Golden Tempo wins Derby, DeVaux first

Golden Tempo turned the 2026 Kentucky Derby into two stories at once — a wild closer’s win and a barrier-breaking one. The colt came from the back of the field to win the 152nd Run for the Roses on Saturday, May 2, at Churchill Downs, and that made Cherie DeVaux the first woman ever to train a Kentucky Derby winner. Jose Ortiz was aboard, and the finish order behind Golden Tempo was Renegade, Ocelli, and Chief Wallabee. Why did this feel so jarring? Because Golden Tempo was not the horse most people spent the week talking about. He went off at 23-1, in a Derby field without one overwhelming favorite but with more attention on horses like Renegade, Commandment, So Happy, and Chief Wallabee. That kind of setup leaves room for chaos — and Derby chaos usually means traffic, pace trouble, and one horse finding a lane at exactly the right time. Golden Tempo found it. How did he actually win from there? Basically, he was last for much of the race, then made one huge sustained run when the field started to bunch and tire. That is the hard version of the Derby trick. Churchill Downs gives closers a chance, but a 19-horse stampede also gives them a lot of bodies to weave through. Ortiz waited, angled out, and Golden Tempo kept accelerating instead of flattening out. ESPN described it as a charge from the back that got him past 17 horses around the final turn. Why is DeVaux’s win the bigger historical point? Because the Kentucky Derby had never had a female-winning trainer in its 152 runnings. That’s the piece that makes this more than a fun upset. Women had gotten close in Triple Crown races before, and Jena Antonucci broke through in the 2023 Belmont Stakes with Arcangelo, but the Derby remained the missing prize. DeVaux just took the biggest one. What made the betting side pop? Long shots do that, but this one had extra juice because the board also included Ocelli at a huge price in third. When a 23-1 winner gets paired with another bomb underneath, exacta, trifecta, and especially superfecta tickets can explode. One recap pegged the $1 superfecta at nearly $95,000, which tells you how few people had the first four in exactly that order. Was this a total fluke? Maybe not in the way people mean it. The Derby often rewards a horse peaking at the right time more than the horse with the cleanest prep-race résumé. This year’s race also lacked a dominant favorite, which matters a lot. In that kind of field, a horse with one big late kick can absolutely steal the whole thing if the pace and traffic cooperate. Golden Tempo still had to be good enough to finish it. He was. What happens next? The obvious question is whether Golden Tempo becomes a real Triple Crown storyline or stays a one-race Derby shocker. The Derby always creates instant mythology, but the Preakness and Belmont usually expose whether the winner got the perfect setup or actually owns the division. Either way, DeVaux’s part is already permanent. Nobody can take “first female trainer to win the Kentucky Derby” off the board now. The bottom line is simple — Golden Tempo gave the Derby the kind of finish it lives on, and Cherie DeVaux gave it a first it somehow took more than a century and a half to get.