Belmont Stakes 2026: Golden Tempo and the Phipps Dynasty

The 2026 Belmont Stakes runs Saturday, June 6, at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York, with a 7:04 p.m. ET post time. The 158th running of the "Test of the Champion" closes out the Triple Crown season, and for the third straight year it will be contested at 1 ¼ miles instead of the traditional 1 ½ while Belmont Park finishes a $575 million renovation. This is the final Belmont at Saratoga before the race returns to a rebuilt Belmont Park in 2027, which gives the afternoon a little extra weight.

It also hands one family a storyline a century in the making. Golden Tempo, the colt who rallied from last to win the 2026 Kentucky Derby, was bred by Phipps Stable and races in partnership with Vinnie Viola's St. Elias Stable. The Phipps name does not simply appear in this year's program. It runs straight through the spine of American racing for the past hundred years.

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The Phipps Dynasty's Hundred-Year Quest: Golden Tempo in a Century of Racing Royalty

A Dynasty That Started at Saratoga

In 1925, Gladys Mills Phipps walked into the Saratoga yearling sale and bought a filly named Sturdy Stella. That filly delivered the first win the following winter, and the year after, in 1926, Mrs. Phipps founded Wheatley Stable with her brother, Ogden Livingston Mills. Their horses ran in purple and gold silks and were raised at Claiborne Farm in Kentucky.

The family behind those silks combined two of the great Gilded Age fortunes. Mrs. Phipps was a granddaughter of Darius Ogden Mills, a banker who rode the Gold Rush to Wall Street, and she married into the family of Henry Phipps, a childhood friend and steel-business partner of Andrew Carnegie. When her son Ogden Phipps registered his own colors in the 1930s, the famous black silks with the cherry cap, the family was effectively running two powerhouse operations at once.

A hundred years after that first Saratoga purchase, the scope of what she started is hard to overstate. Across four generations, the Phipps family has bred more than 300 stakes winners. A remarkable 29 of them were champions, and eight reached the Hall of Fame, including Seabiscuit, Bold Ruler, Buckpasser, Easy Goer, and Personal Ensign.

The Horses That Built Racing Royalty

If you want a single horse to explain Phipps influence, start with Bold Ruler. Bred and raced by Wheatley Stable, he was the 1957 Horse of the Year, a Preakness winner, and later one of the most dominant sires the sport has ever seen, topping the North American sire list eight times. He sired Secretariat, and in a piece of racing lore that still stings, the Phippses actually won the 1969 coin toss that split a pair of Bold Ruler foals with Penny Chenery's Meadow Stable, then spent their first pick on a filly named The Bride, who never won a race. The colt they passed on became Secretariat.

Even the one that got away tells the story. Seabiscuit was bred by Wheatley, then sold off before he grew into a national folk hero and beat War Admiral in 1938. The wins the family kept are a murderers' row in their own right. Ogden Phipps campaigned Buckpasser, the 1966 Horse of the Year, and Personal Ensign, who retired a perfect 13-for-13 after running down Kentucky Derby winner Winning Colors by a nose in the 1988 Breeders' Cup Distaff in the final start of her career.

Think of the operation less like a stable and more like a library of bloodlines. The real engine has always been the broodmare families, cultivated and protected for decades. The Phippses bought into the legendary La Troienne female line through E.R. Bradley's stock, and that single decision still echoes through pedigrees all over the sport today.

Here is the hundred-year arc at a glance:

The Quest for the Classics

For all of that success, the Triple Crown races stayed stubbornly out of reach for a long time. Bold Ruler gave Wheatley the 1957 Preakness, but he ran third in the Belmont and fourth in the Derby. The Belmont, the New York classic the family wanted most, did not come until 1989.

That is the year Easy Goer turned the tables. After two gut-wrenching defeats to Sunday Silence in the Derby and the Preakness, the New York-bred colt came home to Belmont Park and crushed his rival by eight lengths, denying Sunday Silence the Triple Crown. It was the elusive first American Classic victory for 80-year-old Ogden Phipps, on the track the family always considered home.

The Kentucky Derby asked for even more patience. For nearly nine decades the family bred Derby-caliber runners without ever winning the first Saturday in May, Easy Goer's near-miss very much included. The drought finally broke in 2013, when Orb, bred and owned by Phipps Stable in partnership with first cousin Stuart Janney III, rallied from 17th place to win by two and a half lengths. It gave Ogden Mills "Dinny" Phipps and Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey their first Derby, a win widely celebrated as a triumph for the old-school owner-breeder.

Their Fingerprints Are Everywhere

The family's reach goes well past the winner's circle. Dinny Phipps chaired The Jockey Club for more than three decades, helping steer the sport's rulebook, registry, and integrity efforts from the top. On the breeding side, Bold Ruler's male line carries forward through modern giants like Tapit and Flightline, and the Phipps broodmare families sit quietly behind champions in barns that have nothing else to do with the family.

The next generation is already in the picture. Daisy Phipps Pulito and her siblings now steward Phipps Stable, and Ogden Phipps II, who watched Easy Goer as a 12-year-old in 1989, sits on NYRA's board of directors. The silks change hands, but the philosophy does not: breed the best to the best, be patient, and only run a horse when it belongs.

Golden Tempo and the 2026 Belmont Betting Angle

Which brings us back to Saturday. Golden Tempo is a son of two-time Horse of the Year Curlin out of the Phipps mare Carrumba, whose female line traces back four generations within the family. He is trained by Cherie DeVaux, who became the first woman to train a Kentucky Derby winner when Golden Tempo split horses down the center of the track and got up by a neck on May 2. Jose Ortiz rides.

For Belmont morning-line odds, he is the 9-2 third choice from post 9. Derby runner-up Renegade is the 2-1 favorite from post 4 for Todd Pletcher, and Bill Mott's Chief Wallabee is the 3-1 second choice from post 3.

Here is where the handicapping gets interesting. The shortened Saratoga Belmont is run at 1 ¼ miles, which is the exact distance of the Kentucky Derby. Golden Tempo has already won at that trip against this generation's best, so the distance question that often haunts Belmont closers simply does not apply to him. Think of it less like a fresh test and more like a rematch on a track he has already conquered.

There is also a family signature worth noting. The great Phipps horses tend to win from off the pace. Easy Goer ran them down, Orb came from 17th, and Golden Tempo closed from dead last in the Derby. A late-running style is almost the house specialty, and a closer is exactly the profile that thrives when the field is small and the early pace is honest. The outside post 9 looks like a negative on paper, but it matters far less for a horse who is dropping back and making one sustained run anyway.

So the value read is this. At 9-2, you are getting the actual Derby winner as only the third choice, sitting behind a horse he already beat at the wire in Renegade and a horse who finished behind him in Chief Wallabee. That is closer to a value play than a chalk bet, especially at a distance he has proven he handles.

And the bigger prize is the kind of milestone that does not come around often. Easy Goer won the Belmont but never the Derby. Orb won the Derby but never the Belmont. A Golden Tempo victory Saturday would give the Phipps dynasty something neither of its legends ever managed: a single horse who won both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, delivered in the final Belmont ever run at Saratoga, exactly one hundred years after it all began.

Just bet with your head, not over it. Spreading a deep closer like Golden Tempo underneath in exactas and trifectas, rather than relying on him to wire a small field, is usually the smarter way to play a horse who needs the race to come back to him.

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Frequently Asked Questions: 2026 Belmont Stakes

Who is the morning line favorite for the 2026 Belmont Stakes?

Renegade, trained by Todd Pletcher and ridden by Irad Ortiz Jr., is the 2-1 morning line favorite for the 2026 Belmont Stakes. Renegade draws from post position 4 in the 9-horse field. Chief Wallabee, also trained by a top conditioner and ridden by Junior Alvarado out of post 3, is the second choice at 3-1, followed by Golden Tempo at 9-2. You can bet on the Belmont Stakes morning line favorite and the full field at FanDuel Racing.

When and where is the 2026 Belmont Stakes and what time is post time?

The 158th running of the Belmont Stakes takes place on Saturday, June 6, 2026, at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York. Post time for The Test of the Champion is 7:04 p.m. ET. This is the third and final year the race will be held at Saratoga while Belmont Park undergoes a full reconstruction project. The race is contested at 1¼ miles due to the configuration of Saratoga's main track, shorter than the traditional 1½-mile distance at Belmont Park. The Belmont Stakes will return to a newly reimagined Belmont Park beginning in 2027. New FanDuel Racing users can place their first bet of $10 and get $50 back in Racing Bonus ahead of race day.

How can I bet on the 2026 Belmont Stakes and are there any promotions available?

You can bet on the 2026 Belmont Stakes winner and all associated wagering markets at FanDuel Racing. Belmont Stakes odds are available across win, place, show, exacta, trifecta, and superfecta markets. New FanDuel Racing users can take advantage of a promotional offer where you place your first bet of $10 on any race at any track and receive $50 back in Racing Bonus. Additional 2026 Belmont Stakes promos are available on FanDuel Racing. The full morning line odds for all 9 horses, including the 2-1 favorite Renegade and longshots Vitruvian Man at 30-1 and Ottinho at 20-1 — are listed above. Stay updated on live Belmont Stakes odds (fanduel.com/belmont-stakes-odds) as they shift ahead of the Saturday, June 6 post time.

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The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author's advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.