How Far Have we Really Come?

May 5

I was born horse crazy.

Got my first “steed” at four, a burro named Clementine who did absolutely nothing when I kicked except, well, stand there. I tell everyone she gave me my seat. she was the first of many. My nickname in grade school was “horse.” Back then they thought it was an insult. I still giggle about that.

My grandpa also had race horses. I breezed tthem as a kid. Where I learned early that the world around the track was a boys’ club with a capital B. I understood the rules of that game before I ever set foot in a boardroom.

You can imagine how excited I was parked in front of the TV an hour before the 1973 Kentucky Derby. I was in love with Secretariat. Probably because his owner, Miss. Penny, was my little girl idol.

When they broke from the gate, I was spellbound. And then my young heart broke. Secretariat was in last place. Last. My mom kept telling me not to give up hope. My dad just laughing at me for being so upset.

Then the impossible happened. He came from behind to win and set a Derby record. A record that still stands today, fifty-three years later.

Last Saturday was déjà vu.

Golden Tempo. Dead last. Eighteenth in a field of eighteen. Then he started moving. Talk about afterburner! If you haven’t watched the replay, stop reading and go watch it right now. Words can't do it justice. He came from the back of the pack, found daylight on the outside, and ran down seventeen horses to win at the wire.

I was screaming. I mean screaming. Watching that race unfold before my eyes, the same heart-stopping, impossible, where-did-he-come-from finish I watched as a girl in 1973. I lost my voice.

Then there was the biggest candle ever on my happy cake.

The woman who trained that horse, Cherie DeVaux, had just become the first woman to ever train a Kentucky Derby winner. In 152 years.

How cool is that?

DeVaux didn’t come from racing royalty. She was pre-med in college when she took a job walking horses. Like many of us girls, the horses claimed her heart. She became an exercise rider, then an assistant trainer, learning the craft from the ground up.

In 2018, with a lot of love and support from those around her, she launched her own stable. Won her first race on just her 29th start. She was the 18th woman to ever saddle a horse in the Kentucky Derby. Before her, the best a woman trainer had ever done was second place, Shelley Riley, in 1992. Thirty-four years ago.

She built every bit of it herself. On Saturday, her horse pulled off the most stunning stretch runs the Derby has seen.

More coolness? One of Golden Tempo’s owners is Phipps Stable, run by Daisy Phipps Pulito.

A woman trainer. A woman as an owner.

I was so thrilled for her. For the horse. For everyone who had a hand in that moment. I went to bed Saturday night feeling like my little girl again. Like something had shifted.

Then I read the coverage on Sunday.

The game I know too well.

The AP wire story, picked up by outlets across the country, led with jockey Jose Ortiz beating his brother Irad at the wire. Brothers finishing 1-2 in the Derby. It is a beautiful family story. Watching them cross then reach out to each other was icing on my big happy cake. What a powerful story. The Ortiz brothers grew up in Puerto Rico, came up through the sport together, and their accomplishment is genuinely remarkable.

That’s the story the AP led with. That’s the headline that ran through MSN, through local affiliates, through outlet after outlet.

Cherie DeVaux as the first woman trainer to ever win the Derby? She showed up further down. In the “oh by the way” section.

The woman who just shattered a 152-year barrier got introduced with the phrase that tells you everything you need to know:

“The victory was also historic for trainer Cherie DeVaux.”

Also.

It wasn’t just AP and their syndicates.

Heavy.com ran a standalone feature on the jockeys.
The New York Times framed their coverage around the brothers.
Yahoo Sports ran a dedicated brothers piece.
Horse Nation’s headline was entirely about the Ortiz siblings.
Multiple outlets that did mention DeVaux buried her below the brother storyline as a secondary beat.

I sat there staring at my screen, thinking about Penny Chenery.

Fifty-three years ago, a woman fought her way through one of the most closed boys’ clubs in America to own and race the greatest horse who ever lived. Everyone thought she was wrong about Secretariat Everyone.

When her dad died and her family had to pay the estate tax, they pushed her to sell him. She refused to sell, to step aside. She syndicated Secretariat for a record-breaking $6.08 million in February 1972. He then went on to astound the racing community, winning the Triple Crown and setting records yet to be beaten. His Belmont run still makes my heart go all aflutter, all these years later.

Penny had to fight for every inch in a world that wanted to talk about the horse, the jockey, the bloodlines, anyone and anything except the crazy woman who believed in a horse the boys didn’t “see”.

Fifty-three years later, a woman trainer and a woman owner just won the Kentucky Derby. A significant chunk of the media instinctively reached for the comfortable story, the brothers, the family rivalry, the heartwarming angle.

Instead of leading with the woman who just did what no woman had ever done.

I am not in any way minimizing the Ortiz brothers’ race. Their story deserves to be celebrated, shouted from the rooftops.

So does Cherie’s.

Which makes me have to ask.