With spotlight on, DeVaux takes her star turn with grace and humility
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Cherie DeVaux knew her life would change following Golden Tempo’s win in the Kentucky Derby that made her the first female trainer to win the world’s most famous horse race. Perhaps, she didn’t realize just how much.
DeVaux has become one of the most recognizable faces and sought-after interviews in the industry, people recognizing her at restaurants, the mall, or just walking through an airport. She has been taken aback by the attention.
“I don’t go out there to seek attention or seek the validation of other people, so that’s been really hard waters to navigate that I wasn’t quite expecting,” DeVaux said in a recent interview. “People come up and have an emotional response when they meet me and I think, ‘I train horses to go in a circle, I didn’t solve world peace.’ There’s a girl I went to high school with that does organ transplants, she’s a hero. I’m a horse trainer.”
In the near four months since Golden Tempo won the Kentucky Derby and then five weeks later the Belmont Stakes, DeVaux has been inundated with countless interviews and engagements. Two days after the Derby, she did a live appearance on “The Today Show,” “Entertainment Tonight,” and “Inside Edition.” She was a guest on ESPN’s highly popular “Pat McAfee Show.” DeVaux, along with Golden Tempo’s jockey, Jose Ortiz, threw out the first pitch at a Yankees game.
DeVaux, 44, was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in Sports, sharing that honor with the likes of LeBron James, Shohei Ohtani, and Aaron Judge.
DeVaux, who played Little League softball growing up in Florida, was recently inducted into the Little League Baseball Hall of Fame. In November, she will be inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. There are likely more opportunities to come.
“People want to sit down and talk about writing a book or writing a movie or writing a series,” DeVaux said. “I don’t know if I’m full on into that, but those conversations have definitely come to that.”
DeVaux has tried to downplay the significance of being the first woman to train a Derby winner, but she’s realized its impact on people.
“I’m still a woman that trains horses. The difference is I do understand what that means now,” she said. “Others do find inspiration in how I am. I really do respect that responsibility and I feel like it’s a responsibility.”
But DeVaux wants people to understand that her primary responsibility is training her horses, a stable that is around 120-head strong. Golden Tempo’s victories in the Derby and Belmont were all well and good, but there is more to accomplish, beginning with Saturday’s Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers when Golden Tempo makes his first start since the Belmont. She also trains Englishman, winner of the Grade 1 Woody Stephens, who also is running Saturday in the Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens.
“Horse training’s my life and everything else is secondary,” she said. “If I can fit things in with my schedule, then I’ll take those opportunities, but I really don’t want to entertain anything that takes my focus off of training the horses and the day-to-day business of that. Now, I do have a great team that makes it easier to go and do things, but ultimately that’s my main focus.”
After years working as an exercise rider and assistant for trainers Chuck Simon and then Chad Brown, DeVaux went out on her own in spring 2018. She didn’t get her first win until March 2019 and her first graded stakes win didn’t come until May 2021. Her success has continued as she won her first Breeders’ Cup race (More Than Looks in the BC Mile) in 2024 and trained her first champion in 2025, the female turf horse She Feels Pretty.
DeVaux was spurred on to go out on her own by her then fiancé, now husband, David Ingordo, one of the top bloodstock agents in the sport.
“Now she can train with anybody and as good as I think she is, she’s shown she can campaign horses and that is Hall of Fame-level stuff,” Ingordo said. “Yeah, I’m married to her, but I’m a big fan of her ability. Being agnostic, I’d rather have my horses with her than anybody else. She’s got to win a few more races for me, though.”
While DeVaux’s win totals have gone up each of the seven years since she’s started, that is not likely to continue this year. Though she’s won the sport’s pinnacle race, DeVaux has 36 wins heading into this weekend. She won 70 races in 2025.
DeVaux called this a transition year, retiring or stopping on, for large chunks of time, some very nice horses. Horses like So Sandy and Taking Candy are on the comeback trail, the former having made – and won – a start last month, the latter getting close to a return.
When Golden Tempo won the Lecomte in January, DeVaux also ran second in the race with Mesquite. That horse was sidelined due to injury and just recently joined her Ellis Park division.
“I was down to 85 horses before the spring so that I could make room to get back to that 120 number,” DeVaux said. “With that, there are horses that maybe need to go to a smaller track or retire or a new career. So, now again, I’m realistic. I look and I say if I take these two horses [Golden Tempo and Englishman] out of it, what do I have? I have a lot of really promising 2-year-olds.”
One of those is Golden Tempo’s half-brother Imperial Tempo, by Nyquist, who is working his way to a debut that could happen next month at Churchill Downs.
That promise is what may lie ahead. This weekend is the here and now with Golden Tempo and Englishman ready to make their first starts since June 6, when they won the Belmont Stakes and Woody Stephens, respectively.
For almost any other trainer, Englishman would be considered the best 3-year-old in the barn. He has won 3 of 4 lifetime starts, and his performance winning the Woody Stephens was otherworldly. That’s why he’ll have only five rivals in Saturday’s Allen Jerkens.
“All signs are pointing to another big race,” said DeVaux, who kept that horse in Kentucky until last weekend to keep him in his regular routine.
Though Golden Tempo is a two-time classic-winning horse, DeVaux believes there’s more to come from this 3-year-old, who, it has been suggested, could continue his career in 2027.
“I don’t think he’s reached his top level yet and I still think he’s on that trajectory,” DeVaux said.
The same could be said for his trainer.
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