Golden Tempo won the 158th Belmont Stakes on Saturday, June 6 at Saratoga Race Course, completing a Kentucky Derby–Belmont double for trainer Cherie DeVaux and jockey José Ortiz in a race that was never seriously in doubt once the field turned for home. The win came at 9-2 (+450) final odds – drifted slightly from the pre-race 5-1 cluster – and arrived despite a stumble out of the gate from Post 9 that could have buried a less talented horse.
Renegade, the 8-5 favorite trained by Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher, finished third. That is two Triple Crown runner-up finishes in a season – Kentucky Derby second, Belmont third – for a horse that entered both races as the market’s top choice. The finishing order: Golden Tempo, Commandment, Renegade, with the race run at 1¼ miles on a fast Saratoga dirt track in 2:03.49. Total purse: $2,000,000, with the winner’s connections banking approximately $1,200,000.
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Golden Tempo Overcomes the Gate – How the Race Was Run
The stumble out of Gate 9 was real. It cost Golden Tempo two or three early lengths and forced José Ortiz to navigate from further back than planned in a nine-horse field that does not string out the same way a full Derby field does. That was the pre-race structural concern flagged in our Belmont Stakes preview – the outside post and Golden Tempo’s deep-closing style needed pace shape to work, and a stumble made that ask even taller.
Renegade tracked the early fractions exactly as Pletcher intended, sitting second with a clean trip and every structural advantage. The problem: when Golden Tempo found clear ground on the far turn, nothing in the field had the late fuel to answer. DeVaux has been candid about her horse’s pace dependency – “there’s a lot that has to go right for him” – but Ortiz found the running room, and the finish was not particularly close.
Commandment rallied for second, a result that validated his 5-1 ticket holders but confirmed the race’s chalk-heavy competitive shape. Renegade’s third-place finish – after leading into the stretch – is the honest summary of his 2026 Triple Crown season: fast enough to set the table, not fast enough to hold it when the best closer in the field runs clean.
2026 Belmont Stakes Results & Payouts
Official finishing order and Belmont payouts for the 158th Belmont Stakes:
- Golden Tempo (Post 9) – 9-2 (+450) – Jockey: José Ortiz, Trainer: Cherie DeVaux
- Commandment – 5-1 (+500)
- Renegade – 8-5 (-125) – Trainer: Todd Pletcher
- Chief Wallabee – 5-1 (+500)
- Emerging Market – 5-1 (+500)
- Growth Equity – 13-1 (+1300)
- Vitruvian Man – 20-1 (+2000)
- Ottinho – 19-1 (+1900)
- Powershift – 12-1 (+1200) – Trainer: Todd Pletcher
- WIN (Golden Tempo): $14.00
- PLACE (Golden Tempo): $7.32 | Commandment: $7.02
- SHOW (Golden Tempo): $3.88 | Commandment: $4.08 | Renegade: $2.52
- $1 Exacta (9/7): $55.67
- $0.50 Trifecta (9/7/4): $51.32
- $1 Superfecta (9/7/4/3): $237.98
The modest payouts reflect the race’s structure – no major disruptor cracked the top four. Compare those figures to the Kentucky Derby, where Golden Tempo paid $48.24 to win as a genuine longshot, with a trifecta north of $5,600 and a superfecta approaching $95,000. The Belmont board was tighter from the jump, and the result matched it.
DeVaux, Ortiz, and What the Derby-Belmont Double Actually Means
Cherie DeVaux is now a two-Classic trainer – Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes in the same calendar year. That credential is analytical data, not biography. She joins a short list of trainers to accomplish it, doing so against a field that included Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher and a horse – Renegade – that the market installed as a clear favorite at both Churchill Downs and entering Saturday’s rematch at Saratoga.
José Ortiz‘s ride is worth noting separately. The gate stumble was not his fault, but the trip management afterward – finding position without burning Golden Tempo’s late kick in a compact nine-horse field – was. That is the Ortiz credential: clean decision-making under structural pressure, not just ability to time a big move on a horse doing the running on its own.
The Triple Crown conversation is a sidebar, not a miss. Golden Tempo’s connections made a deliberate health-based decision to skip the Preakness, a trend Byron King of Bloodhorse has explained is driven by tighter race-day medication protocols. The double is the achievement. The missing leg was a choice, not a failure.
The 158th Belmont ran at Saratoga for the second consecutive year – horse racing in the room where Belmont Park’s $455 million renovation continues – at 1¼ miles rather than the traditional 1½, altering the stamina calculus that historically defined this race.
What Comes Next – Golden Tempo’s Summer Target and the Renegade Question
Golden Tempo‘s summer now points toward either the Travers Stakes at Saratoga or the Haskell at Monmouth – both Grade 1 events that carry serious 3-Year-Old Champion and Horse of the Year weight. As noted in our pre-race breakdown of Golden Tempo’s Belmont entry, the DeVaux barn has managed this horse’s schedule deliberately all year. One more big summer performance closes the Eclipse Award argument.
Renegade‘s seasonal assessment is harder. Two Triple Crown runner-up finishes – including a third-place Belmont behind a horse he was favored to beat – is a résumé that demands a performance win, not another near-miss. Pletcher will find him a race. The question is whether Renegade can beat Golden Tempo when the margin matters.
The Derby-Belmont double puts the upset label to rest. DeVaux and Ortiz are now one of the sport’s most compelling new partnerships – and Golden Tempo is the division’s standard until someone runs him down.
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