Kentucky Derby: A leap of faith, a 23-1 long shot, and history — Cherie DeVaux’s Derby moment

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Back when she was in college, a pre-med student in Albany (NY), it was never part of Cherie DeVaux’s plan to become the first female trainer to win the most famous horse race in the world. 

Despite coming from a lineage full of harness racing trainers and drivers, including her father Butch, it seemed like young Cherie was going to carve a different path. For many families, a young woman leaving behind a potential career as a physician to get a low-paying job walking horses might seem like a crisis. 

For the DeVaux clan, it was destiny. 

“She got a job as a hot walker and that was it,” her mother, Janet DeVaux, told Yahoo Sports. “She went. She’s a go-getter. I was proud of her and the rest of the family, following along in their footsteps.

“And out of all of us horsemen, she made it. She did it.” 

Did she ever. 

On a chilly Saturday, after a little more than 2 minutes and 2 seconds of an unforgettable Kentucky Derby, DeVaux walked onto the racetrack at Churchill Downs with tears streaming down her cheeks and a baby in her arms. Her sister Adrianne, also a Thoroughbred trainer, was shaking. Her friends and family, many of whom drove down in a van from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., were screaming with joy and disbelief. 

Golden Tempo, one of the more overlooked horses in the 152nd Kentucky Derby, had just come from dead last under jockey Jose Ortiz to win at odds of 23-1. Last by more than 20 lengths early on, he had swept past most of field and followed Renegade — ridden by Jose’s brother Irad Ortiz — before veering outside him for the final furlong. 

And as it became clear Golden Tempo was going to pass him, out-finishing Renegade by a neck with long shot Ocelli third, DeVaux lifted herself over the wall of the box where she was watching, kicking her legs like a swimmer trying to win an Olympic medal before a primal scream as her horse crossed the wire in front. 

“At the 3/16 pole, I thought we were probably going to win this,” she said. “And then I really kind of blacked out.” 

For those who have followed horse racing over the last five years, it is no surprise that DeVaux, 44, was the one to break the glass ceiling. Starting in 2023, when horses like Vahva and She Feels Pretty came out of her barn and started picking off graded stakes, DeVaux’s career has been a rocket ship.

Though it took her more than a year to win her first race after going out on her own as a trainer in 2018, it did not take long after that for her horsemanship to get noticed on the backside. That led to more owners and better stock. In 2024, her horses won more than $10 million on the racetrack. It was also when Daisy Phipps Pulito — whose father Dinny Phipps and grandfather Ogden Phipps operated one of the iconic stables of the 21st century — started to put some of their regally-bred horses in her barn.

“I love the way she works with horses,” Phipps Pulito said. “I love the way she develops a horse. We thought Golden Tempo would be a great match, and it was.” 

Though plenty of female trainers have had success in American racing including Jena Antonucci, who won the Belmont Stakes in 2023 with Arcangelo, there’s no doubt that the backside is a male-dominated world. 

Training is a hard, all-consuming job. Days off are almost nonexistent. Beyond the ability to connect with and understand a horse, you have to run a business. And, of course, you have to win. 

Michael Reaves via Getty Images

When DeVaux left the powerhouse barn of Chad Brown to start her own stable, there were no guarantees. Her husband David Ingordo, a bloodstock agent, told her to give it three years. If it didn’t work out, she could do something else. That was never an option. 

“Being a woman has never really crossed my mind in this journey,” she said. “The racetrack is a tough place if you’re a man. It’s a tough place if you’re a woman. The thing that really has become apparent to me is not everyone has the same constitution as I have mentally. And it’s really an honor to be that person for other women or other little girls to look up to. You can dream big and you can pivot. You can come from one place and make yourself a part of history.”

Horse racing has had a lot of tough days over the last decade. This was one of its best looks. 

Here you had a young woman wearing a bright red blazer leading a Kentucky Derby winner into the winners’ circle. You had Irad Ortiz, the more celebrated of the Ortiz brothers, reaching out to grab Jose’s arm in celebration after barely getting out-finished in the race they both wanted desperately to win. And you had a long shot in Golden Tempo putting together the kind of stretch run that reminds people how thrilling and unpredictable this sport can be. 

“She’s not just a trainer, she’s a horse person and I think that’s what the sport needs,” one of DeVaux’s best friends, Alysse Jacobs, said. “She cares about the animal. She treats each of her horses like an individual. She knows them and she loves them, and I think it goes a long way in making these horses really thrive, really become themselves.”

And now DeVaux isn’t just horse racing’s secret. She’s a superstar. 

But one of those moments Jacobs talked about occurred early during Derby week. Golden Tempo was suffering from cracked heels, a minor condition that would be similar to chapped lips for a human — annoying and perhaps uncomfortable, but not a big deal. 

After his Monday gallop, where he didn’t look quite 100 percent, an intense DeVaux brought him out of the stall and watched him intently as he walked up and down a path. She felt his legs for any heat, a sign of inflammation. And unlike most trainers, who tend to cover up little issues until they are unavoidable, she was honest and forthcoming with the public about what was going on. 

In the aftermath, DeVaux went easy on the horse for a few days, just jogging him rather than giving him a full gallop — one of those intuitive moves many trainers would not make preparing for the biggest race of their life. 

For someone who never intended to be a trainer in the first place, it was pretty impressive stuff. 

“She has done such a great job with the horse and absolutely picking up the dynamic and making sure he was prepped to run how he does,” her sister, Adrianne, said. “He goes out the back door and makes his run. It’s amazing. It’s the pinnacle. This is what we watched on TV growing up. You cry over the stories. She started with one horse and it just means everything. I don’t have words.”

Not too bad for someone who never intended to be a trainer and just fell into it, one little step at a time.

“She started underneath us,” Butch DeVaux said. “I trained horses for 47 years and she was brought up that way. She jumped the fence to Thoroughbreds. Really proud of her.”

In some ways, the whole horse racing industry is. It was obvious to anyone watching the last few years how good DeVaux is, how much of an impact she was going to make in big races and what a feel-good story it would be for horse racing if a woman won the biggest prize of all. But to do it this quickly, in her first Kentucky Derby, is beyond what anyone could have imagined. 

“None of us really can believe it,” she said. “There was a joke that I’m going to be a one-and-done. But now I think I’m going to have to do this again.”