Kentucky Derby: DeVaux can make history with Golden Tempo

Louisville, Ky.

Cherie DeVaux cannot be doubted for her ambition and her skill and her work ethic and her success. But when it comes to being called a trailblazer, modesty takes over.

“No.”

A simple answer, followed by a knowing laugh.

“I’m starting to realize it now that I am getting asked about it,” DeVaux said Monday morning at Churchill Downs. “I’m very grateful that I have not been affected.”

DeVaux trains Golden Tempo, a 30-1 long shot who could make her the first woman ever to train a horse to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

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A former pre-med student whose career path gradually shifted to horses, DeVaux, 44, spent a decade as an assistant to the late Chuck Simon and then to Chad Brown. Since going on her own eight years ago, she has found Grade 1 success seven times, highlighted by her 2024 Breeders’ Cup Mile triumph with More Than Looks.

But the Kentucky Derby on Saturday is the holiest grail. DeVaux admitted she is starting to realize the greater significance her winning it might hold.

“Maybe a few times where I’ve thought about it,” she told Horse Racing Nation. “But I don’t feel like, if I were a man, it would be any different. I also acknowledge that I have a different personality than a lot of people in general. I’m not sensitive to things that some may be sensitive to. I’ve always been courageous. I’ve always been able to go outside the box. But it is starting to hit home that I matter to others that I’m just not cognizant of.”

In her everyday world, DeVaux is focused on the grind of caring for more than 100 horses, especially this time of year when 2-year-olds who are about to make their first starts are coming to her stable. But the importance of being in position to break the glass ceiling that hovers over the Kentucky Derby trophy sometimes pierces that routine.

“A little girl came up today,” DeVaux said, “She had me. She had me a little weepy. A tear didn’t fall, but it was nice to hear.”

To say that DeVaux is a reluctant role model is misleading. She is not reluctant about anything she has confidence in doing, especially since she has the support of her husband, bloodstock agent David Ingordo.

“It was really my husband to thank, because there’s a lot that comes with this,” DeVaux said. “Training the horses is one aspect of it. There’s a lot more that goes into it. It’s a business. It was my husband that really kind of pushed me in my rear end to get here.”

What could be the most celebrated two minutes in DeVaux’s professional life arrive Saturday with Golden Tempo, who will carry jockey José Ortiz as always but will be racing for the first time outside Fair Grounds in New Orleans. He built his war chest of Derby qualifying points by winning the Grade 3 Lecomte, taking third in the Risen Star (G2) and then adding blinkers to finish a closer third in the Louisiana Derby (G2).

“I think the blinkers helped him a little bit,” Ortiz said. “I’d rather ride him with them than without.”

The $225,000 Curlin colt, who was bred and owned by Daisy Phipps Pulito’s Phipps Stable and Vinnie Viola’s St. Elias Stable, was gaining ground at the finish line in each of his races. That suggests he will not bristle at adding 110 yards to get the 1 1/4-mile Derby distance. Now it is a matter of what the early pace looks like before Ortiz works out a trip Saturday.

“We definitely need speed,” DeVaux said. “He is a dead closer. Having the 19 post (in a field of 20) is actually more in his favor than something like the inside, because everyone is going to go out in front of him and he can get a spot at the rail. We are pace dependent and we are trip dependent, so he’s got a lot of things that he’s going to have to overcome.”

Training six weeks up to the Derby, Golden Tempo had four consecutive Friday breezes at Keeneland, DeVaux’s Kentucky home base. He started the month with 48.8- and 48.4-second drills going a half-mile. Next came five-furlong works at a bullet 59.1 and then last week at 59.0 seconds.

“He has had different company, and he’s outworked each one,” DeVaux said “(Last week) was just a maintenance work, and ($2.4 million earner) Brilliant Berti is a pretty good workhorse, and he’s older (5). It was good company with him. We didn’t want him doing too much in the work and the gallop-out. It was a really good company. With Brilliant Berti, even though he’s a turf horse, he works pretty well on the dirt.”

Golden Tempo rode a trailer from Keeneland to Churchill Downs after training Saturday, and he has been stretching his legs getting around the main track over which he will race Saturday.

“We’re very confident in his training,” DeVaux said. “He’s taken a lot of steps forward. He’s really jumped, progressed and physically and mentally matured. Everything that we set out has come to fruition, and we’re happy that we’re in this spot that we are.”