She Didn’t Win Because She’s a Woman. She won because she was the best.

I don't move through life thinking it's harder because I'm a woman.

It's just not how I think.

So when Cherie DeVaux became the first female trainer to win the Kentucky Derby this year, the bit that struck me was not the bit everyone else seemed to want to talk about.

The line

She was asked, more or less, what it felt like to be a trailblazer.

Her answer: "I consider myself a horse trainer, and I just happen to be a female."

That's the line.

She didn't make her gender the headline. She went on to say that the track is a tough place. Tough if you're a man. Tough if you're a woman. 

The actual story

Golden Tempo went off at 24 to 1. A long shot in a field of eighteen.

From dead last to the garland of roses in two minutes flat.

DeVaux is forty four. She didn't grow up in a racing dynasty. She was pre-med in college, studying to become a physical therapist, working with horses on the side because she wanted, in her words, "a life that afforded horses." She started her own training business in 2018 with eight horses. The first three years, by her own description, were slow.

On January the first, 2026, she made her first ever vision board. Top left corner: a picture of the garland of roses that hangs around the winner of the Kentucky Derby.

Four months and one day later, she walked back across the mud at Churchill Downs with a rose from the blanket that had just been on her horse.

Why this matters to me

I write a lot about women and work. I wrote a whole book about it. (The Flamingo Factor, since you're asking. It's about how high performing women get paid and promoted without beiging themselves down to fit in.)

So you might expect me to lead with the "first woman to" headline.

I won't. Because the framing matters.

There is a version of this story that says she overcame being a woman to win. As if her femaleness was the obstacle and the win was the workaround.

That framing is everywhere. And I don't think it does us any favours.

It tells women that their gender is the thing standing between them and the trophy. It tells little girls watching that the headline is the demographic, not the craft. It centres the obstacle instead of the work.

DeVaux didn't win because she overcame being a woman. She won because she picked the right horse, trained him properly, made the right calls on his preparation, and stood in her power when it counted. She won because she was the best trainer in that field on that day.

The fact that she happens to be a woman doing it makes the picture more interesting. It does not explain the win.

The Flamingo bit

A Flamingo stands in her worth without making the standing the thing. She doesn't lead with the demographic. She leads with the work.

She also doesn't pretend the obstacles don't exist. DeVaux is the eighteenth woman to saddle a horse in the Derby in 152 years. That number is a problem. She knows it is a problem. She said as much: women are underrepresented in the industry, she's not sure why, hopefully that changes.

Go Cherie

If you've got a vision board somewhere with something on it you haven't told anyone about because it sounds "a little lofty" (which, by the way, is what DeVaux's mother said to her about hers), this is your sign.

Go Cherie. 🫅