Golden Tempo won the 158th running of the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, capturing the third leg of the Triple Crown five weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby and making more history for trainer Cherie DeVaux.
With jockey Jose Ortiz aboard, Golden Tempo charged down the stretch at Saratoga Race Course to win the Belmont, holding off Commandment before the finish line at the historic track to win at odds of 6-1. Commandment was second and favourite Renegade third.
“Golden Tempo is amazing. Jose is amazing,” said DeVaux, who wasborn in Saratoga Spring and began her training career there. “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.”
DeVaux, after becoming the first to train a Kentucky Derby winner, is the second in four years to do so at the Belmont. Jena Antonucci won it with Arcangelo in 2023. DeVaux is the first woman to win multiple Triple Crown races.
The pace was not nearly as fast as it was at Churchill Downs, yet Golden Tempo still was able to close in time to win the 1 1/4-mile race in 2:03.49. It didn’t matter, as he was the best in the field of nine horses.
.Ortiz said he followed Renegade, ridden by older brother Irad, just as he did in the Derby. It worked out just the same in the first Saturday in June as the first Saturday in May.
“He was a bouncing a bit today, which made me very happy because I wanted him to be a little bit sharper today,” Jose Ortiz said. “You can see him, he’s very relaxed. He does what I ask him to do. That’s the main thing.”
Ortiz won the Belmont Stakes for the second time, nine years after his first aboard Tapwrit in 2017.
