Cherie DeVaux is one of 19 and, thanks to No. 19, she is now one of one.
The 19th female to start a horse in the Kentucky Derby, DeVaux became the first to saddle the winner after Golden Tempo, wearing the moonstone-colored No. 19 saddle towel, but breaking from the 16 post after scratches, closed from last to win the 152nd Derby by a neck at Churchill Downs Saturday.
“Being a woman or my gender has never really crossed my mind in this journey of mine,” said DeVaux, a former Chad Brown assistant who went out on her own in 2018. “I have to say, the racetrack is a tough place. It’s a tough place if you are a man. It’s a tough place if you’re a woman. The thing that really has become apparent to me is that not everyone has the same constitution as I have mentally. It really is an honor to be able 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.”
History was made under the twin spires Saturday with a Phipps Stable and St. Elias Stable homebred who had run all four of his races at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans. DeVaux brought the son of Curlin to her Keeneland base and gave him four timed works, all seven days apart. She had to deal with cracked heels less than a week from the Derby, a minor issue but is there really such a thing when you’re only days away from the biggest race of your life?
Of greater concern could have been the 14-length deficit halfway through the Derby, with 17 horses in front of him, but that fazed neither his trainer nor jockey Jose Ortiz.
“That’s how he runs, so it’s not like we really did anything different than he hadn’t done in his previous starts,” said DeVaux, who was mentored by the late Chuck Simon when she first came into Thoroughbred racing. “There was a lot of speed on tap, on paper, and that materialized. And I watched Jose come up and get himself in position going into the final turn. And about the 3/16th pole, I thought, ‘We’re probably going to win this.’ And then, I really kind of blacked out after that.”
Presumably, she came to in time to watch Ortiz swing wide on the far turn, close from 11th at the stretch call and nail morning line favorite Renegade – ridden his brother Irad – in the last few strides.
“I knew my horse was a deep closer, so I don’t have any interest in being in front early. You can see the way I broke, when I go to the rail and save ground,” said Ortiz, who completed a Kentucky Oaks-Derby daily double after winning the fillies race with Always a Runner Friday night. “I was hoping for a big run late. I was hoping for a fast pace, and I’m glad we had it.”
Six Speed went to the lead as expected and carved out fractions of :22.68, :46.44 and 1:10.90, chased by Japanese invader Danon Bourbon and Santa Anita Derby winner So Happy. With a quarter mile left to run, Danon Bourbon struck the front and opened up by 2 lengths at the eighth pole. Ocelli, a 70-1 maiden longshot who drew into the race Thursday when Fulleffort scratched, put his head in front for a few strides, but Golden Tempo and Renegade were in full flight and both went by him.
“I felt like I had horse,” Ortiz said. “I was following Irad on Renegade, and I felt like we were moving along very nice. I felt like going outside of him wasn’t going to hurt me. I think he was the horse to beat. I’m just very happy we won the race.”
The milestone win was the culmination of a plan devised by DeVaux after Golden Tempo won the Lecomte Stakes at Fair Grounds. While keeping him on the Louisiana road to the Derby, the trainer was squarely focused on the first Saturday in May, as opposed to winning his final two prep races, the Risen Star and Louisiana Derby, in which he ran third in both and compiled enough qualifying points to make the Derby.
“We had a plan, even right after the Lecomte when he won,” she said. “We talked that he’s a horse that’s going to continue to develop and mature. And the goal was not to win those races; the goal was to win this race.”
Golden Tempo took down the Derby in the famed black and red colors of the Phipps Stable, who bred the colt in partnership with Vinnie Viola’s St. Elias Stable. The win came 13 years after Phipps Stable won the race with Orb.
“This is everything to anybody in horse racing, really,” said Daisy Phipps Pulito. “This is what we breed to race. This is why you do it, to be on stages like this. And the way he ran and the way he was raised at Claiborne Farm. There’s just so many people to thank in this: Claiborne; Barry Eisaman, who broke him; Jose, his groom; Enrique, who is his exercise rider. Obviously, Cherie who runs that team. It’s just been an unbelievable group effort.”
If it were a football team, DeVaux would be the head coach and Ortiz the star quarterback. Since the jockey moved his tack from New York to Kentucky two years ago, he and DeVaux have been on fire, winning at a 24-percent clip. So it’s understandable DeVaux wanted to make sure she had his services for the Derby.
“I did reach out to Steve Rushing, his agent,” DeVaux said. “And I said, ‘Please, please put my mind to rest, you are going to ride my horse, right?’ When Jose decided to come to Kentucky, they really went all in on us. As soon as he made that career change and moved, we’ve done unbelievable things. We’ve won our first Breeders’ Cup (More than Looks in 2024). So, yes, I did ask, apprehensively, when I knew there was going to be a couple (of jockeys) moving around. But I’m just so thankful that it worked out for us.”
Ortiz said DeVaux had nothing to worry about.
“Loyalty with Cherie,” he said. “Working with her all winter at Fair Grounds … She has been very loyal to me, so I feel like I should give that back. I knew always Golden Tempo was going to be my mount.”
While DeVaux becoming the first female trainer to win the Derby is a natural headline, that’s only the top layer on the onion that is her career. She comes from a harness racing family and was a premed student in college before opting for the backstretch over an operating room. Needing a job, she hooked up with Simon, who had worked for her father on the harness side. Not only did he provide her with gainful employment, he delivered some tough love, which DeVaux said she desperately needed.
“I was a wild child,” she said. “When I tell everyone, you can make mistakes, you can do whatever, but Chuck saw I was going the wrong way and took me under his wing and made me be an assistant trainer, begrudgingly, because I was really enjoying the party life. He kind of wrangled me in.”
That Simon, who died of cancer in 2024, could not be there for DeVaux’s shining moment is the only hint of a negative on a day that the rest of the world discovered what those in racing already knew: Cherie DeVaux knows how to train a racehorse.
“He would be so proud. I am here because of him,” DeVaux said. “Because he pushed me. He pushed my boundaries. He gave me direction when I needed it. And he was always proud of me. But I think this definitely would have put him over the top.”
When she started her own stable in 2018, it took DeVaux 30 starts over 10 1/2 months to saddle her first winner, Traveling – a horse co-owned by her husband David Ingordo and Paul Manganaro – who won a maiden claiming race at Gulfstream on March 29, 2019. Despite the slow start, DeVaux was willing to stay the course, with the support of Ingordo, a leading bloodstock agent.
“I’m one of those thick‑minded people that thinks it’s always going to work out,” she said. “So, you know, it took a while. I have to say I have an immense amount of gratitude to my husband who has stuck behind me. He told me just give it three years. Let’s just give it three years and see if it works out, and I could always go and do something else.”
As it turns out, DeVaux was not cut out to do anything other than prepare racehorses to give their best effort.
“I started my career here 22 years ago as a bright‑eyed, bushy‑tailed exercise rider,” she said. “And I would not have believed that I would be sitting up here today.”
