Golden Tempo crossed the finish line at Churchill Downs on Saturday at 23-1 odds, and the name most people were looking for in the aftermath was not the horse’s. It was Cherie DeVaux. She became the first woman to train a Kentucky Derby winner in the race’s 152-year history.

One hundred and fifty-two runnings of the same race. The same twin spires. The same first Saturday in May. The same traditions that have accumulated since 1875, when a field of fifteen ran the first Derby on a spring afternoon in Louisville. Women have attended, owned horses, cheered, mourned, and been present in almost every capacity the sport offers. None had trained the winner. Until Saturday.

Horse racing is one of the few American sports where women have competed at the highest levels for decades — as jockeys, owners, and bloodstock agents — and yet the training role, the one that requires the deepest daily knowledge of the animal and the most sustained relationship with the horse from barn to track, remained a barrier. DeVaux broke it not with a favorite but with a 23-1 longshot, which is its own kind of statement. She didn’t win on the expected path.

The Kentucky Derby is one of the last American sporting events that functions as a genuine national moment — watched by people who follow racing and people who don’t, dressed up and gathered, connected to something older than most living institutions in American sports. That it took 152 years for a woman to stand in the winner’s circle as the trainer is a number worth writing down. That it finally happened is worth celebrating without qualification.

DeVaux will now prepare Golden Tempo for the Preakness. The Triple Crown is three races. She has won the first one.

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