Trainer Cherie DeVaux Talks Golden Tempo’s Kentucky Derby Win with Rich

Cherie DeVaux still cannot believe she won the Kentucky Derby on her first try.

The trainer of Golden Tempo joined Rich on Tuesday, 48 hours after the colt ran from last to first to take the Derby. She told Rich she had not slept much, had celebrated appropriately, and flew straight to New York. The win has not sunk in.

"I'm just glad I didn't say any cuss words," DeVaux said when Rich brought up her viral reaction. The cleanness of it, she admitted, was the surprising part. Most people who know her expected the opposite. "I was so overtaken with emotion."

Her real worry, she explained, was not the closing run. Golden Tempo is a lightly raced colt with a goofy streak. DeVaux had read that he might idle or hang with his buddy Renegade once they reached each other in the stretch. She picked her horse up at the three-sixteenths pole and watched him build a head of steam, and even then she could not exhale until his nose crossed the wire in front.

"He can be easily distracted," DeVaux said. "There's a lot going on, and there's a lot of noise, there's a lot of cameras. The horses, you know, they are running, but they can be easily distracted by everything."

She watched with friends and family, but not her husband David. They do not watch races together, she told Rich, because they need their space when something goes wrong. To her right at Churchill Downs sat Steve Bick, her career-long friend. Her best friend Elise Jacobs was there. So was her assistant Olivia and her stepdaughter Reagan.

DeVaux started her career at Churchill Downs 22 years ago. Standing in the infield as the trainer of record, she said, was surreal. She named her ownership groups, Santa Anita Stables and Phipps Stables, and her ground staff before she named herself.

The tougher question came when Rich asked why horse training is still so male-dominated.

"I'm not sure how to answer that," DeVaux said. "I don't feel it's a sexist thing. I understand that women trainers are underrepresented, but there are a whole lot of women that work in the industry, and they are the backbone of a lot of stables."

She walked Rich through her own path. She was an assistant trainer under Chad Brown when his stable was top in the country. When she went out on her own, she said, nothing was given to her. She rebuilt from zero.

She also addressed what she called the elephant in the room. She does not have biological children by choice, made early in her career.

"I'm one of those people, I'm going to give everything my all," DeVaux said. "I felt maybe if I had a couple children, I would feel like my career would take away from that."

The Preakness decision is tabled to the end of the week. Golden Tempo gets five days of easy walks and jogs. He starts galloping again Thursday and Friday. DeVaux and the ownership group will talk after that.

Whatever Golden Tempo wants to tell them, she said, will decide it.