Golden Tempo, a 23-1 shot who broke slowly and ran near the back of the 18-horse field, charged down the Churchill Downs stretch on Saturday to win the 152nd Kentucky Derby by a neck, with jockey Jose Ortiz aboard.
The victory made trainer Cherie DeVaux the first woman to saddle a Kentucky Derby winner in the race's 152-year history. She is only the second female trainer to win any Triple Crown race, after Jena Antonucci took the 2023 Belmont Stakes with Arcangelo, and was just the 18th woman ever to enter a horse in the Derby.
The race
Renegade, a 5-1 cofavorite ridden by Ortiz's older brother Irad Ortiz Jr., finished second. The 70-1 long shot Ocelli was third. The crowd at Churchill Downs was 150,415, according to Al Jazeera.
Golden Tempo broke slowly under Ortiz, trailed the field through the early going of the 1 1/8-mile race, then threaded through traffic and closed from the outside. Ortiz, in his 11th try, won the Derby for the first time, less than 24 hours after taking the Kentucky Oaks, the top race for 3-year-old fillies.
DeVaux's path
DeVaux, 44, of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., obtained her trainer's license in 2018 after years as an assistant to Chad Brown and earlier as a stable worker for the late Chuck Simon. She won her first race 11 months later and took the 2024 Breeders' Cup before Saturday's victory, her first Derby start eight years after going out on her own.
"I don't even have any words right now," DeVaux said, according to NPR. "I just cant. Just so, so so happy for Golden Tempo. Jose did a wonderful job, a masterful job of getting him there. He was so far out of it."
DeVaux had said before the race that becoming the first woman to win the Derby was the only thing she wanted to accomplish in her career. Afterward, she framed the result more broadly.
"I'm glad I can be representative of women everywhere," DeVaux told the broadcast. "We can do anything we set our minds to."
A scratch at the gate
The Derby went off with 18 horses rather than the usual 20 after Great White, a long shot who had drawn into the field on Wednesday when Silent Tactic was ruled out with a foot injury, was scratched at the starting gate. The colt reared and threw jockey Alex Achard while being loaded, with the 1,300-pound horse falling backward and nearly landing on his rider, Fox News reported. Track veterinarians scratched the horse on the spot. Both Achard and Great White appeared to be uninjured.
What's next
The Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown, is scheduled for May 16 at Pimlico, followed by the Belmont Stakes on June 6. DeVaux has not committed to running Golden Tempo at Pimlico and said she would assess the colt's recovery first. No woman has won the Triple Crown.