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DeVaux’s path into the Kentucky Derby record book

May 04, 2026 Kellie Reilly/Brisnet.com

Cherie DeVaux and Golden Tempo share a moment

Cherie DeVaux and Golden Tempo share a moment on the morning after the Kentucky Derby (Photo by Coady Media)

“I started my career here 22 years ago as a bright‑eyed, bushy‑tailed exercise rider. And I would not believe that I would be sitting up here today. Never in my life did I think I would.”

So said trainer Cherie DeVaux after she made history on Saturday, as the first woman to condition a Kentucky Derby (G1) winner. It took 2:02.27 for her late-running colt Golden Tempo to put her into the record book, but her career trajectory was decades in the making.

A native of Saratoga Springs, New York, DeVaux hails from a racing background – but of the harness variety, not Thoroughbreds. Her father, Adrian “Butch” DeVaux, operated a stable of Standardbreds, and her brothers Kenny and Jimmy (a very successful driver) have made their own names in the industry. Younger sister Adrianne is now a Thoroughbred trainer herself, after a stint working for Cherie.

Although Cherie was involved with horses in her youth, she appeared bound for a career in medicine. At least that was the subject of her studies in college, initially in Florida and then in New York. But the pre-med student ended up taking a detour along the way, as DeVaux recalled in the post-Derby news conference.

“I needed a job, and my mother says, well, there's a barn across, and all you have to do is walk the horses. And that's how I started. And then I thought ‘I can ride them.’

“I had this advisor my last year, and she was telling me I had to take organic chemistry, which no pre-med student wants to take. I just looked at her and said: ‘No, I'm going to go work on the racetrack.’ She's like: ‘Are you sure?’ I was like, ‘I'm just going to see how it works.’”

It did work out, thanks to the formative influence of trainer Chuck Simon. As providence would have it, Simon had started out by working for Butch DeVaux. Now he became the mentor to put Cherie on the right track.

“I was a wild child,” DeVaux 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. But he kind of wrangled me in.

“So, you know, it was just one of those things where things just happened to work out.

“I didn't want to be a horse trainer, and it just kind of evolved into that.”

The next step in DeVaux’s evolution was as an assistant trainer to Chad Brown. Although she worked with a number of elite horses during her eight-year tenure, she is most often associated with champion Lady Eli. The turf star was stricken with laminitis as a three-year-old, and DeVaux played a key role in nursing her back to health and peak form.

A few months after Lady Eli was retired, and honored with an Eclipse Award, DeVaux decided to set out as a trainer in her own right. But it was slow going initially, from her first start in 2018 until her first win in 2019.

“I'm one of those thick‑minded people that thinks it's always going to work out. So, you know, it took a while.”

DeVaux credits her husband, renowned bloodstock advisor David Ingordo, for his encouragement and support. Ingordo is famous for buying future Hall of Famer Zenyatta for just $60,000 as a yearling, and he was also involved in the purchase of the undefeated phenom Flightline.

“And, again, I have to say an immense amount of gratitude to my husband who has stuck behind me. He just 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.”

But DeVaux’s horsemanship ensured that she wouldn’t have to do something else. In a few short years, she began to gain momentum. Her first graded stakes victories came at Churchill Downs, courtesy of Lazy F Farm’s Gam’s Mission, in the 2021 Regret (G3) and 2022 Mint Julep (G3).

In 2023, the DeVaux stable’s earnings more than doubled, surpassing $5.5 million. Leading the charge was her first Grade 1 winner, She Feels Pretty. Campaigned by Roy and Gretchen Jackson’s Lael Stables (forever identified with their 2006 Derby star, Barbaro), She Feels Pretty romped in the Natalma (G1) at Woodbine.

In 2024, the stable total would exceed $10.2 million, highlighted by DeVaux’s first Breeders’ Cup victory with More Than Looks in the Mile (G1). Vahva added her name to the burgeoning honor roll in the Derby City Distaff (G1), and She Feels Pretty contributed through her dynamic victories in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup (G1) and American Oaks (G1).

She Feels Pretty became DeVaux’s first Eclipse Award winner in 2025, clinching champion turf female honors. Heroine of the E.P. Taylor (G1), New York (G1), and Modesty (G3) in course-record time at Churchill, she concluded the season with a fine second in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1). Vahva, who signed off with a runner-up effort in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1), was another who helped the stable earnings top $8 million for the year.

DeVaux explained that her operation is very much “hands-on,” so she won’t expand beyond a certain number of horses.

“We are Kentucky‑based. We top out about 120…

“It's really important to me that I keep my numbers where we are. I keep my divisions manageable. I'm a hands‑on trainer. It's important to me I really stick to those core values of my business.”

Those values are appreciated by her owners, including Daisy Phipps Pulito. Now at the helm of her family’s iconic Phipps Stable, Pulito began to send a few of their bluebloods to the DeVaux barn. That’s how Golden Tempo, a homebred in partnership with Vinnie Viola’s St. Elias Stable, arrived in her care, and eventually, to their date with destiny on the first Saturday in May.

“Cherie and I have known each other for a number of years,” Pulito said at the post-Derby news conference. “Her husband is a good friend of mine also. I have been watching the way she trains. She's in Kentucky. I live in Kentucky. and I love the way she works with horses. I love the way she develops a horse.

“And Monique (Delk, manager of St. Elias Stable) and I had those talks about different horses we wanted to send to her. And we thought Golden Tempo would be a great match, and it was.”

DeVaux’s personalized development plan was designed to build Golden Tempo up to a peak on Derby Day. After winning his first two starts at Fair Grounds, including the Lecomte (G3) on the Road to the Kentucky Derby, he advanced to the next two scoring races at the historic New Orleans track.

“Well, we had a plan, even right after the Lecomte when he won,” the trainer 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.”

For that reason, Golden Tempo’s third-place efforts in the Risen Star (G2) and Louisiana Derby (G2) were not setbacks, but stepping stones. She made an equipment change between those races, and the addition of blinkers for the Louisiana Derby appeared to help. She also prescribed a lighter training regimen going into the Kentucky Derby, an adjustment to what the colt needed to be at his best physically.

“So each race was a building point to get here,” DeVaux reiterated. “And we had an idea – I had an idea and our team – I'm so grateful to our team and to (regular rider) Jose (Ortiz) because Jose came out and worked him for us.

“You know, we had the plan going six weeks from the Louisiana Derby into the Kentucky Derby, and I had an idea of how we wanted to get there.

“And it's hard. I can have all the ideas in the world, but if my staff and my team can't enact it, it's just not. So I'm just so grateful and I'm so blessed for everyone on our team and to Jose.”

As DeVaux recalled her path to Derby glory, she paid tribute to Simon. Sadly, he did not live to see her win the roses. Simon passed away from cancer in September 2024.

“Chuck, he would be so proud,” DeVaux said. “I am here because of him. 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 just think this definitely would have put him over the top. And I can't wait to drop one of these (roses) off at our old barn here. Can't wait to do that.”

Racing fans can’t wait to see if Golden Tempo marches on to the second jewel of the Triple Crown, the May 16 Preakness (G1). But DeVaux is adhering to her philosophy of listening to the horse.

“We're going to have to allow him to tell us, because the horse is first. We're not here for ourselves. We're not here for our egos. We're here for the horse.”

In light of her approach to nurturing equine talent, and the influx of well-bred prospects into her barn, DeVaux promises to be a force for years to come. Golden Tempo made her the first woman to win the Derby, but he might end up being her first Derby winner.

DeVaux is keenly aware of the importance of racing history. Last summer, she was given Barn 83 for her sojourn at Saratoga. That had been the barn allotted to Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas, a four-time Derby winner, who passed away at the end of June.

“A cathedral of greatness,” DeVaux described it in a social media post, as she felt the weight of that barn assignment, an entrustment of racing lore to her and her team.

As it turned out, Barn 83 was being handed over to a future Derby-winning trainer, another of historic import.

Cherie DeVaux hoists the Kentucky Derby trophy (Photo by Coady Media)

Cherie DeVaux hoists the Kentucky Derby trophy (Photo by Coady Media)

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