Golden Tempo may take DeVaux from NOLA to Kentucky Derby

The horse does not know he might be running for a spot in Kentucky Derby 2026, but he does know he has not raced this far before.

That is Cherie DeVaux’s mindset about Golden Tempo. The Curlin colt she trains for breeder-owners Daisy Phipps Pulito and Vinnie Viola tries 1 3/16 miles for the first time Saturday in the Grade 2, $1 million Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds.

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With a top-three finish, Golden Tempo would clinch a spot in the Churchill Downs starting gate May 2 and make DeVaux a first-time Kentucky Derby trainer.

“I would like to be there,” she said this week from New Orleans. “I’ve always said if I’m going to commit to running a horse or whatever horse I run in the Derby, to feel that they have a good shot of having a good showing and not just going there just to say you ran a horse in the Kentucky Derby. I think it’s really important, a race like this, that you can be confident when you bring a horse there, because if they can handle this distance, it gives you a little insight into what they can do when you stretch them out.”

DeVaux, 44, has been down this road before. In 2023 she sent Florida-bred gelding Cagliostro into the Louisiana Derby, where he stalked the pace before fading in the 449-yard homestretch to finish eighth. That showed DeVaux that Cagliostro would be more adept at one to 1 1/16 miles and not at the classic, 1 1/4-mile distance of the Kentucky Derby.

“If they can’t go a mile-and-three-sixteenths, they’re definitely not going to be able to go the mile-and-a-quarter,” DeVaux said on Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod. “I’m not the type of person that wants to just go to the Kentucky Derby for all the hoopla.”

She was around it during her eight years assisting Chad Brown. Three Derby campaigns with him were topped by Normandy Invasion’s fourth-place finish in 2013. Operating her own stable since 2018, DeVaux won the Breeders’ Cup Mile in 2024 with More Than Looks, five Grade 1s with She Feels Pretty and one more with Vahva.

If Golden Tempo is going to be DeVaux’s ticket to having a serious Kentucky Derby contender, he is going to do it racing for the first time in blinkers Saturday. This is despite the fact his deep-closing style made him a winner in his six-furlong debut and in the 1 1/16-mile Lecomte (G3). Last month he could not make up the ground he gave the early leaders, and he wound up a distant third in the 1 1/8-mile Risen Star (G2).

“He does have a nice kick at the end, but when you spot the field about 10 lengths like he did in the Risen Star, it gives him way too much to do to try to win the race,” DeVaux said. “With the blinkers, we’re not trying to change his running style. He’s a closer. He’s effective being a closer, but we just want him more involved in the earlier stages of the race so that when he does make his run, he doesn’t have so much to do.”

Otherwise it will be same-ol’, same-ol’ for Golden Tempo, the 7-2 second choice in the Louisiana Derby program. All his races have been at Fair Grounds, where DeVaux makes her winter base. José Ortiz has been in the saddle in all three of Golden Tempo’s races as well as morning drills.

“All of his work since the Risen Star, he’s been in blinkers,” De Vaux said. “The first work back, José was on him, and he was really positive. ... He just said the horse was a lot more focused and marched around there. Golden tempo is a very relaxed horse, laid back, so the fact that he kind of was all business as soon as he went onto the track was a marked difference.”

Since the Risen Star, Golden Tempo had breezes of 47.8 seconds for a half-mile and 1:00.4 for five furlongs before a maintenance work last Friday when he covered a half-mile in 48.8 seconds.

The 3-1 morning-line favorite Chip Honcho, who finished second to Paladin in Risen Star, might be expected to flash early speed for jockey Luis Sáez and trainer Steve Asmussen in the Louisiana Derby.

Asked where she wants Golden Tempo in the run up the backstretch, DeVaux laughed and said, “Just in contact with the field. I’m not being funny. I knew we were in trouble in the early stages (of the Risen Star) when they were going down the backside, and he was just way too far back the way the track was playing. José was riding a lot of horses that day. I made sure to tell him we’re just going to have to let him run his race and not take him out of his game because you’re still trying to get a read on how the horse is. I really just want him to be in it. Even if he’s at the back of the pack that he’s just not lengths behind them.”

Golden Tempo might not be DeVaux’s most talented Derby prospect. Reagan’s Honor has yet to go in a stakes race, but he made noise last month when he ran away to a 6 3/4-length allowance victory going 1 1/16 miles against older horses at Fair Grounds. The Honor A. P. colt partly owned by David Ingordo, DeVaux’s husband, came within a hundredth of a second of breaking the track record.

“As he’s run and gotten experience and developed, he’s improved,” DeVaux said. “If I thought he was going to run that impressive of a race, I would have put him in a Derby prep instead of just an allowance race, but he’s a different type of horse. He doesn’t have as much constitution as Golden Tempo does. Just in developing him, we took a different route.

“He ran a big race. We’re giving him plenty of time and taking him to the Blue Grass (G1, at Keeneland on April 4) and hoping it doesn’t overfill. If not, we’ll have to maybe look at the Wood (Memorial, G2, at Aqueduct) just as a plan B.”

DeVaux also has maiden winner Love and Trust carrying 9-2 morning-line odds into Saturday’s Fair Grounds Oaks (G2), a Kentucky Oaks (G1) qualifier. But in the take-’em-one-at-a-time world of Thoroughbred training, DeVaux did not dare to amplify much on Oaks and Derby dreams. Then again, she did not completely discount them.

“It’s exciting,” she said. “Golden Tempo (is) the type of horse that acts like he wants the classic distance of a mile-and-a-quarter, so it’s definitely exciting, and we’re definitely grateful to be in this position.”