GOLDEN Tempo and his trainer Cherie DeVaux have rewritten the horse racing history books twice in the space of a month.
The aptly named horse placed DeVaux into a league of her own as she became the first woman to ever train a Kentucky Derby winner.
One month later, he catapulted her further into horse racing folklore as he won the Belmont Stakes at the Saratoga Race Course.
In doing so, DeVaux became the first woman ever to win multiple Triple Crown races as a trainer.
She is clearly a woman of many talents, but few know of DeVaux’s life before she became a trainer.
Long before she entered the elite horse racing arena, DeVaux was actually a competitive bodybuilder.
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Remaining competitive in the sport eventually left her burned out, however, as she admitted in a recent interview with Sports Illustrated.
She said, “I love that you could look at a muscle and be like, I built that. But at times I was eating less than jockeys.
“That whole thing was really not mentally healthy for me because of body dysmorphia.
“I’d have a little pooch on me and be like, Oh, my God, that’s so fat. So now I’m a normal-size person who’s healthy.
“It’s still a work in progress. Everything is a work in progress.”
Her mom Janet DeVaux was not a fan of that period of her life, telling SI, “We’d eat a whole meal and she would have an olive.”
Fast forward to the current day and Cherie DeVaux has earned an astounding $38,141,516 as a horse racing trainer, per Equibase.
In 2026 alone, with a large deal of thanks to Golden Tempo and jockey Joe Ortiz, she has earned $7,303,852 through 160 race starts.
The prize for winning the Kentucky Derby was a cool $3.1 million, and victory at the Belmont Stakes earned another $1.2 million.
That money of course is divided up between multiple parties, with the Phipps stable taking home the majority.
Nevertheless, DeVaux’s decision to become a trainer and give up on bodybuilding has proved immensely lucrative.
She was always at home on horseback having grown up around them from a young age in a family of ten children.
Her father Butch was a harness racing trainer and the kids grew up playing their part in the family business.
Cherie DeVaux continued that family horse racing affair by marrying David Ingordo, who is a bloodstock agent.
Rather unsurprisingly, their sole child together, Reagan, is a horse and animal lover too.
The historic nature of DeVaux’s career trajectory is not lost on her, and she hopes she can be the person that young girls like her daughter look up to.
She told SI, “The thing that really has become apparent to me is that not everyone has the same constitution as I have mentally.
“It really is an honor to be able to be that person for other women or little girls to look up to.
“You can dream big, and you can pivot. You can come from one place and make yourself a part of history.”
