Golden Tempo takes 158th Belmont Stakes, winning first, third legs of Triple Crown

Golden Tempo proved his Kentucky Derby win was no fluke by coming back Saturday to take the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The win made Cherie DeVaux the second woman to train a winner in the third leg of horse racing's Triple Crown. The Saratoga Springs native joined Jena Antonucci, who won the race in 2023 with Arcangelo. DeVaux is the first female trainer to win two Triple Crown races. Commandment finished second, and Renegade, who was second to Golden Tempo by a neck last month at Churchill Downs, wound up third among the field of nine. The top three all ran in the Derby but opted to skip the May 16 Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown, because of the two-week break between the races. Similar to how he raced at the Derby, jockey Jose Ortiz rallied Golden Tempo from last to first with another strong stretch drive. However, Ortiz needed to do it without nearly the type of pace the frontrunners in the Derby provided. That meant the other horses in the race were fresher for the stretch run than they were in Louisville last month. However, the horse owned by Phipps Stable and Vincent and Teresa Viola, showed that did not matter. "I kind of wrongfully, probably, thought that because the way the race was run in the Derby, he was having to go out and prove himself," DeVaux told reporters. …