A historic Triple Crown ends today and brings the curtain down on a historic run at the most historic of places.
The 158th renewal of the Belmont Stakes makes its final run at Saratoga Race Course today, concluding a three-year run in upstate New York while construction of a new Belmont Park on Long Island continues before its scheduled opening in September. The third Belmont Stakes at Saratoga also marks the third year in a row the Kentucky Derby winner made the field, and he’s not just any Derby winner.
Golden Tempo made history May 2 when he upset 17 opponents in the 152nd Run for the Roses, making Cherie DeVaux the first female trainer to win a Kentucky Derby. DeVaux tries to make more history today, looking to become the second woman to send out a Belmont winner, all in the last four years.
Golden Tempo takes on eight rivals in the 1 1/4-mile Belmont – shortened again from the traditional 1 1/2 miles due to Saratoga’s track configuration. Several are familiar foes, including Derby runner-up Renegade along with Chief Wallabee (fourth), Commandment (seventh) and Emerging Market (10th). The other four are new to the Triple Crown – Peter Pan winner Growth Equity, Blue Grass runner-up Ottinho, Santa Anita Derby third Vitruvian Man and Derby Day maiden winner Powershift.
The Belmont field doesn’t include any runners from the Preakness for the first time since 1917 and that probably only happened because the Derby and Preakness were run on the same day. The Belmont also was run before the Preakness 11 times until 1931, when the current order of the Triple Crown series started.
Two of the three races in this year’s Triple Crown were contested away from their usual sites, with the Preakness at Laurel Park while Pimlico Race Course undergoes its own reconstruction project.
Most consider Saratoga’s hosting of the final jewel of the Triple Crown to be successful, with large and enthusiastic crowds packing the facility and rooting home Dornoch over a field that included Derby winner Mystik Dan and Preakness winner Seize The Grey in 2024 and Derby winner Sovereignty over Preakness winner Journalism and Baeza in 2025.
The 2026 renewal figures to pack plenty of punch with Golden Tempo and Renegade, separated by just a neck after 10 furlongs of the Derby, back for more. Chief Wallabee finished 2 3/4 lengths back in the Derby, his fourth start. Florida Derby winner Commandment, the 6-1 fourth choice in the Derby; and Louisiana Derby winner Emerging Market, the 8-1 sixth choice who lost a shoe going into the first turn in Louisville, also seek to make amends.
The Belmont goes as the 13th of 14 races today with post time set for 7:04 p.m.
DeVaux, who spent some of her childhood in Saratoga Springs before growing up in Florida, skipped the Preakness with Golden Tempo with designs on the Belmont. She’s anxious to get the Phipps Stable and St Elias Stable homebred son of Curlin back on track while still relishing the popular milestone score in the Derby.
“It still hasn’t set in. None of it,” DeVaux said Friday morning outside her barn on the Oklahoma Training Track after Golden Tempo turned in his final gallop on the main track. “It’s exciting to have something like that and for people who I share it with to be excited about it.”
Golden Tempo took a step forward in the five weeks leading up to the Belmont, not unlike his big move up between his close third in the Louisiana Derby to the Kentucky Derby. He turned in two strong works at Keeneland before his Derby win and added three more before the Belmont, including a half-mile tightener in :48.20 last Saturday.
“He’s really good. He moved forward in his training. He finally looks like a fit racehorse,” DeVaux said. “He always carried a lot of extra condition, but he finally looks like a fit racehorse and not like we’re trying to get anything off him.”
Golden Tempo was pegged as the 9-2 third choice on the Belmont morning line behind 2-1 favorite Renegade and the 3-1 Chief Wallabee.
“It’s cliché, but he touts himself, he acts confident,” DeVaux said. “He was always a little aloof and immature, not in a bad way. I don’t know if he knows what he did, but I know he knows he did something really cool to have a lot of people paying attention to him. For a race to go like that, he acts like he grew two inches taller. He’s big and puffed up. I do think it was a confidence boost and I think he should move forward from that. What that translates into . . . he obviously has a running style that is a bit tricky, but it is what it is.”
Golden Tempo and Jose Ortiz closed from 17 lengths back and last place after a half-mile in the Derby. Renegade and Irad Ortiz Jr. nearly did the same, coming from 12 lengths back and 15th at that same point in the Derby before finishing an agonizing second. The Ortiz brothers return to those mounts today for the rematch.
DeVaux said she’s fortunate to have her rider, who made the move to Kentucky full-time two years ago, on the team to help execute the plans.
“You have to have confidence in yourself and the process, which we did,” she said. “It takes a lot, I can have a plan all day long but number one, we are dealing with an animal, and he has to respond to what we are doing. And then our whole team, everybody has to enact on what we are doing. Everybody did a wonderful job. Golden Tempo won the race, but Jose made it happen. He put a lot of faith in the horse, he understood what we were doing throughout the whole thing. He never lost confidence in the horse.”
Junior Alvarado returns aboard Chief Wallabee for the fifth time for trainer Bill Mott. Mike and Katherine Ball’s homebred raced closer to the Derby’s fast pace than the horses who finished in front of him, then lost some stretch momentum when bumped by Further Ado in the stretch.
“It was a great trip all the way around,” Alvarado said Friday. “I had a good sixteenth of a mile with a good spot to go through, and my horse was still a little green, shy to get into that spot. I think when he decided to go into it, it was a little late. Horses from the outside were coming down, so we got bumped pretty hard.”
In addition to beating 14 horses, Chief Wallabee gained experience in his fourth start.
“He still had some courage after the bump to keep on running,” Alvarado said. “He never got discouraged. He actually kept coming and he was strong enough to finish fourth. His talent is higher than his mentality as a racehorse still. I don’t think he has caught up with his ability, and I think eventually he’ll get there.”
Mott has given Chief Wallabee, a son of Constitution, three works on the Oklahoma since the Derby, including a bullet 5-furlong move May 23.
“I’ve seen him train, and he looks fantastic out there,” said Alvarado, looking for his second straight Belmont after winning with Sovereignty last year. “I’m hoping if he progresses a little bit more, it could probably be enough to put him in the winner’s circle.”
Like Alvarado, Mott seeks a repeat Belmont score while soaking up the Saratoga experience.
“It means a lot,” Mott said at Monday’s post draw. “We love Saratoga and we love the town. We love the racing up here. The atmosphere is great, and it’s probably one of the best venues for racing there is in the entire country, maybe the world.”
Trainer Brad Cox seeks a second Belmont victory, after sending out Essential Quality at the old Belmont Park in 2021. Cox runs Commandment, a son of Into Mischief who vied for Derby favoritism after late-running wins in the Fountain of Youth and Florida Derby to extend a winning streak to four. He finished 5 1/4 lengths back under Luis Saez, who rides Powershift in the Belmont. Hall of Famer and two-time Belmont winner John Velazquez takes the call today.
Cox said Commandment trained well at Churchill between the Derby and the Belmont and comes in optimistic.
“He came out of the race in good order, that’s why we’re here,” Cox said Friday. “He’s had some good works since. I feel like I’m running him with a lot of confidence just based off what we’ve seen there with him at Churchill.
“Obviously Johnny knows how to get a horse around the Saratoga oval, so I think we’re in good hands with him. I like how the horse shipped in. I like how he’s trained over the main track all week. He schooled great (Thursday) and his energy level is good. We have him where he needs to be to get a big effort out of him.”
Chad Brown sends out the trio of Emerging Market, Growth Equity and Ottinho in search of his first Belmont. Brown finished second to Triple Crown winner Justify in the 2018 renewal with Gronkowski and third in the 2024 Belmont with Sierra Leone. Brown has won the Preakness twice and hopes there’s a Belmont with his name on it.
Emerging Market wound up 10th in the Derby after racing close to fast early fractions for a mile and losing his left front shoe while making just his third lifetime start.
“It’s a solid field and whoever wins is going to have to run their ‘A’ race, for sure,” Brown said this week. “The pace of the race is a little suspect, which probably means there will be a couple pace horses and a couple mid-pack horses and definitely some horses with no speed. I know I have one of those (Emerging Market). Hopefully the horses will string out and organize, so not only Emerging Market, but all the horses can find their path, not too wide and have a nice fair race for everybody.”
– Additional reporting by Sean Clancy, Paul Halloran and Darby O’Brien.
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