Golden Tempo Is Keeping Time to a Brand-New Tune

When tradition gives way to practicality, institutions are known to fall, which is a wordy way of saying adios to the Triple Crown as the game has known it since 1969. That is when the two weeks between the Kentucky Derby (G1) and the Preakness Stakes (G1) and three weeks between the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes (G1) took the first step toward what became institutionalized timing. After a while, with television calling the tune, the idea of shifting dates became as unlikely as switching Christmas to January. Now, havoc reigns, and the future of the Triple Crown schedule is up for grabs. The emergence of Golden Tempo as this year's version of Sovereignty has accelerated the process, as for the second straight year a colt of gritty superiority who might have joined the immortals was held back from making anything other than admirable history. It certainly does not bother the people involved. Bill Mott has yet to lose a second's sleep for withholding Godolphin's Sovereignty from the 2025 Preakness, following the colt's victory over Journalism and Baeza in the Kentucky Derby. As for owner Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai, winning a Preakness probably ranks closer to breeding another champion camel than reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Cherie DeVaux took a page from the Mott playbook—never a bad thing--and deployed the "best for the horse" justification for passing on the Preakness after Golden Tempo scored a thriller over Renegade May 3 in the 152nd Kentucky Derby. The fact that the son of Curlin was able to replicate his Derby form in the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Race Course five weeks later has provided his people with the luxury of telling themselves they did the right thing. Maybe they did. We'll never know. Lay the blame where you will, but the series simply has not survived as designed since the pandemic season of 2020 twisted the Triple Crown into an unrecognizable shape. Since then, no horse has come close to lighting a fire under the Crown, although 2024 Derby winner Mystik Dan did finish a noble yet firmly beaten second in his Preakness attempt. From 2000 on, there have been 13 Derby winners try the Preakness and fail. (The tragic Barbaro, one of those 13, gets a pass). Through the three previous decades, a similar trend unfolded, to no one's surprise. But with the exception of Gato del Sol, in 1982, every Derby winner was at least given a shot at the second jewel. However, failure in the modern racing culture is not tolerated, except for the occasional quirky loser that catches the fancy of generous fans. Social media platforms, weekly polls, and top 10 lists fuel the almost daily, granular examination of North American racehorses. Two-year-olds begin accumulating points for the 2027 Kentucky Derby barely three months from now, before there is even time to pass final judgment on the 3-year-olds of 2026. Such scrutiny can tend to make even the most independently minded owners and trainers risk-averse, especially when future stallion deals or huge mare sales are in the mix. The passion for the Derby will never wane (it's in the Constitution), and the Belmont Stakes will always have New York going for it, either upstate or down. But the Preakness, the middle child of the Crown, is in jeopardy of going full Fredo Corleone if steps are not taken. This is the same Preakness once considered a lucrative target with a purse greater than either the Derby or the Belmont. But then, as the mystery of winning the Triple Crown deepened during the post-Affirmed years, the Preakness became truly important to only the Derby winner. Today, viewed with a clear eye, the achievement of winning the Triple Crown seems only significant to a racing media hungry for attention and to a cadre of diehard fans who cling to their youthful memories. For the folks who actually put up the massive investment, along with the blood, sweat, and tears, maybe not so much. No one broke a sweat in the late 1950s and early '60s when the gap between the Preakness and the Belmont hopped from four weeks to three weeks to two weeks and back to three. They were the richest races for the 3-year-old division, and only a fool with one of the good ones would sit them out. Even today, winning a race like the Preakness should be its own reward. Sadly, with its place on the calendar, that is no longer a compelling argument for participation. If the sport wants to reinvigorate the Triple Crown as a precious piece of the racing landscape, the conversation requires clarity. There is a distinct difference between the Triple Crown as a series of three challenging races from which competitors can pick and choose—the current model—and the accomplishment of a single horse winning all three races, which requires a commitment deeply unattractive to the vast majority of those playing at the top of the game. Restoring the prestige of the Preakness—and with it the Triple Crown—calls for the same kind of concession to the passage of time that finds new grandstands rising from the rubble of the outdated structures where the Preakness and Belmont have lived. The races themselves deserve the same kind of freshening. And rest assured, no matter when the races are run, it will never not be hard to win the Triple Crown. *** Then again, as long as a pair like Cherie DeVaux and Golden Tempo are front and center, Thoroughbred racing doesn't need a Holy Grail. Their achievements have been buoyed to popular heights by factors apart from the traditional rites of spring. Golden Tempo's co-owners represent demographics long revered in a sport that requires ridiculous investment. Vinnie and Teresa Viola, aka the St. Elias Stable, became seriously involved in buying racehorses in the early 2000s with West Point Thoroughbreds, while their partner, Daisy Phipps Pulito, nurtures a classic racing and breeding enterprise established by her great-grandmother, Gladys Mills Phipps, more than a century ago. Golden Tempo did his part by having the good taste to be foaled and raised at Claiborne Farm, a national racing treasure. As for the trainer, at 44, DeVaux falls neatly into the role of senior Millennial, wise to the ways of an older Gen X while hip to the era in which Gen Z has rewritten the rules of communication and creative engagement. Making sports history as the first woman to train a Derby winner was one thing. But going back to your hometown to take a temporarily displaced Belmont Stakes was entirely another. I'm guessing DeVaux hasn't paid for a drink in Saratoga Springs for quite a while, and now there's probably a street with her name in the works. DeVaux Avenue sounds about right. For all the time it takes to train and travel with her Thoroughbreds, DeVaux also seems to find space to help service a growing network of social media engagements promoted by friends, fans, and family. Add to that a resource like New York-based Rasi Harper of Real Players Inside the Backstretch and his 440,000 Facebook followers, who has been on the Golden Tempo story from early on, filling his feed with an almost daily diet of interviews with those associated with the colt. And now comes Horse Racing Kings, the K-Pop of racing's social media rage, also known to the gang down at Maple Avenue Middle School in Saratoga Springs as those three oddballs who hang around the racetrack. Well, young Brendan Yates, Marcus Hakewill, and Owen Metwally are getting the last laugh. Their rise as guerilla racing video journalists has happily coincided with the national emergence of local star DeVaux. Attired in sharp seersucker jackets or brilliant Oaks Day pink, the trio of seventh graders has taken the digital waves by storm with their innocent ambushes and surprising access. Yates, Hakewill, and Metwally have been pals since first grade and racing fans for at least that long. In addition to this year's Derby, they made their way to Laurel Park for the Preakness, then back home for the Belmont and a world-class photo bomb of a post-race DeVaux interview. Their ambition is invigorating, so try them on for fun, and for a healthy dose of hope for the future.