Jose Ortiz joins rare Oaks-Derby double club with Churchill Downs sweep

Jose Ortiz turned Derby weekend into a rarity that will sit beside the sport’s biggest names. By winning the Kentucky Oaks on Always a Runner and the Kentucky Derby on Golden Tempo, Ortiz joined only eight other jockeys in history to sweep both races in the same year, and only Calvin Borel and Brian Hernandez Jr. had done it in the 21st century before him.

The Oaks ride showed Ortiz at his sharpest. Always a Runner, a 5-1 shot trained by Chad Brown and owned by Three Chimneys Farm and Douglas Scharbauer, handled 1 1/8 miles on a fast track in 1:48.62 and paid $13.04 to win. She beat a field of 13 fillies by 1 1/4 lengths, remained undefeated, and did it in just her third career start. Ortiz said afterward that the race unfolded the way he and Brown had mapped it, with the filly able to sit behind the right horse and unleash her best run when it mattered most. For Brown, it was his first Kentucky Oaks victory and a breakthrough on the sport’s biggest spring stage.

Ortiz returned the next day for an even bigger spotlight and delivered again. Golden Tempo, a 23-1 colt trained by Cherie DeVaux, broke from the back, sat last early and did not launch until the stretch in the 152nd Kentucky Derby. Ortiz threaded him through traffic, picked off rivals one by one and got up by a neck over Renegade, with Ocelli third, in 2:02.27 over a fast track. The win made DeVaux the first woman ever to train a Kentucky Derby winner and gave Ortiz the most complete weekend of his career.

The sweep carried clear business and cultural weight for Churchill Downs, too. The 2026 Kentucky Oaks was shown in primetime on NBC and Peacock for the first time, with coverage beginning at 8:00 p.m. ET and post time at 8:40 p.m. ET, and the move helped fuel a record Oaks day with $89 million in all-sources wagering. The Oaks race alone generated about $29.2 million in handle, a record for the event.

For Ortiz, a 32-year-old from Puerto Rico, the weekend also marked a personal milestone that went beyond the tote board. He rode five winners on Oaks Day, including Corporate Power in the Alysheba and Kathynmarissa in the Modesty, and later called the stretch of victories the product of 15 years of work and trust in his own judgment. At Churchill Downs, where the margins are thin and the pressure is relentless, Ortiz did more than win twice. He positioned himself squarely among America’s most trusted big-race riders.