DeVaux says no Preakness decision yet for Golden Tempo

Louisville, Ky.

Cherie DeVaux may be new to winning the Kentucky Derby, but she sounded Sunday morning like she had been there and done that when she was asked about taking Golden Tempo to Preakness Stakes 2026.

“He’s going to leave for Keeneland,” DeVaux said outside her Churchill Downs barn. “We’ll get him back there. We’ll assess how he’s doing, and as long as he’s in tip-top shape, we’ll talk about it. It is on the table, but it’s really up to him.”

DeVaux makes history with Kentucky Derby win.

A little more than 12 hours after she became the first woman to train a Derby victory, DeVaux stopped short of committing her 23-1 long-shot winner to race May 16 at Laurel Park in the second jewel of the Triple Crown. She even played it straight down the middle when she took a ceremonial phone call to get the formal invitation to the Preakness.

“We’ll talk it over,” she told 1/ST Racing executives in Maryland, “and we’ll let you guys know.”

DeVaux said she had a celebratory dinner Saturday night at a downtown Louisville restaurant. She arrived at the barn Sunday shortly after 7 a.m. EDT to check on Golden Tempo and then speak to a few dozen media types on a chilly, sunny morning.

“I’m great,” she said. “I don’t know if the enormity of this has really sunk in, but had a wonderful night last night celebrating, and was easy to wake up with four hours of sleep and get here.”

After jockey José Ortiz rallied him from worst to first in the last half-mile of the Derby, Golden Tempo was said to be just fine on first blush Sunday.

“So far, so good,” DeVaux said. “We’ll get him out a bit later when it’s quiet, and we’ll give him a jog, but everything looks great right now.”

A Phipps Stable and St. Elias Stable homebred colt by Curlin out of Bernardini mare Carrumba, Golden Tempo has endured cracked heels on both front feet to run his record to 5: 3-0-2 with $3,433,000 in earnings.

DeVaux downplayed the condition and said she had been open about it with Kentucky state veterinarian Dr. Nick Smith and his team.

“It is a non-event,” she said. “I hope that if we take away anything when a trainer’s trying to give transparency, if you don’t know what to do with it, there’s Google. It’s not a big deal. I don’t want to minimize that we have a three-quarter shoe as well. These are what trainers do to prevent further issues. ... We have wonderful staff and a whole team behind us that we are watching these horses meticulously and addressing any small issues before they become big issues.”

At a time when regulatory vets are increasingly perceived as bogeymen lurking to scratch horses, DeVaux said she had no hesitation reaching out to Smith.

“I talked with Nick Smith before, in the beginning of the Keeneland meet (in early April), and I said, hey, I would like you to come and look at my horses,” DeVaux said. “I just want you to be comfortable, and I want myself to be comfortable when I go over there. We don’t have their job, and they don’t have my job, our job. So I think there’s a lot that we can do to make the process better. We came here, I was here a week out, but he looked at my horse the week before and they still scrutinize some things. But they’re just trying to be hyper aware and not make any mistakes, and that’s a large burden to put on them.”

DeVaux admitted she has been a big critic of the regulatory process, but she also said she understands the pressure that doctors face trying to balance safety with competition.

“It’s kind of unfair to chastise them about it,” she said. “They’re just trying, and we don’t have their job, and when something goes wrong, they’re the ones that have to shoulder that burden that maybe they failed the horse. I hope that there’s room for change, that we can make this a more fun week instead of holding your breath until the vet comes. This is all subjective as well. None of us want to be here and have a bad day or have something terrible happen. They were actually OK with me. We had a lot of open dialog, and they asked to do a few diagnostic things just to put their minds at ease, and it puts our mind at ease.”

Golden Tempo had six weeks off between his third-place finish in the Grade 1 Louisiana Derby and his triumph Saturday. DeVaux said that break might be a motivating factor when the Preakness decision is made.

“Obviously, this race is in two weeks,” DeVaux said. “It’s a lot different than what he’s done. He’s a horse that has a lot of constitution to him, so he can handle something like that. But if one day he just doesn’t look like he’s in tip-top shape, then we’ll pivot and come up with another plan.”

Although she would not pinpoint a decision date, DeVaux said Golden Tempo would have light exercise for the next three days at Keeneland after being vanned there late Sunday morning.

DeVaux weighed in on the debate about whether the Preakness should be pushed back a week or two going forward.

“It would make anyone’s decision easier, but that’s not the Triple Crown,” she said. “The Triple Crown is hard to win for a reason, and I appreciate the history of it. Horses are definitely different. They’re not built the same. They’re not trained the same as back then. But current times have shown that it can be done with the right horse.”