LOUISVILLE, Ky. (LEX 18) — Golden Tempo, a 23-to-1 longshot, won the Kentucky Derby Saturday in front of more than 150,000 fans at Churchill Downs, making trainer Cherie DeVaux the first female trainer to ever win the race.
With veteran jockey Jose Ortiz aboard, Golden Tempo started at the back of the pack before making a dramatic late charge down the stretch to cross the finish line first. Nearly 25 million viewers watched at home, making it the most-watched Derby ever.
DeVaux said the colt was so far back early that she could barely track him on the screen.
"He's not even in the screen coming around the turn, so you're just kind of looking. They have little chicklets that have the numbers on, and he wasn't even on that screen, which is pretty hard to do," DeVaux said.
Despite the nerves, DeVaux said she never lost faith — and when Golden Tempo began his run, she found herself doing everything she could to will him home.
"Sometimes when horses run like him, they'll get up to the other horse and then they kind of stop, so the screaming was just like, like as if I was gonna do anything there, but kind of trying to encourage him on," DeVaux said.
Even amid the historic milestone, DeVaux said her attention remained on the horse.
"The horse comes first in any conversation, so he needs to be back healthy. Jumping up and down, feeling as though he was quite full of himself that week. That gave me a lot of confidence because he's always been so relaxed. You can light a firework behind him and he just wouldn't care, but he was not like that leading up," DeVaux said.
Golden Tempo is now resting in Lexington as his connections weigh what comes next.
"He's resting up and we'll just let him have a couple of easy days and then we'll start the discussion," DeVaux said.
As for DeVaux, the win she once joked would be her final act turned out to be something she never quite expected to happen.
"Before the race I said if, if I go in and we win the first one, I'm done, mic drop moment, you know. So, but well, I didn't really think it was gonna happen," DeVaux said.
