Official bio
Cherie DeVaux is a Kentucky-based Thoroughbred trainer who has rapidly emerged as one of the sport's leading horsewomen. In 2026, she made history as the first woman to win the Kentucky Derby and later added a Belmont Stakes victory to her growing résumé. She also became the first female trainer to win multiple Grade 1 races on the same day.
A lifelong horsewoman raised in a family deeply rooted in the racing industry, DeVaux honed her craft under respected horsemen before launching her own stable. Known for her horsemanship, attention to detail, and individualized approach to each horse, she has developed a reputation for competing successfully at the highest levels of the sport while maintaining a strong commitment to horse welfare and aftercare.
From Grade 1 victories to classic triumphs, DeVaux Racing continues to establish itself as one of the premier stables in North America, built on a foundation of hard work, horsemanship, and an unwavering dedication to the Thoroughbred.
The longer story
Born into it. Cherie DeVaux arrived on December 2, 1981 in Saratoga Springs, New York, the racing town where she would eventually win a Triple Crown race. Hers is a horse family with roots in harness racing: nine siblings, a father who trained standardbreds, relatives scattered across the backstretch. The family moved to Englewood, Florida during her childhood, and she grew up riding, a barrel racer first and a racing person second. She has called herself a horse girl before anything else.
The apprenticeship. The route from riding to training ran through other people's barns. Chuck Simon, a family friend, mentored her out of the exercise saddle and toward the assistant's job, and she has credited him ever since. Then came eight years with Chad Brown, where she worked with the champion turf mare Lady Eli. It is a demanding way to learn, and it is also the only reliable one.
Going it alone. In 2018 she took out her own license and started with eight horses. The first 29 starts came and went without a win. Trainers talk about a stretch like that the way pitchers talk about a bad first month: the arithmetic is unforgiving and there is nothing to do but keep sending them out.
The good ones. Her first Grade 1 came with She Feels Pretty in 2023. More Than Looks won the 2024 Breeders' Cup Mile. She Feels Pretty went on to take the Natalma, the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup and the E.P. Taylor on her way to being named the 2025 American Champion Female Turf Horse. By then the DeVaux barn was no longer a curiosity; it was a place owners sent their best stock.
Off the track. Her husband, the bloodstock advisor David Ingordo, is the one she credits with talking her through the losing start in 2018. She is a vocal advocate for equine aftercare and uses her platform to raise money for it.
The barn today. The operation has grown to roughly 120 horses, with earnings topping $10 million a year by 2024, and owners of the calibre of Phipps Stable sending her stock. She is known for reading horses one at a time rather than running them all the same way. She once put a goat in with an anxious colt to settle him. The hat in her barn reads "I'm not for everyone."
Where the stable lives. DeVaux Racing is based in Kentucky, with the string shipping to the major meets through the year, Saratoga included, where the Belmont brought her back to the town she was born in.
May 2, 2026. Golden Tempo went off at 23-1 in a field of twenty, settled last, and came from 13th turning for home to win the Kentucky Derby by a neck in 2:02.27 under José Ortiz. DeVaux became the first woman ever to train a Derby winner, and only the second, after Jena Antonucci in 2023, to win an American Triple Crown race at all.
June 2026. The colt skipped the Preakness and pointed instead for the Belmont Stakes, run at Saratoga. He won by a length and a quarter over Commandment and the favored Renegade. She won her second Triple Crown race of the year in the town where she was born.