The Test of the Champion
On the evening of June 6, 2026, nine three-year-old thoroughbreds will break from the gate at Saratoga Race Course for the 158th running of the Belmont Stakes — the final jewel of American horse racing's Triple Crown, and the race horsemen have called "The Test of the Champion" for well over a century. Among them is Golden Tempo, the 23-1 longshot who stunned Churchill Downs at the Kentucky Derby five weeks ago, now setting his sights on a prize that only twelve horses in history have ever claimed without the Triple Crown on the line.
A Race Older Than the Triple Crown Itself
The Belmont Stakes predates the very concept of the Triple Crown. When financier and sportsman August Belmont Sr. inaugurated the race at Jerome Park in the Bronx on June 19, 1867 — six years before the first Preakness and eight years before the first Kentucky Derby — it stood alone as New York's ultimate test of thoroughbred excellence. A filly named Ruthless won that inaugural running, one of only three fillies ever to do so. The race migrated to Morris Park in 1890, then settled into its legendary home at Belmont Park in 1905, where it remained for more than a century before a $455 million renovation forced the event to Saratoga beginning in 2024. Tonight marks the third and final time Saratoga hosts the race; Belmont Park is expected to reopen this fall.
The storylines converging at the starting gate are as rich as any in the race's 158-year history. Golden Tempo's trainer, Cherie DeVaux — a Saratoga Springs native who returns tonight to her hometown track — made history at Churchill Downs as the first woman ever to train a Kentucky Derby winner. Her colt, a son of Curlin bred by Phipps Stable and St. Elias Stable, ran last for most of the Derby before jockey Jose Ortiz asked him to run. He did. Golden Tempo skipped the Preakness to preserve his energy for tonight's 1¼-mile challenge, a strategic gamble that puts him face-to-face with Kentucky Derby runner-up Renegade, installed as the 2-1 morning-line favorite by oddsmakers who believe the Derby result remains unsettled.
What the Belmont has always done — across Jerome Park and Morris Park, across Belmont and Aqueduct and now Saratoga — is separate ambition from greatness. Only thirteen horses have ever won the Triple Crown. Secretariat's 1973 Belmont, run 31 lengths ahead of the field in a world record that still stands, remains the most celebrated single performance in American racing history. Tonight won't produce a Triple Crown. But it may produce something nearly as rare: a Derby winner who dared the long wait, trusted the strategy, and answered the oldest question in American sport. Post time is 7:04 p.m. ET on FOX.