Golden Tempo, a 23-1 long shot, ran from dead last to first to win the 152nd Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on Saturday in two minutes and 2.27 seconds. Jose Ortiz piloted the colt past his older brother Irad, who was riding the 5-1 favorite Renegade, in the final yards of the stretch. The crowd reached 150,415. The track was sealed. Cherie DeVaux, who saddled Golden Tempo, became the first woman to train a Kentucky Derby winner. [1][2]

She is also only the second woman to train any Triple Crown winner. The first was Jena Antonucci, with Arcangelo, in the 2023 Belmont. DeVaux is the eighteenth woman ever to saddle a horse in the Derby. [3]

The May 2 paper previewed Renegade running from post one on a sealed track, with Ferdinand-1986 as the only PP1-favorite-wins precedent on a sealed surface. The frame held — the precedent broke from the other direction. Ferdinand won from the one in 1986. Renegade lost from the one in 2026. The sealed track did its work. It just did it on the favorite, not the long shot.

The Race

Golden Tempo broke from post fourteen and settled to the back of the field by the first turn. Through the back stretch, he was last or second-to-last in the twenty-horse field. The pace was honest — fractions of 22.4 and 46.1 — exactly the kind of early speed Renegade had been bred to follow from the one. Renegade tracked, rolled wide on the far turn, and was clear at the eighth pole. He was leading the Derby with a furlong to go.

Then Golden Tempo arrived. Jose Ortiz had been saving ground all day, swung outside through the lane, and produced a finishing run the colt had only hinted at in his Florida Derby third. The closing eighth was 12.9 seconds — fast for a sealed track in May. Renegade had nothing for it. The wire came at the end of a head-bob that did not require a photo: Golden Tempo by a neck, with Renegade second and the longshot Pat the Beach third. [1][4]

The brother dynamic is the one the broadcast camera caught. Jose, three years younger than Irad, has been chasing his brother's career for two decades. Irad has six Eclipse Awards. Jose has none. Irad won the 2017 Belmont. Jose has now won the Derby Irad rode the favorite to lose. [4]

DeVaux

Cherie DeVaux's path is the story Sunday papers will tell. She started as a stable worker. She apprenticed under trainers who would not put their best horses with a woman. She acquired her trainer's license in 2018. She built a small barn in Kentucky and won a Grade 1 in 2021. She accepted Golden Tempo into the barn after the colt's previous trainer dismissed him as "lazy." She trained him through the winter at Payson Park in Florida, ran him third in the Florida Derby — a result that made nobody put him on a top-ten list. [3][5]

She told NBC Sports after the race that the difference between training fillies and colts is the difference between conversation and argument. "Golden Tempo argued with me until February. Then he asked me what I thought." [3] The line has the cadence of a horseman who has watched a thousand mornings and a few afternoons.

The eighteenth woman to saddle a Derby horse, and the first to walk a winner into the rose blanket. The 1992 record had stood — Shelley Riley with Casual Lies, second to Lil E. Tee. DeVaux did not just match Riley's nearest finish. She took the page off the record book and wrote a different page.

The Sealed Track

The sealed-track regime is now the operating fact of the Kentucky Derby. Churchill Downs introduced the post-2023 fatality reforms — closer racing-surface monitoring, expanded pre-race veterinary clearance, deeper cushion specifications — after the 2023 Derby week saw seven equine deaths in two weeks. The 2024 Derby ran the new regime. The 2025 Derby ran a modified version. The 2026 Derby is the third running under the full architecture, and the third in which the surface has produced a result that PP1 favorites would have found friendlier in the old regime.

The X reading — that the sealed track suppressed Renegade's tactical front-running and tilted the field toward late-arriving closers — is the technical version of what the sealed track was designed to do. A safer surface absorbs more sprint speed than the old loose-cushion track did, and the energy budget for an early-pace horse runs out earlier in the stretch. Golden Tempo's late kick was the kick the surface allowed.

What This Settles

Three things settle on Sunday. The first-female-trainer record is now held by an American, in the most-watched race in the sport, on a sealed track in front of 150,415 fans. The DeVaux-Antonucci pairing — Belmont 2023, Derby 2026 — converts a single milestone into a pattern. The Triple Crown calendar will not unsee the pattern.

The brother-Ortiz race is now a specific historical artifact. Jose Ortiz has the ride that Irad will spend his next twenty years not being asked about and being asked about constantly. The 2017 Belmont (Irad on Tapwrit) and the 2026 Derby (Jose on Golden Tempo) sit on the family ledger as exact mirrors.

The Renegade-from-the-one frame breaks. The May 2 paper held that the sealed track favored disciplined speed; the favorite carried that bet. The bet lost. A 23-1 closer with a closer's pedigree and a trainer the establishment had under-counted ran past the favorite who had been engineered for the surface. Engineered favorites lose the Derby, the old saying runs. The surface engineering only changed the coefficient.

DeVaux, asked at the trophy presentation how she would celebrate, said she would feed the horse breakfast and then go home. Sunday morning, breakfast went out at five-thirty. The Derby winner ate it. He had earned it.

-- AMARA OKONKWO, Lagos