DeVaux extends She Feels Pretty's break with plans to be determined

Champion mare She Feels Pretty’s 2026 season has gone into a holding pattern.

Had her winter schedule proceeded as planned, She Feels Pretty would be in steady training by now with one of trainer Cherie DeVaux’s strings. Instead, the 5-year-old mare remains at the Ocala, Fla., farm where she has been stabled since shortly after a second-place finish Nov. 1 in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf. Despite that defeat, She Feels Pretty won an Eclipse award as champion female turf horse of 2025 for the Lael Stable of Roy and Gretchen Jackson.

She Feels Pretty, after a period of inactivity, got back under tack several weeks ago, but she’s not ready to advance in her training, DeVaux said Monday.

“She needed some more time than we anticipated. We’re going to give her another 60 to 90 days,” DeVaux said.

That obviously would rule out She Feels Pretty’s intended comeback spot, the Modesty on May 1 at Churchill. And there’s no point plotting any kind of racing schedule before knowing when She Feels Pretty might be ready to resume serious exercise.

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News is more positive regarding a trio of Fair Grounds-based 3-year-olds in DeVaux’s barn.

Thrice-started Golden Tempo, winner of the Lecomte Stakes on Jan. 17 and third with an impossible trip Feb. 14 in the Risen Star, on Feb. 27 had his first timed workout in blinkers, which he’ll add for the Louisiana Derby on March 21. Working in company, Golden Tempo breezed a half mile in 47.80 seconds with a good gallop-out, and did it the right way.

“He was more in the bridle and wanting to go forward,” DeVaux said. “Just a lot more engaged throughout the work.”

Golden Tempo went last to first winning his sprint debut and last to first in the Lecomte, but in the Risen Star he ceded too much early ground over a generally speed-favoring surface, and despite rallying steadily, finished more than six lengths behind victorious Paladin. DeVaux hopes the addition of blinkers will help Golden Tempo get into his races with greater alacrity.

The 3-year-old Reagan’s Honor has no trouble getting into his races: After a fourth-place debut sprint finish, he led wire to wire in a pair of Fair Grounds dirt routes, a Jan. 17 maiden and a first-level allowance Feb. 19, where Reagan’s Honor beat older rivals and earned a strong 96 Beyer Speed Figure. DeVaux said Reagan’s Honor has trained well out of that race, will breeze this weekend, and remains on track for the Blue Grass at Keeneland.

As fast as Reagan’s Honor ran, another DeVaux-trained 3-year-old, Englishman, hit an even higher Beyer mark as a late-summer 2-year-old, winning his Sept. 19 debut, a seven-furlong Churchill maiden, by more than seven lengths with a figure of 97. DeVaux had to take Englishman out of training last fall, and the colt has yet to make his second start, but Englishman last weekend worked five furlongs in 1:01.40 – his first drill this year beyond a half-mile – with DeVaux aiming toward a Keeneland comeback.

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