‘I kind of blacked out.’ Cherie DeVaux becomes 1st woman to train Ky Derby winner
Eighty-nine years after Mary Hirsch became the first woman trainer to enter a horse in the Kentucky Derby, Cherie DeVaux completed the journey.
All it took for women’s sports history on North American horse racing’s biggest stage was a hard-charging, 23-1 long-shot, Golden Tempo, who rallied from dead last to hold the lead of the 152nd Kentucky Derby in the race’s final strides.
Also required was a masterful ride from Golden Tempo jockey Jose Ortiz. He guided his mount through the other 17 horses in the 18-horse field to hold the lead in the race’s final steps — only to have to hold off his older brother, Irad Ortiz Jr., and the favored Renegade at the finish line.
When Jose Ortiz and Golden Tempo did just that, winning by a head, a Churchill Downs crowd of 150,415 had witnessed history as DeVaux, 44, became the first woman to train a Kentucky Derby victor.
“About the 3/16th pole, I thought ‘We’re probably gonna win this,’” DeVaux said. “I really kind of blacked out after that.”
Where I was watching the race at Churchill Downs, the triumph by Golden Tempo — and by DeVaux — had women who did not appear to know each other hugging in exultation.
“This is so great,” one said.
A native of Saratoga Springs, New York, DeVaux was the 18th female trainer to start a horse in the Kentucky Derby. The first, Hirsch, saw her horse, No Sir, finish 13th in 1937.
Prior to Saturday, only three of the 18 female trainers who conditioned horses to run for the roses had seen their animals hit the board — Shelley Riley (Casual Lies, second 1992); Kristin Mulhall (Imperialism, third in 2004); and Kathy Ritvo (third, Mucho Macho Man, 2011).
Until this year, the only woman trainer to win a Triple Crown race had been Jena Antonucci, whose horse Arcangelo won the 2023 Belmont Stakes.
That it would be DeVaux to break through and become the initial female trainer to win North America’s signature horse race would not have been expected had you looked in on her in her youth.
Though born in the horse racing citadel of Saratoga, her family was involved in standardbred racing, not Thoroughbreds.
DeVaux went to college to major in pre-med.
“My last year, I had this adviser telling me I had to take organic chemistry,” DeVaux said. “No pre-med major wants to take organic chemistry. I just kind of looked at her and said ‘I’m going to go work on the racetrack.’”
DeVaux said her mom suggested she apply for a job walking horses for Thoroughbred trainer Chuck Simon at Saratoga Springs Race Course.
“I was a wild child,” DeVaux said. “I was kind of going the wrong way, and (Simon) took me under his wing. (He) made me be an assistant trainer, begrudgingly, because I was really enjoying the party life. But he kind of wrangled me in.”
After spending six years working for Simon, DeVaux moved to the barn of trainer Chad Brown as an assistant trainer. She logged eight years working under Brown. In 2018, she struck out on her own.
It took until March 29, 2019, before DeVaux won her first race as a trainer.
She credits her husband, Central Kentucky bloodstock agent David Ingordo, for encouraging her to stick it out through lean times.
“It took a while (to win), and I have ... an immense amount of gratitude to my husband, who’s stuck behind me,” DeVaux said. “He just told me, ‘Give it three years. Let’s just give it three years and see if it works out.’ (He said) I could always go and do something else.”
From that start, DeVaux’s Keeneland-based operation hit its stride. In 2024, she ranked 15th among North American trainers in earnings and won the Breeders’ Cup Mile with More Than Love. Last year, she was 17th in earnings.
On this year’s road to the Derby, DeVaux showed her training chops with Golden Tempo.
The son of Curlin out of the Bernardini mare Carrumba won his initial race as a 2-year-old at Louisiana’s Fair Grounds Race Course in December. Golden Tempo began his 3-year-old campaign with a win in the Lecomte Stakes at the same track.
However, Golden Tempo ran third in his two immediate races prior to the Kentucky Derby, the Risen Star Stakes and the Louisiana Derby.
“The goal wasn’t to win those races; it was to win this one,” DeVaux said of the Kentucky Derby. “Sometimes, you have to trust the process, trust the horse and trust Jose (Ortiz).”
As she built her career, DeVaux said she never saw herself as a barrier-breaker.
“Being a woman or my gender has never really crossed my mind in this journey of mine,” she said. “I have to say, for everyone, the racetrack is a tough place. It’s a tough place if you’re a man, it’s a tough place if you’re a woman.”
Yet after Golden Tempo had passed every other horse in the 152nd Kentucky Derby to finish first, DeVaux recognized she had done something of lasting consequence.
“It really is an honor to be able to be that person for other women or other little girls to look up to,” Cherie DeVaux said. “You can dream big and you can pivot. You can come from one place and make yourself a part of history.”
This story was originally published May 2, 2026 at 10:07 PM.
