The Golden Tempo Encore, Saratoga Payouts, and My HP5
Posted by Pat Hathaway | June 9, 2026
The Central Coast fog is thick this morning, but the mood in the Hathaway household is pure sunshine. I’m nursing a black coffee, icing the lower back, and counting the payout slips from what turned out to be a wildly historic weekend in upstate New York.
Golden Tempo and Dan’s Favorite Trap
If you followed my
Belmont Stakes preview last week, you know Big Boy Dan was hyperventilating over the post position draw. When the dust settled on Saturday, Dan completely abandoned his gut instinct and threw his entire bankroll at the 8-5 favorite,
Renegade.
I told him it was a trap. Renegade had the hype, but Saratoga’s tight 1 1/4-mile track is a different beast. I went right back to my Kentucky Derby golden goose,
Golden Tempo, sitting beautifully at 6-1 odds.
Watching Jose Ortiz hold Golden Tempo back for the first mile, only to unleash an absolute monster of a closing sprint to win the 158th Belmont Stakes, was pure poetry. Cherie DeVaux made history again, and I made a very comfortable withdrawal. Dan, meanwhile, watched Renegade fade to third.
“The track bias lied to me, Pat. Renegade got pinched. It’s a statistical anomaly.”
Right, Dan. You can review the “anomalies” and official race charts over on
ESPN’s horse racing coverage, but the reality is that house money just paid for my gas tank for the rest of the summer.
Silver Halides in the Hub
With the betting accounts properly padded, I’ve been spending the last few days completely disconnected from the digital world, focusing on the historical side of things. I finally finished scanning the last batch of Ilford HP5 negatives from my Eastern Sierra ghost town run.
Shooting fully manual with the old Nikon F3 forces a level of discipline that modern sensors just don’t demand. The organic grain structure on these 35mm negatives is stunning. The rust, the cracked timber, the sheer texture of the desert—it all translates perfectly through the silver halides.
I’ve uploaded the full high-resolution scans directly to the
California Views Gallery Hub. Judge Roy Bacon has already replied to my email blast, officially proclaiming that I have “found my soul again.” I didn’t tell him I was uploading the analog scans via a high-speed fiber connection funded by cloud computing.
The Cloud Computing Cushion
Speaking of funding, the tech portfolio is still serving as the ultimate shock absorber. While Dan is licking his wounds and blaming Saratoga’s dirt composition for his financial woes, my core positions in
AMZN and
MSFT are humming.
The artificial intelligence infrastructure boom is simply relentless. You can look at the latest data center capital expenditure reports on
Bloomberg Technology, and it’s clear the heavy hitters are playing a decade-long game. I’m riding this wave with diamond hands, letting the AI revolution bankroll my vintage camera habits and my weekend ATV runs.
Comments
BigBoyDan: Renegade got caught in traffic. If they ran at Belmont Park, he wins by four lengths. You got lucky, Pat.
JudgeRoy: The ghost town gallery is magnificent. Burn the plastic computer and stick to the Nikon.
Video Recommendation
If you missed the race, or if you just want to watch Dan’s bankroll evaporate in real-time, here is the full replay of Golden Tempo’s epic closing surge at Saratoga.
158th Belmont Stakes Replay – Golden Tempo (YouTube)
