Of all the viewer-drawing, yearly televised sports spectaculars, the Kentucky Derby is the one I refuse to miss. This Kentucky-born, horse-crazy, bourbon aficionado tears up every time the University of Louisville marching band begins the strains of “My Old Kentucky Home” as the horses parade from the Churchill Downs paddock to the starting gate. Every time. This year was no exception, and on the first Saturday in May, I was delighted to be in the company of three other Kentuckians and a Californian who qualifies “by marriage.” And I must add, who whips up a tasty mint julep that’ll make your hair stand on end!

As a former thoroughbred exercise rider, I have to say that – short of Secretariat’s record-setting Derby win in 1973, leading to his eventual Triple Crown – the 2026 Derby was one for the record books…and for racing fans’ hearts.

Turns out that 23-1 longshot Golden Tempo broke from the gate poorly, got bumped and was taken back, and dropped to the rear of an 18-horse field. He was dead last. But the gutsy colt pounded the mile-and-a-quarter dirt from last place to crossing the finish line first for his trainer, Cherie DeVaux, who became the first female trainer to win this prestigious contest.

In my book the race could have been produced by Disney for its pure magic. The first woman trainer to win and the horse that passed all the competition by moving up beautifully from last place to first in a heart-stopping stretch run. Add to that the winning jockey (Jose Ortiz) and second-place jock (Irad Ortiz, Jr.) are brothers. And Jose had won the Kentucky Oaks, the distaff version of the Derby, the day before.

When asked who had supported her consistently along the way, DeVaux didn’t hesitate to answer that her husband had always encouraged her to follow her dream of working with racehorses because he understood how much that meant to her. Starting at Churchill Downs as an exercise rider, DeVaux moved on to become an assistant trainer at Saratoga Springs and then earned her trainer’s license in 2018.

When Golden Tempo crossed the Derby finish line first, DeVaux was obviously gobsmacked!

“It really is an honor to be able to be that person for other women or other little girls to look up to,” she said following the race. “Women can do anything we set our minds to. No matter how big the dream seems, you can do it. You may fall or fail (along the way), but you just have to keep going.”

In one post-Derby interview, DeVaux thanked the women in the thoroughbred industry who’d come before her, bucked the odds, and paved the way for her own journey.

I understood that.

In the early 1970s, a friend asked if I might want to break yearlings on Jonabell Farm in Lexington KY for prominent owner-breeder John A. Bell III the first year he hired women for the task. From watching his wife and daughter around racehorses on the farm, this highly respected horseman had noticed that most thoroughbreds, known to be flighty, seemed to behave more calmly around women. Following his hunch, he hired five of us “girls”…and two men to ride the really tough ones. Several folks warned me off taking the job. “It’s dangerous work,” they’d said. But for someone who’d been born with horses “in her soul”, that assessment had been no deterrent. I said yes and never looked back.

Every morning, Mr. Bell would arrive in the tack room to check on his charges, four-legged and two-legged. He seemed to enjoy the experience tremendously. We all certainly did.

I can’t fathom working for a more remarkable boss, one who allowed us a fairly free rein in schooling the youngsters, as long as we followed his workout directions. One of my charges was a handsome chestnut colt that had a comfortable way of moving, much like that of a quarter horse. I nicknamed him “Mr. Dillon”… as in Gunsmoke’s Matt. At the end of the set of exercising the colts, we’d walk them till cool and then turn the six boys out in a paddock together. I began to notice that all of the other colts stuck together in a gang of five and bullied Dillon whenever he tried to join them in play. Wondering if a bit of TLC might make him a happier camper, I asked Mr. Bell if I might give him a few sugar cubes before turning him out.

“Sure,” he said. “Let me know if it helps.”

That colt was smart, and after only a couple of days of sweet treats before turnout, he’d nuzzle the stash in the pocket of my Navy CPO shirt. I’d give him a few cubes, and he’d head out into his paddock, seemingly content to go his own way and happily ignore his pasture mates.

Mr. Bell loved that story. Here’s the rest of it.

The following year in August of 1973, while galloping horses at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs NY, I discovered that Dillon was stabled in a nearby barn. One morning after workouts, I dropped in to see my yearling buddy, now a handsome two-year old that had won several races. When I asked if I might visit this colt I’d broken, his trainer said, “Sure, he’s a good one. Steady Eddie. Brings home a paycheck nearly every start.”

I felt like a proud mama.

Unlatching Dillon’s door, the trainer warned, “But be careful. He can sometimes nip.” The chestnut was facing the back of his stall. Hearing the door clip spring open and someone approaching, the horse pinned his ears, bared his teeth, and looked around at me with menace.

Stepping into the deep, fresh straw, I said in a low voice, “Dillon? Hey, buddy. What ‘cha doin’ Dillon?”

In only a couple of seconds, he raised his head, his ears pricked forward, his mouth relaxed, and he turned to face me. The colt then snorted, shook his head, took a couple of steps towards me, and nuzzled my chest where a CPO shirt pocket would have been. One filled with sugar cubes, no doubt. Earlier, I’d told the trainer Dillon’s story.

He laughed. “I’ll tell his groom and get that boy a box of sugar cubes.”

All those years ago, I’d drive out of the Jonabell Farm gate after a morning’s yearling work with my car windows down and Helen Reddy belting out “I am Woman, Hear Me Roar.” I, too, always felt gratitude for the women who preceded me on the track and made feasible a choice of work that made my heart sing every day.

Famous pilot Amelia Earhart once said, “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.”

And you’ll never know where you might end up until you try. Just ask Cherie DeVaux!