Cherie DeVaux makes history as first female trainer to win Kentucky Derby
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Horses aside, the Kentucky Derby is, at the end of the day, about betting.Cherie DeVaux is no stranger to it. In 2017, she bet on herself, changing careers from a premed track to pursue a life training horses.It all paid off Saturday in the 152nd running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, where her horse Golden Tempo stormed to an improbable victory to make her the first female trainer to win a Derby. The history of the moment wasn’t lost on DeVaux, though to her it was about more than her gender.“My gender has never really crossed my mind in this journey of mine,” DeVaux said. “The race track is a tough place. It’s a tough place if you’re 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 or you can pivot. You can come from one place, and you can make yourself a part of history.”The journey DeVaux was talking about wasn’t traditional. She grew up around horses and had family connections in the sport, but she didn’t pursue it as a career right away. After her family, which was in harness racing, moved around while she was in med school, she was left trying to figure out her future.“It was really the fact that I had to switch gears because I was losing my in-state residency,” DeVaux said. “I was never introduced to thoroughbred racing. I needed a job, and my mother says, ‘Well, there is a barn across, and all you have to do is walk the horses.’ That’s how I started.”The prospect of having to take organic chemistry, which, as she put it, is a class no premed student wants to take, pushed her further into horse racing. That’s when she went to work at the race track.That’s when she met Chuck Simon. Simon’s first job was for DeVaux’s father at the harness track. Simon became a mentor to DeVaux.“I was a wild child,” DeVaux said. “Chuck saw I was going the wrong way, and he 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. It was just one of those things where things just happened to work out. I didn’t want to be a horse trainer. It just kind of evolved into that.”Simon died of cancer in 2024. DeVaux became emotional when talking about it.“Chuck, he’d be so proud, and I am here because of him,” DeVaux said. “Because he pushed me. He pushed my boundaries. He was always proud of me, but I just think this definitely would have put him over the top.”Golden Tempo, who had 23-1 odds at post time, was well behind the leaders of the pack for the majority of the 1 1/4 miles Saturday. But the thoroughbred colt nosed his way into the action down the stretch, and suddenly Golden Tempo and jockey Jose Ortiz were streaking past the field, favorites in the rear view.While DeVaux’s journey to Saturday at Churchill Downs was not what she would call a normal path, she does have the confidence to think things would turn out well.“I’m one of those thick-minded people that thinks that it’s always going to work out,” DeVaux said. “It took a while, 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 and see if it works out.’ I could always go and do something else.”Jena Antonucci was the first woman to win a Triple Crown race with her thoroughbred colt Arcangelo, who won the Belmont Stakes in 2023. Antonucci has 219 career victories since 2010.DeVaux, a Saratoga Springs, N.Y., native, got her training license in 2018 and earned her first win in 2019 on just her 29th start. Since then, she has collected nearly 300 victories, including the 2024 Breeders’ Cup Mile with More Than Looks, and 480 combined second- and third-place finishes. She notched 21 wins in 2026 before the Derby.“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,” DeVaux said. “Never in my life did I think I would.”
