New York.<\/p>\n

Baffert\u2019s Nysos dominates Met Mile \"Nysos <\/p>\n

Nysos crosses the finish line to win the 133rd running of the Met Mile at Saratoga on Saturday.<\/p>\n

(Yuki Iwamura \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

The afternoon did not begin well for trainer Bob Baffert, who saw his top 3-year-old, Crude Velocity, routed by DeVaux\u2019s Englishman in the Woody Stephens and his leading sprinter, Imagination, come up empty in the True North. But Nysos, the best horse in Baffert\u2019s barn, salvaged the day \u2014 and then some \u2014 with a dominant win over Journalism and five others in the Grade 1 Met Mile.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always thought he was one of the best horses in training and today he showed it,\u201d Baffert said of the 7-5 favorite, who returned $4.94 after clocking 1:34.85, just 0.13 off the track record.<\/p>\n

The victory was not without an anxious moment or two. Jockey Flavien Prat rushed Nysos to the lead out of the gate, but when he was joined on the pace by Antiquarian, Saudi Crown and Knightsbridge, the jockey dropped Nysos back to fourth place at the midway point.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he took him back I just thought, \u2018I hope he knows what he\u2019s doing,\u2019\u201d Baffert said.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, Prat did. After Knightsbridge passed Antiquarian on the far turn, Prat took Nysos around those two as they moved into the stretch and pulled away. Knightsbridge was four lengths back in second with Journalism another three-quarters of a length behind in third.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like down the backside, the pressure from the outside never really stopped,\u201d Prat said. \u201cI figured I had to give him a chance, knowing he was carrying 126 [pounds] and he hasn\u2019t run for [four] months, and it just played out good. When I tipped him out, he gave me a great run.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the eighth win in 10 lifetime starts for Nysos, a 5-year-old son of Nyquist. He was second in the two defeats.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s one of the best horses I\u2019ve ever trained,\u201d Baffert said.<\/p>\n

The victory earned Nysos a berth in the Breeders\u2019 Cup Dirt Mile in October at Keeneland, but the horse won that race last year and Baffert has a bigger prize in mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going for the Classic,\u201d he said, mentioning the Aug. 22 Pacific Classic at Del Mar as a possible race to bridge the gap between now and Oct. 31.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Golden Tempo closed out the Triple Crown season Saturday the same way he began it: In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[143090,143240,27764,126017,143239,48,52,51,96659,47,50,49,63,2663,5463,143244,62,143241,9018,143242,143243],"class_list":["post-350104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-belmont-stakes","tag-commandment","tag-final-year","tag-golden-tempo","tag-jose-ortiz","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-length","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-mile","tag-minute","tag-moderate-pace","tag-rain","tag-saratoga-race-course","tag-second","tag-triple-crown-season-saturday","tag-upstate-new-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}