Kentucky Derby Winner Golden Tempo to Skip the Preakness Stakes

No horse will win the Triple Crown in 2026, as trainer Cherie DeVaux has decided to skip the Preakness Stakes at Laurel Park on Saturday, May 16, with Kentucky Derby winner Golden Tempo and point him directly to the Belmont Stakes instead. She made the announcement Wednesday afternoon, saying that she wanted to give him “a little more time” after his effort in the Kentucky Derby, and that she would point him toward the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, June 6, at Saratoga.

This means that, for the eighth year in a row, there will not be another Triple Crown winner. However, the decision to bypass the Preakness is not unprecedented. Bill Mott did the same thing in 2025 with Sovereignty: despite the horse coming out of the Derby well, Mott pointed directly to the Belmont, and then Sovereignty won the Belmont in dominant fashion.

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Golden Tempo Racing Schedule

Unlike many of the horses who came into the Kentucky Derby off of four or five weeks’ rest, Golden Tempo had a six-week break between his final prep and the run for the roses, and his win in the Kentucky Derby suggests that he thrived on that rest.

Golden Tempo ran four times at the Fair Grounds meet: a debut maiden win on the Gun Runner Stakes undercard on December 20, a win in the Lecomte (G3) on January 17, a third-place finish in the Risen Star (G2) on February 14, and then another third in the Louisiana Derby (G2) on March 21. This was either four or five weeks between each of these races. Going straight to the Belmont Stakes gives him five weeks after the Kentucky Derby, a race spacing that will be familiar to Golden Tempo and more in line with how a lot of modern trainers campaign graded-stakes horses, instead of the two-week turnaround to the Preakness.

In her statement, DeVaux said she wanted to give him “a little more time following such a tremendous effort. His health, happiness, and long-term future will always remain our top priority.”

History of Kentucky Derby Winners Skipping the Preakness

The outlook on skipping the Preakness Stakes has shifted significantly compared to 2019, when it came as such a surprise that Bill Mott would not run Kentucky Derby winner Country House in the second jewel of the Triple Crown. After all, even though people had suggested through the 2000s and early 2010s that maybe the Triple Crown races were so close together that it would never be done again, both American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018 showed it could still happen.

However, by 2019, horse racing fans had come to assume that the Kentucky Derby winners would roll on to the Preakness. After all, the last horse before Country House to win the roses and then skip the Preakness was Grindstone in 1996, who came out of the Kentucky Derby with bone chips in his knees and needed treatment.

Early History of the Triple Crown

It hadn’t always been that way. In the early days of the Kentucky Derby, before the Triple Crown races were considered as a unified series, it was not seen as obligatory to run in both. Sometimes the Kentucky Derby was run after the Preakness, and in 1917 and 1922, the races were even on the same day. Even so, if you just look at the years when the Preakness was run after the Kentucky Derby, between 1875 and 1959, 47 Kentucky Derby winners did not go to the Preakness.

The Preakness as de Rigueur Is a More Recent Trend

However, since 1959, only eight Derby winners have skipped the Preakness Stakes. Every Kentucky Derby winner from 1960 through 1981 ran in the Preakness. Between 1982 and 2018, only Gato Del Sol (1982), Spend a Buck (1985), and Grindstone (1996) skipped the second leg of the Triple Crown.

Five of those eight Kentucky Derby winners to have skipped the Preakness since 1959 have come since 2019: Country House (2019), Mandaloun (2021), Rich Strike (2022), Sovereignty (2025), and now Golden Tempo.

Country House got sick after the Kentucky Derby and ultimately never raced again. Mandaloun was an even more uncommon case: he was still considered the second-place finisher at the time, as it was just coming out that Bob Baffert trainee Medina Spirit had a positive drug test after the Kentucky Derby, and it took years of testing and litigation before it was made final to disqualify Medina Spirit and put Mandaloun up.

However, Rich Strike and Sovereignty skipped the Preakness Stakes for similar reasons to Sovereignty: because their trainers thought it would be a better spot. For Rich Strike, the stated reason was more about the 1 ½-mile distance, something Eric Reed thought would suit him better, though he went on to finish sixth behind Mo Donegal. For Sovereignty and Golden Tempo, they’re both racing during the Belmont’s visit to Saratoga, where it’s run at 1 ¼ miles just like the Kentucky Derby, but the five-week spacing is more in line with their training styles. The decision to go to the Belmont worked out well for Sovereignty, who won impressively.

New Shooters and Preakness Success

In parallel with this renewed trend of horses winning the Kentucky Derby and then skipping the Preakness, horses who did not run in the Kentucky Derby are shining in the Preakness in recent years.

The last two Kentucky Derby winners to win the Preakness have been the last two Triple Crown winners, American Pharoah (2015) and Justify (2018). Only one Kentucky Derby entrant has won the Preakness since Justify: in 2019, War of Will bounced back from a troubled trip in Louisville, KY, to win at Pimlico Race Course.

From 2019 through 2024, no Kentucky Derby runner won the Preakness, though some hit the board. Mystik Dan was second to Seize the Grey in 2024, and Mage was third to National Treasure in 2024. A Kentucky Derby horse returned to the Preakness winners’ circle in 2025 for the first time since Justify’s Triple Crown triumph in 2018: Journalism, who was second to Sovereignty at Churchill Downs, ran down Gosger to take the blanket of black-eyed susans.

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