By Bill Finley
Cherie DeVaux had just left a job as an assistant with Chad Brown, where the assembly line churned out one graded winner after another. After nearly eight years with Brown, she was ready to go out on her own and cobbled together a small stable that made its debut in the spring of 2018.
Her first starter was Take Charge Tina (Take Charge Indy), who finished a distant fifth in a Belmont allowance race on May 18, 2018. The year would get no better as she went winless in 18 starts. DeVaux went on to lose her next 10 starts before breaking her maiden on March 29, 2019 with Traveling (Tale of the Cat) in a maiden claimer at Gulfstream, 10 1/2 months after her first start.
“When I started out, some days it felt like I was rolling a really heavy rock up a hill.” DeVaux said.
But somehow that rock kept getting lighter and lighter until it disappeared. On Saturday, DeVaux won the GII Lexus Raven Run S. at Keeneland with Vahva (Gun Runner). It has been a year of firsts for the 41-year-old trainer, who is a rising star in the sport. The Raven Run was her first graded stakes win at Keeneland and the year 2023 has also seen her win her first Grade I race with She Feels Pretty (Karakontie {Jpn}), the winner of the GI Natalma S. at Woodbine. With more than two months to go in the year, her stable has earned $4,603,320, $2 million more than she earned in 2022, which had been her best year to date.
“This started off in July when More Than Looks (More Than Ready) won the Manila Stakes,” DeVaux said. “Since then it has been full steam ahead. I'm so excited, so happy and so grateful for all of it. When you work for Chad and you're winning Grade I's so often, you almost lose sight of how hard it is to win a stakes race.”
If she made a mistake leaving Brown when she did, it was that she took off before being able to attract many new clients.
“When I left working for Chad, I didn't have a whole book of business waiting for me,” she said. “I had to start from the ground up.”
But that she has become a successful trainer is not a surprise. She was ready to work hard and had the patience to get though her slow start, and learning under a future Hall of Famer like Chad Brown is no small thing. Plus, she now works closely with her husband, respected bloodstock advisor David Ingordo.
“There were a lot of growing pains,” she said. “Then we got some momentum going and COVID hit. I would have been happy if we didn't have any stakes winners so long as our stable was moving along. So this year has definitely exceeded my expectations.”
In time, owners started to take notice. One of her main clients has been Belladonna Racing Partnership, which heads the partnership that owns Vahva, and was instrumental in getting DeVaux's career rolling. At this year's Keeneland September sale, Belladonna, Ingordo and DeVaux teamed up to buy 18 yearlings for a total cost of $4,917,000.
“Yes, David and I work together,” DeVaux said. “He earns his keep by keeping me off the ledge most days.”
She also has horses for Lael Stable, West Point Thoroughbreds, Martin Schwartz and John Gunther.
“I think everyone can see how adept Cherie is at running a first-class stable,” said West Point's Terry Finley. “She can identify talent, and what has consistently impressed our team and our partners is what a great communicator she is. Cherie is the total package.”
As much momentum as she has and with all the recognition she is getting for recent victories, she's probably at the point where she could build the type of stable that could knock heads on a regular basis with a Chad Brown or a Todd Pletcher. But that's not in her plans.
“We have 85 right now” she said. “I don't want a whole lot more than that because that would dilute the quality of what we are doing. I wouldn't feel comfortable with that many horses with the values I have for my stable and the way I train. I try to be hands-on and work individually with each horse. All summer long I was traveling just to keep my own eyes on the horses so that I saw each one at least once a week. We want to have higher quality horses and not just horses in stalls.”
In less than two weeks, DeVaux will be shooting for what would be the biggest accomplishment thus far in her career, a win in the Breeders' Cup. She Feels Pretty will go in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Filly Turf and Stage Raider (Pioneerof the Nile) will be entered in the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile. She will pre-enter More Than Looks in the GI Breeders' Cup Mile, but doesn't think he will get in.
She's had just one Breeders' Cup starter previously, Tarabi (First Samurai), who was third in the 2021 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies.
Win or lose at this Breeders' Cup, she will take nothing for granted. Go back just four years ago to Breeders' Cup week 2019 and she had yet to win a stakes race and had had all of six career winners. Now, she's a major player.
“The beginning really humbled me to the point where I appreciate every win, every stakes,” she said. “That's because it did take me so long to get any momentum going. I'm really looking forward to the Breeders' Cup.”
Watch Out For Baffert-Frey Combo
When Bob Baffert ran three first-time starters in Saturday's ninth race at Santa Anita, gamblers likely had a hard time separating them. All three were typical Baffert… on paper, they looked loaded. There was Urban Legend (Into Mischief), a $1.3 million purchase at OBS April. Nysos (Nyquist) cost $550,000 at the same sale. Then there was British Isles (Justify), a half-brother to Grade I winner Eight Rings (Empire Maker) who was a Coolmore hombred.
Who did Baffert like the best? If you looked at his choice of jockeys, the answer was probably not Nysos. He had Ramon Vazquez on Urban Legend and Mike Smith on British Isles. His choice for Nysos was Kyle Frey, who was riding at a 6 percent clip at the meet and had won only 36 races on the year. So what happened? Nysos ran like a runaway train to win by 10 1/2 lengths and pay $14.80 en route to being named a 'TDN Rising Star'.
But those who were playing close attention might have been able to cash a bet. Baffert had used Frey exactly one other time and that pairing also resulted in a winner when Wynstock (Solomini) broke his maiden on Oct. 15 at santa Anita and paid $28.60.
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