BloodHorse Monday | Kentucky Derby 152 Reaction

All right, welcome in a post Kentucky Derby 152 edition of

Blood HORSE Mondays, name Sean Collins.

My name is Louis Rabo. Thanks for hanging out with us.

Hopefully you were able to hang out with us throughout the week

leading in to the Kentucky Derby.

Not a ton of time on Golden Tempo.

No, we did. Not.

We dropped the ball on that one. He was the one I kept mentioning

to you at that, like at the last couple.

Days. Last couple days of that like,

oh, Golden Tempo and like there was one other horse where I'm

like, we haven't really. I think one of them I think was

the Puma where I was like we didn't really have much of the

Pumas and we got Ramiro. We talked to Ramiro.

We just, we never ended up getting the golden Tempo

connection. Well, we have great news for you

today. You'll hear from Cherie Devoe,

of course, the first female trainer to win the Kentucky

Derby to only took 152 tries at this thing.

But obviously Cherie part of the connections on Saturday, of

course, we'll talk with Jose Ortiz and you'll hear from a

Phipps and a St. Elias today.

How about that? A couple of the women there.

But of course, today's episode presented by our friends at

FanDuel and FanDuel Racing. Go ahead and download the app

and get started with them today over at FanDuel Racing.

Appreciate them hanging out with us.

Another another time here on the podcast.

We'll be hanging out with them for the next couple of weeks

leading to our time at Laurel Park together.

But the Derby itself is, is a lot of things, Sean.

But what I love about the Kentucky Derby, something very

different than what you love about the Kentucky Derby.

And it's to me, it's more that it's a it's a process.

And in horse racing we love a puzzle.

It's one of the things that all horse players love about horse

racing is that you get a new puzzle every 25 minutes, right,

That you have to try to figure out and who's going to win this

one or whatever it might be. And the Derby is the biggest of

all those puzzles. You could think of it as, you

know, a claimer on Wednesday might be a 500 piece puzzle and

that the Derby's a 10,000 piece puzzle, something like that,

right? Getting there at all is always a

big accomplishment. But it is Cherie Devoe this

morning that is the headline. And we don't have to pretend

that it isn't a big deal. We don't have to talk around it

at all. But a couple of years ago, we

watched Jen Antonucci win the Belmont.

And I remember interviewing her after that and how how

otherworldly it was to me that this had never happened before.

And then Cherie Devoe, someone that you and I just think of as

and, and look, I, I interviewed her on a local program I, I do

here called the Kentucky Racing Spotlight.

And and you mentioned it in your time with her, that she's just

doing the job in her mind, right.

This is no different than her mentors, no different than than

other people in the sport. But it's also OK to to talk

about it both in both directions, which is yeah,

Cherie Devoe's just a great horse person.

Just is, but at the same time it is a big deal that that other

women in the industry can go, OK, I can do that too for sure.

And, and by the way, Cherie is about as approachable as anyone

to break this kind of record. So I think in a in a way, we

also as an industry got pretty fortunate that someone as

comfortable talking about these things as reason, you know, as

articulate as she is a good in front of the camera as she is, I

think we got really lucky on that end as well.

But Cherie Devoe, just the consummate trainer, just a great

barn and and it's a testament to her even before the Derby that

Jose didn't jump to another horse wanted to be on Golden

Temple. I think that's it speaks a lot

about not just the connections, but speaks a lot about Cherie as

well. An incredible moment of the

Kentucky Derby on Saturday. Yeah, a great piece of Kentucky

Derby history. Cherie Devoe winning the first,

the first time that female trainer has won the Kentucky

Derby. I'm one.

I love the history of the race more than anything.

And so to be present for that historic moment to see her

celebrating, to see her run over and give Jose Ortiz the hug when

they came back. And you know, immediately, as

soon as she gave Jose the hug, go straight to Golden Tempo's

face. And, you know, giving him kisses

and love and being back at the barn yesterday morning with them

and seeing, seeing the love that Golden Tempo has for her and

that she has for him, it was incredible to see.

And so definitely a great inspiration.

We, we've had Kate Hunter on the show before.

We talk about the Japanese horses.

We've had her on several times. She made a tweet just a few

hours ago, and I read it right before we came on the show in

response to Cherie winning the first, being the first female

trainer to win the Derby. She said if somebody, if a woman

had won the Derby and done this when I was younger, I might have

picked a different career path. Wow, maybe, maybe gone that

training route. And so, yeah, so I mean, that's

the kind of that's the kind of impact that something like this

can have. You think of all the young women

out there who love horses, and maybe they were thinking that

training. We know as assistant trainers

even currently, but are thinking about it especially that's.

Right. And Cherie's going to mention it

when we listen to our interview here with her about how when she

originally kind of got started exercise, writing and stuff, she

didn't really think she wanted to be a trainer.

And there was a very important person to her, trainer Chuck

Simon, who has since passed away.

But he really kind of saw that she had the skill set for it and

gave her the confidence to want to go forward with the training.

I remember seeing when I started going to the track, you know, in

high school, 10, about a decade or so ago when she was an

assistant with Chad Brown. I remember seeing when I would

go up to Aqueduct, seeing her walking with the horses in.

And so that just an incredible thing.

She's had so much success since she's gone off on her own and

she's really kind of taken. She's had great mentors along

the way and as as she told you years ago, and she's just thinks

of herself as a trainer and she's one of the best trainers

in this industry. And we talked a lot about on

Blood horse at the Derby, we talked about with Beckman 10,

Sally Drew in how he's going to be one of those trainers that

we're going to see on this scale, on the Derby scale every

year going forward for the next several decades.

Sheree's going to be one of those as well.

And this was her first Kentucky Derby.

She's one for one. She's off to a great start.

She's going to be, I can't imagine how much better for

business this is going to be on top of it already.

And I mean, you got the Phipps and St.

Elias and you're stable. You're already having some high

quality owners right there. And so I mean, this is we're

going to, we're going to see a lot of Cherie.

I imagine she's not. It's not going to be very long

before we potentially see a second one from Cherie.

And I probably think it's not going to be too long before we

see a second female trainer win this thing as well.

There's too many good ones out there right now.

I think Brittany Russell's got Taj Mahal coming up in the

Preakness. She just had Dazzling Dame in

the in the Kentucky Oaks. And so there's probably going to

be a second one here coming up very, very soon.

Yeah, I think you're totally right.

I also want people and, and Sean did this interview yesterday

right after, you know, the morning cavalcade.

I'm sure at all the things that happened after the Kentucky

Derby, I had to fly our our or drive our our Poor colleague

Barry Spears, who got stuck with a spirit flight on the way back.

And. Then we get the e-mail at 3 O 83

AM on Friday. But thank God I overplay in

everything. You know this yes, I 10 days ago

I bought a ticket randomly out of Cincinnati for him to go home

at night. So I had to drive to Cincinnati

yesterday. But anyway, Sean did this

interview with with Sheree Devote and I and I appreciate

you bringing up Chuck Simon, the late Chuck Simon, unfortunately,

who we lost, but also Chad Brown.

If you can't hear the influence of those men and how she does

interviews and how she conducts herself.

I, I think you're completely missing the point, but it's

this. What Chuck saw on her really was

an ability to identify great horses.

That's what Chuck saw on her. Chad saw a woman who could

really train and really understood and was adaptive in

the mornings with different things.

And I think that kind of combination for someone like

Cherie is exactly what you're talking about as far as

longevity. Because if you're good at those

two things, you're going to be good in the game for a long

time. And she's not going anywhere.

She's still very young. It is exciting, Sean, in any

sport, when the next generation arrives in college basketball

around here is a religion. This year's freshman class kind

of rejuvenated us within the sport.

I wonder if Sheree can't have that kind of influence.

She was on the Today Show today, that kind of stuff.

Record record number of people watching the Kentucky Derby this

year, and it's the year that a woman.

Wins. Exactly.

I mean that I'm just all of these factors together.

Plus like I said, her, her personality for this is perfect.

All of those things put together, there's an opportunity

here. And if we're not ready for it in

horse racing, shame on us. Yeah.

I mean, just shame on us. And if we're not ready to have

these conversations to to hold up the people that are pushing

us forward like Cherie Devoe, then then shame on us.

And we don't deserve to go anywhere.

We really don't. It's hopefully, hopefully people

are thinking about it. Yeah.

And you mentioned kind of seeing this new generation of of

trainers popping up. That's one of the unique things

about horse racing is, you know, we got the people that have

already been doing this for decades competing against the

people that are on the rise. And the Kentucky Derby's a

perfect example of that. You have your Todd Pletcher as

your Bob Batford efforts, you know you have them in the race,

but then you're also getting your cherise and your wits and

your, you know, your guys that are working their.

Way up 4 is perfect. Yeah, right.

Cherie and Wit, 1st and 3rd, Todd Pletcher, second Bill Mott

4. Exactly.

There you go, perfect mix literally in the top one.

Yeah. And so that's one of the things

that makes the Kentucky Derby so exciting is it always is kind of

that, you know, the the thing that identifies where where the

game is right now in terms of the top trainers.

And then you also get like, you know, you think about over the

last couple years, you know, your trainers at work day in and

day out. Maybe they don't have the the

quality of horses that some of these top guys do consistently,

but they still make it in. You think Mark Clatt was so

happy this year. You think back to, you know,

Alani Briley with Cole Battle last year.

Larry Demerit was at West Saratoga the year before.

You think about that and the Derby really is, that's part of

the joy of a 20 horse field is it does open the opportunities

up for some for so many different people to end up in

the race. And yes, you're going to have

your trainers that have multiple horses in the race Some years,

you know, you've had the years where Todd Pletcher has had five

of the horses in the race. But you always seem to get, you

know, kind of the mix of the the older guys that have been doing

this a while, the newer guys that are coming in and are we

think are going to be there for a while.

And then the people that get that once in a lifetime

opportunity. And it always seems like it's

rotating through who's going to actually end up winning it.

Like we had Bill Mott win last year.

We have Cherie win this year. You know, you go back to Art

Sherman winning with with California Chrome, you know, him

getting that spotlight. And so that's one of the things

that makes the Derby so great. A couple of other very good

finishes in here and yet we hear very few wanting to make the

trip to Laurel Park. And I, I have to ask the

question because in previous years we've seen him do this,

but for example, Commandment finishes 7th in this race and a

couple of years ago, and I'm trying to Is it American

freedom, Catching freedom, catching freedom.

Excuse me, thank you. I'm mixing up American Promise

and catching freedom. His names for no reason at all,

but Brad Cox did send him to the Preakness.

Are you surprised to hear so few little chatter about any of the

runners here? Or are we just in?

Is is this just where we? Are I think I think we're going

to hear hear some more OK, good coming up soon.

Obviously the day I think it's become the thing the day after

so to say we're not really looking at it and then we get to

like Wednesday and Thursday and there's going to be a couple

trainers. I had Derby horses that are

going to look at the field not having any Derby horses and

they're going to be like, because that, I mean, that

happened last year. Sandman was full on going to the

Belmont last year and then Sovereignty said he's not going

to the to the Preakness. And all of a sudden, Mark Cassie

was looking at it and like, you know, if I wait for the Belmont,

I'm going to have to take on Sovereignty and journalism.

At his home fight. Yeah, if I if.

I do the Preakness. I only have to do journalism.

So, you know, it worked out. He, I mean, he ran third, so he

ran a very good race, but Catching Freedom was kind of

that same way. He wasn't going at 1st.

And then I remember going up into the viewing stand and Brad

Cox being in there myself and Jenny Reese and, and Jenny asked

him, you know, are you thinking about the Preakness?

And he's like got a big smile on his face and he's like, maybe

they're like saying it, but not really saying it.

And it's like, all right, he's definitely going.

And so give it a couple days. These horses, I say Wednesday is

the day most these horses are going to go back out onto the

track. They're going to go ahead and

start galloping. And at that point, you're going

to start seeing where there's going to be two or three of them

where the mine kind of starts spinning a little bit.

And it's like, all right, maybe, maybe we can go get this.

Now. The good thing is it looks like

the Preakness is going to be a large field.

Yeah. Anyway, so that's that's a very

good sign. So.

We have a very healthy 3 year old crop for this time of year.

It's not always like this where we're 2025 deep and horses,

frankly, we're probably about 35 deep right now.

And horses that if they ran in a Triple Crown race, we wouldn't

count all of them as winners. But we would say, yeah, it makes

sense that you would try. Yeah, right.

And so it is a it is a an odd year where the top 2 sort of

contenders early in the round. Obviously we we lose the Ted and

offs of the world, we lose the Paladins of the world.

This has been a pretty healthy group otherwise.

It's pretty fun that way. Yeah, it is.

And yeah, it's just, I feel like in the last couple of years,

we've had like all the top horses have ended up in the

Derby. And then at that point, like

there wasn't really anybody in that second tier that was on the

way up. And so like when we got to the

Preakness, it was just like, all right, who who's left that if

they're not coming back from the Derby, who's left out there this

year? We seem to have gotten a group

of horses that are kind of in that they're in that second tier

right now, but they're horses that have been kind of

progressively getting better. I don't know if they're at the

Triple Crown level. Yeah, but it's at the point

where they're ready to take the shot at it.

And we seem to have like a lot of those horses who are starting

to kind of work their way up. You have horses that miss the

Derby like Silent Tactic and Chip Honcho Cycle Tactic,

obviously scratched with a foot bruise.

That's and that's the reason why they're hoping they'll be better

in time. So great white on that list.

Now, yeah, great whites on that list, Chip, Honcho and you know

the, you think Iron Honor and Otino who qualified for the

Derby, but they decided that they weren't ready yet for the

Derby. All the winner of the out of the

tessio. Yep, Yep.

Yep. So yeah.

It's an interesting field that way, for sure.

By the way, I wanted to compliment NBC television

because, you know, you and I are, you know, we're watching

the race. But I had this on on the DVR and

I went back and watched the, you know, the essentially the 20

minute lead up. And that.

So he flips, obviously, getting into the gate.

NBC Great White. Thank you.

NBC did the right thing here for the sport, which was they showed

him jogging off. Yeah, like, hey, he's OK.

He just got spooked by hundreds of thousands of people yelling

at him, you know, that kind of thing.

And look, we've been around that horse.

He is a big dog. I mean, he's just a huge he's

also just kind of a goofy dog, right?

I mean, he is what he is. And so I I hated it in the

moment you and I've gotten to know John Ennis recently and and

he just a good guy. He he came on air with me after

a great white got Tron into the field and he said yeah, I moved

to the United States to win the Derby.

Yeah. And, and that's how quickly the

game can turn on you. Glad he's OK.

But I wanted to compliment NBC because that is, I think people

see a horse fall down and they just assume catastrophe, right?

It's not like that. These horses are kind of

they're, they're animals at the end of the day.

They're still farm animals, that kind of stuff.

I'm glad great White's OK. I really hope we see him in the

Preakness. But he's the kind of runner that

you're talking about in that second tier that can make the

Preakness pretty fascinating. Yeah, he can.

And I, I got to speak with John Ennis yesterday.

There's an article up on bloodhorse.com.

Great White is perfectly fine. He's feeling good.

He went out for his roles yesterday when he got back home

to the thoroughbred center, you know, out there grazing.

And apparently right after the race he was pulling.

Well, right after he scratched from the race and went back to

the barn, he was like pulling John around the grassy area, as

we saw during the week on blood horse at the Derby.

And so he, he was feeling good. He's feeling fine, John, John

said. You know, I'm, I used to ride

National Hunt horses and they take those kind of falls all the

time, bounce up like nothing happened.

And a great white was, he said it was a pretty soft fall at the

end of the he just kind of. Oh, I agree.

And it weird, just like rolled like right?

Back over to his. It reminded me of the but you.

Know it's it's protocol, you never know if they could have

done something, could have done something to his back.

So you go ahead and scratch completely makes sense why he's

scratched, but he's perfectly fine as a vet scratch.

He does have to go under the vets list for John said for this

scenario, it's a week, so he does have to breeze on Saturday

to then be have that be satisfactory for the

veterinarians and then at that point he'll be good to go.

So right, John said if everything goes well at the

breeze, Preakness is probably going to be the option for him.

So we'll we'll see him get another chance on the road.

He only has 4800 people to worry about this time since the

Preakness is at war. They have to go.

For that reason alone, they have to go to.

Preakness so so yeah. But honestly, I don't know if it

was even the crowd. I think based off of what John

was saying, he it's, it's weird for him to do that like to rear

like that, but he the one time he's done it before was when he

had him ready to win the John Battaglia.

And like he was just feeling good.

And sometimes when the horse feels good, you know, they're

just kind of jumping around that they're feeling all the

excitement, they're feeling all the energy might have just been

like an all right, let's go. And then when he did rear up,

you know, if there's a maybe a reaction from, from the pony

rider or something to try to get him back down and it just caught

him at the wrong moment and made him lose his balance and he

fell. That's the that's the scenario

potentially that happened there. So I don't know if you can 100%

tune it up to the crowd or not, or whether he was just feeling

good and acting up a little bit. And then that happened.

But good thing is he came out of it perfectly fine.

I watched him myself get on the trailer yesterday.

I head back home. He looked, he looked good.

So that that's the positive there.

I think this was a more evenly spread out field than we thought

it was, but I think Renegade has probably shown himself to be the

best horse in this field. Is that a fair assessment?

After he finished second but had to do it from the rail.

I'd say. So I'd say yeah, I'd say.

Golden Tempo is the Derby winner.

I want to be very clear, that is how horse racing works.

You can be the best horse and not win the race.

It happens. I'll put it this way.

If they both don't go to Laurel for whatever reason, I would

still expect Renegade to be the favorite.

The Belmont, I'll put it that way.

Yes, I would expect that too, yeah.

I think honestly outside, so I don't want to put Golden Tempo

down because he ran a phenomenal race, but.

And of course. Yeah, we'll talk all the time.

We'll talk with Jose Ortiz about the ride there because it was

amazing the ride that he gave him.

But yeah, I do think Renegade obviously coming out of the

gate, if you haven't seen, he got really bounced around the

first time down the stretch. But honestly though that may it

may have maybe taken out some of his kick in the end and that's

what allowed Golden Tempo to go past him, but it honestly

accidentally kind of put him in the perfect spot.

Forced him to go that. Trick because the top three

finishers were all in the last four going into the first turn

that ended up being the spot to be and so I I don't know like I

do think renegade long term is going to have more success

because we've seen him make the run no matter what versus golden

tempo. He's made the run every time,

but he hasn't always gotten there and he's the kind of horse

where I feel like he kind of needs it to set up for him for

him to be successful and it's set up perfectly for him here.

We'll find out what happens going forward, but he renegade,

I mean, he did kind of end up getting the perfect trip after

that and he did get out sprinted to the wire by golden tempo.

So it'll be tough to tell going forward.

I think another horse you got to give a real shout out to from

his performance this weekend is Dan in Bourbon Man, he he was up

on that pace. He held in there till the very

end. He gave it his all out there on

the racetrack. I think you have to commend him.

He was coming over from Japan. He did not ship Well, he did

not. You know, they got stuck in

anchorage for a couple hours. It was.

It did not. Anchorage, Kentucky, but

Anchorage, AK. ANCHORAGE, AK.

It didn't sound him and TO Elvis would shout out to the massive

run of To Elvis talking to their writers earlier in the week.

When we did a little interview with them, I think the Monday

before and they said, you know what, the first day here, they

weren't eating that well and stuff like that.

The fact that both To Elvis and Dan and Bourbon overcame that

and ran as huge as they did, amazing.

But, but yeah, but I don't want to take anything away from

Golden Tempo because that was a phenomenal, unbelievable.

Yeah, phenomenal. Just great stuff as you point

out. By the way, the top three

finishers at the three quarter mark 18th, 16th and 15th.

Yeah. It really just did set up that

way every year that we think there's not going to be speeding

this thing, there's speeding this thing and it's just how it

goes. And of course, our weekend recap

every single week is presented by our friend Alex Smallwood at

Christie's Bluegrass. For all of your Central Kentucky

real estate needs, especially if you are in the thoroughbred

industry, go find our friend Alex over there at their agency.

Appreciate hung out with us all week.

I did it. Pick Chief Wallaby, by the way,

Pick the top 4 Derby finisher. Yeah, just a handicap first.

First appearance on the show goes ahead.

Balls out of control. Not Chief Wallaby.

Yeah, just go ahead. I'm just gonna call my shot

right now. Exactly.

That's. How you do that exactly?

And he's a handicapper. He knows.

But yeah, if you, if you've been seeing Alex Smallwood throughout

the week, if you missed our final episode of Blood Horse at

the Derby on Thursday, you can meet Alex.

So go back and watch early in that episode, too.

Yeah, early in the episode. So, yeah.

So go ahead and meet him. He's been with us through the

Derby and he's sticking with us on this weekend.

Recap. Questionable decision from him,

but not a questionable decision to call Alex.

Alex Smallwood, of course, with Christie's Bluegrass.

Appreciate him hanging out with us.

You got to do this interview with Cherie yesterday, Cherie.

Someone that you know for sure. How different was the moment

though? I mean, you never you never can

really predict what's going to happen when somebody wins the

Kentucky Derby, right? So you know, all the times that

you may go talk to someone, you can just tell there's like a

almost like a wow, you know, that that really happened kind

of mindset in her and before. So when we did this interview

was right after kind of the big, big press conference.

If you want to see the full like kind of longer version of the

press conference of a bunch of people asking her questions, go

over to the Blood Horse YouTube channel.

We have it up on there if you want to hear some more Sheree's

thoughts. But she's gracious enough to

take an extra 9 minutes with me and talk some more about the

Kentucky Derby. And one of the things she

mentioned, I forgot if she mentioned it here in this

interview, but one of the things she mentioned in the big press

conference was like, you know, I'm enjoying this for for today

and everything, but I also, I'm looking forward to getting back

to the normal routine because she's a horse trainer.

She wants to just focus on the horses, be be worried about

what's going to be next with them.

She's got a whole other barn to worry about.

She's got 100 other horses to worry about.

And so obviously she's taking taking the time to enjoy it.

And as you mentioned, she was on the, she had to fly out to New

York for the Today show today. And so she's soaking it all in,

but she loves her horses and she wants to be with her horses,

which is definitely something that we can we can all relate

to. I'd much rather be like hanging

out with the horses than doing anything else.

Look, I'm wearing a blazer right now.

If you think of this as what I want to be doing, that's not how

it works. But no.

That's rather have wonder Dean be poking his nose back into my.

Here is Sean at the barn with Cherie Devoe, who's in a hoodie

the day after the Kentucky Derby had win at that.

So was I, Yeah, No. Hoodie's on the backstretch.

Backstretch is the hoodie place. If you're in a hoodie, stay

tuned. Back in the barns here at

Churchill Downs the morning after the Kentucky Derby, and

I'm here with Kentucky Derby winning trainer Cherie Devoe.

When you hear those words coming out of anyone's mouth, has it

settled in yet? Just what comes to mind?

It really hasn't. It's exciting, you know,

superficially we're just a static to to be here to win the

Derby and you know, it'll set sink in the next couple of days.

Well, take us into that moment of watching him come down the

stretch, making that big run on the outside.

What were your emotions? Did you like black out anything

like that? What was it like seeing him make

that run? Yeah, pretty much kind of lose

all, lose all sense of self there.

And if you're not, then maybe you need to revisit while you're

doing this. But with a horse that comes with

a run like that, it's it's definitely exciting.

And he just got up there in time.

And, you know, Jose gets all the credit for that.

Well, take us back to when he kind of first came in the barn

and walk us through his progression up until this point.

How have you seen him really grow into a Kentucky Derby

winner? So he is an interest, an

interesting horse and one that, you know, patience pays off.

He was a big heavier horse. You know, you could tell he

wanted to go two turns and we were really surprised when he

won going 6 furlongs first time out.

You know, then he won the Little Compton.

We the ownership group. I have to commend them along

with my team for the patients in this because after the comp we

realized he's going to have to develop to get here.

And we made a plan we were going to prep in Louisiana and then

they gave us six more weeks to go and my team did a wonderful

job at an we had a plan. It went Florida State.

Each work was exactly what we set out to do.

So and you know, here we are. So, you know, it's just kind of

we've always put the horse first.

You know, when he, he was one kind of came into himself.

He's not going to wow early on. He wasn't wowing anyone in his

works. He just kind of had to grow into

himself. Well, leading into the Kentucky

Derby, I know there's a lot kind of made about his, his cracked

heels and everything. I know you said from the start

that it was no big deal at all. You just gave a great answer at

the press conference that we just did outside the barn here

as well. For those that are watching that

don't know, could you explain first what it is and then you

know why it's not such a big deal?

So cracked heels can come from a few different things.

His one of them is when the feet get a little sore, they get hot.

The skin in the, in the heel is very taut and it has a lot of

movement. So when that heat goes it, it

just kind of gets these little openings like little sores.

So mainly, you know, we're working on his feet all the

time, but then we topically have to work on the heels.

So the heels are secondary. And The thing is, is they can be

a royal pain in the rear end if you don't back off.

Because if he continues to gallop a day or two and his feet

are bothering him, then a small problem does become a bigger

problem. And they do get quite sore.

And it's it's really not something that you would want to

go into a race with. So, you know, that's why you

back off a day or two and it's no big deal.

And by the time we get here the week of the Derby or we got

here, all the hard work is done. He could have jogged every day,

He could have walked every day. You know, we're just trying to

keep the horse happy and, you know, just make sure that we're

doing everything this week to make the horse perform the best.

All the little things that go into being a trainer, right?

I mean, human athletes have little, you know, bumps and

bruises throughout the way as well.

Exactly. And you know it, there's a big

push for more transparency. But if the general public

doesn't have faith, you know, I read that they're going to, you

know, throw out cracked eels and it's not a big deal.

So if the trainer's saying it's not a big deal, it's not a big

deal. Well, how difficult is it to be,

you know, kind of a trainer in this social media age right now

and kind of, you know, you know what you're doing, the vets know

what's going on. But like kind of seeing people

who sometimes have no knowledge of the situation at all making

those kind of comments. Just how difficult is that?

We you have to understand that they're not a lot, they're not

educated. And there's also a side to

social media where paints trainers or paints this industry

in a bad light. And it's really unfair.

You know, I can say if if anything was amiss with him, we

would not have run them even if he passed all the vet checks and

everything. But if he didn't, wasn't happy 1

morning or he just wasn't himself, we wouldn't have run.

We put the horse first always. And we're in the Kentucky Derby.

It's on a large scale, you know, a nationalist world scale.

But that goes for any race. It can be.

I scratched a horse and not that long ago he was sound, he was

happy. I just, he didn't look as good

as he could. So, you know, we do try to do

the right thing. And I think it's we're trying as

an industry, we're trying, you know, to educate, advocate and

yeah, is everyone, does everyone hold those morals and values and

core values? No, but I would have to say the

majority of trainers do. And you definitely did a great

job with him here. Now you made history.

And then yesterday's Kentucky Derby, the first female trainer

to win the Derby, my Co host on this podcast, Louie Rebeau, he

always quotes his favorite interview that he did with you

on the radio a few years ago. And when he asked you about

being a female trainer and your response was, I'm a trainer

first and foremost. But So what does it mean to you

though, to be an inspiration to any young women that are

watching you out there celebrating the Kentucky Derby?

It's a great honor. It's, it's not lost on me how

special this, this is. You know, I, I always comment, I

don't even want to genderize it. I'm just kind of always had a

strong personality. I have seven brothers that are

all much bigger than me. So you know it, it's an amazing

feeling to be that person. You know anyone, most anyone

knows what the Kentucky Derby is.

So, you know, it's, it's such an honor.

And you come from a long line of horsemen and trainers before

you, right? Correct.

My mother, she's a used to work with my father, but she's an

accomplished horse person in her own right.

My grandfather, her dad, he was a standard bred trainer.

My father is standard bred trainer.

My brothers are still involved in standard bred.

My sister trains horses thoroughbreds at Belmont, so

yeah, we're quite the horse family.

Well, we got to ask the question about the Preakness, but I'm

going to do this in a different way because every time the day

after the Preakness, we ask, are you going?

It's always we're going to wait to see the see from the horse

whether or not we're going. So I'm going to ask this in What

would you need to see from the horse in order to run in the

Preakness? He needs to be doing as well in

the next two weeks as he was going into this race.

So he just needs to, you know, be healthy, be sound, be happy,

have good energy. And you're taking him back up to

your home base at Keeneland, I believe, just in a couple hours

here in this morning. So that's going to be where he

will do his preparation for whatever is next, Preakness or

not. Yes, he he's going to go back

and that's where we'll prep him. And you know, that's our that's

home base and it's Kentucky's great, Keeneland's great.

It's centrally located. We can.

Any van ride to where we need to go is not a daunting task for

the horse. And final question I have for

you, I saw on social media post of you leaving a rose over at

Chuck Simon's old barn. Just what did he mean to you and

what was that moment like? Kind of taking a moment to

remember him. So Chuck, I can honestly say if

it weren't for Chuck I would not be in this position.

I went to school for pre Med, join the racetrack kind of on a

women of prayer and really enjoyed having fun.

And he saw that if I didn't have any direction and

responsibility, it probably was going to be a path that wasn't

going to lead me anywhere productive.

So I remember he says I want you to learn to be an assistant

trainer. And I kind of balked at him, and

he was persistent and he was right.

How thankful are you now, looking back at it, for all that

he did for you? I just wish you were here.

Well, we're glad that you're here, Cherie.

Congratulations on winning the Kentucky Derby and best of luck

with Golden Tempo going forward. Thank you so much.

All right, thanks to Cherie Devoe joining you outside of her

barn yesterday day after the Kentucky Derby, the win by

Golden Tempo in Kentucky Derby 152.

You close the Chuck Simon there and Sean, something we do poorly

in sports and Chuck is in this group too.

We remember people after they're gone.

We don't honor them while they're alive.

And in a in a very succinct and direct way.

Saturday was the the final eulogy for Chuck Simon and horse

racing. This was it.

And lots of things happen in our sport that are, are difficult or

are hard to wrap our minds around or hard to wrap our arms

around. But the story of of of Cherie

and how she came up in the sport is not one of those.

This is one of the easiest stories to cheer for.

And, and that it started with a guy like Chuck Simon, Saratoga

guy, a New York guy, really encouraging her to press her

boundaries to be to, you know, to to utilize that, that the

skill that she had within her is, is one of the grand stories

of this Derby. And for him to get a final

eulogy on this stage, I know for the people who loved Chuck and

and by the way, one of the reasons I thought about even

doing this show was because of going in circles, being a Monday

show, for him to get this final eulogy is the most fitting way

to remember Chuck and I. And I'm so, so glad that this

happened in the way that it did. And if you want to know how much

it matters to Cherie, like you pointed out, the first thing she

did was leave a rose at his barn.

Yeah. It's it's.

I appreciate you asking that question, but just a fitting

final eulogy for him. And again, Cherie, just the

other thing that stood out to me.

We'll go to Baltimore if he's in good shape.

Yep, right. If he's if he's ready to run

another race, we'll or not. I'd say Baltimore.

So you're saying it. We'll go to Laurel.

We'll go to Laurel if he's ready to go.

Yeah, right. I wish we were.

But yes, it it did stand out that way as well.

Your reactions otherwise, yeah, I wanted to mention the chucks

on. Yeah, it was definitely powerful

thing. If you haven't, go check out

Cherise Twitter page because she had a picture of her leaving the

Rose at what's now Wayne Catalano's bar, but used to be

his. And so just a very touching

moment for sure. And you could tell there at the

end just how much he meant to her.

And but yeah, I think she's she's so good at kind of

explaining things when she was talking about the cracked heels

and everything. And this was something that she

did a great job of on the FanDuel show as well earlier in

the week when it kind of came out that he had the cracked

heels, was just kind of explaining it, giving the

reasoning as to why, you know, it's not really a concern.

And I mean, horses are just like us.

They're going to have little things and sometimes those

little things are something that's going to cause you to not

run in the race. Like when Silent tactic got the

foot bruise, you know, that was something where it wasn't going

to or it was going to potentially impact the way he

was able to run. And then you have things like

this where it's not really going to impact it.

And you know, you're a couple days out from the race, you have

an opportunity to kind of get it, get it cleared up before the

race. And so there was a lot of noise

around that. I'm not sure how much people I

ended up listening to that noise when it came to the race.

Renegade had that same kind of noise too, wearing a three

quarter shoe and they run one too.

And it's like they were fine. And so obviously the everything

with the vets and the health of the horses has been a large

debate and it recently with a lot of the scratches and you

know, kind of the extra scrutiny on that.

But, you know, this was a scenario where we heard

something and it was something that was not a big deal.

It didn't lead to a scratch or anything like that.

And we saw why it wasn't a big deal because he ran great and he

looked great and he looked great the day after.

It's not like he's like limping around or anything like that.

He looked great the day after. So.

So yeah. So I was, I was thankful for

Cherie for taking the time to kind of explain that as well.

I appreciate hanging out with us.

We appreciate the good folks at FanDuel for hanging out with us.

FanDuel Racing. Go download the app today and

bet all the races with our friends over at FanDuel Racing.

I The other thing that stood out from the interview is the the

historicity of this moment of her having to acknowledge that

this does matter, that it can be a moment of great inspiration

for others. It doesn't mean it has to be

comfortable. Yeah, right.

It does. It doesn't mean the spotlight

has to be comfortable or that a a horse woman of her quality who

just wants, like you said, just wants to be at the barn, just

wants to do those things. Doesn't have to look at this as

not not a nuisance. I don't want to use that word,

but just as a a distraction from the training of day-to-day

thing. Right.

And, you know, I used the example on my morning show this

morning of Nick Saban. He's standing on the podium

holding a crystal football. They say, are you going to

Disneyland? He said, I got a recruiting trip

tomorrow, right? And that's kind of Cherie's

attitude, right? It's very similar as I got a

barn horses. Are talking about all these

other horses you got to trade on top of it so but yeah but thank

you to Cherie. I know the constant requests

from people especially on that morning.

I know is very is very difficult for for anyone to be able to do.

But she was very gracious with her time.

She's giving everybody interviews.

She'd done our good friend Carlos Morales right before

right before she talked with us and so she's very gracious with

her time and everything like that.

So thank you to Cherie for that. Congratulations again on

winning. It was nice to see her.

If you haven't seen the video of her celebration, watching him

come down the stretch, that's the kind of joy horse racing can

bring. And so it's great to see Cherie

on the spotlight here and I think we're going to be seeing

her on that spotlight very often as we continue to go.

Forward I think you're totally right about that and just a

great day of racing out there of course on Saturday at Churchill

Downs. Up next is Jose Ortiz and one of

the rides that will very likely talk about for a very long time.

And it also puts him into a spot, Sean, where he's going to

be able to join a very select club if he keeps this momentum

going. Oh, yes, OK.

And winning a Derby. There's two sides to this.

Of course. You see Jose, you see the

elation, you see Irad right after the race.

And you talk about the opposite ends of the spectrum for good

reason of how those men were feeling right after the race.

And but Jose Ortiz, let's stay with him.

And I'm going to ask him about this, the move to Kentucky a few

years ago. And you've had to hear me talk

about this for more than a year of doing this show.

I still think of as one of the great career decisions of any

professional athlete I've covered since I've been in

media. And getting out of New York,

getting out of the shadow of those guys, getting here,

getting the connection set up before those other guys got here

is going to look, we're going to look back at at one of the great

decisions of horse racing. It's not like in the NBA or the

NFL or whatever where someone controls your contract.

Yeah, if you say I'm riding at Saratoga this summer, you may

not get any amounts. You can go ride at Saratoga for

the summer or at least tell people you are right.

Jose moves to I mean, wins is to get now got what, two titles in

New Orleans, right? Won a title at Churchill.

OK. And all those New Orleans

connections are usually Kentucky horsemen.

That's good winters, especially dirt type of trainers that want

to go South for good weather for the winter.

And so you know, that's a bad thing.

Whatever. Yeah, so the New Orleans thing

definitely plays into it's. All part of that ecosystem.

That's right. Yep.

Runs this horse in the New Orleans route to the Derby.

Stays with the connections, you know, not terrible to be

connected with the FIPS and signalized, but, you know,

sticks with that. I just think in horse racing,

we're going to look back on that decision to move here cuz how

many times have we seen jockeys make really not great decisions?

Yeah, but he moves here. The other Ortiz is moving here,

right? We're seeing you gotta head of

the the loose size, but the top three in the race, Ortiz, Ortiz,

Gaffal Leone is kind of a look ahead to what we're probably

gonna see much of this meet and then into September.

As well. Yeah, we're gonna see quite a

bit of that in Kentucky. And think about what Jose has

already done this year and not only the Derby, he won the Oaks

the day before he won the Dubai World Cup.

And again, Steve Asmussen horse, a Kentucky based horse that

wintered down there at Fairgrounds, that's a good point

down there against that mount. And so it's really working out

for him. And I, I made, I made the

comment after the Derby and I said it's going to be pretty

hard for anybody to steal the Eclipse Award vote from him.

And for my vote, at least this point, Dubai World Cup, Kentucky

Oaks, Kentucky Derby, we'll see how the rest of your pans out.

But he's a strong front runner to get the Eclipse Award this

year for sure at this stage and so.

Yeah, and it's not like a Brian Hernandez, no offense O'Brien,

but like, like Jose's going to win another riding title

somewhere as well, right? Like his percentages are going

to stay up his his greatest stakes numbers are going to.

Stay up there. Exactly.

Yeah. And so, but yeah, he, he's

riding on another level right now and it's working out very

well for him. And he's one of the nicest guys

that you can meet back there. And you hear other writers, you

know, kind of talk, talk about him too.

We, we had Jaime Torres on during Blood Horse at the Derby.

And I had done an interview with Jaime for an article a couple

days before that. And when he's talking about, you

know, whether or not after the Preakness, he felt like he

belonged in the jockeys room. And he was talking about, you

know, you look around and you see guys like, and one of them

he mentioned is Jose Ortiz. You know, he's a jockey that has

the respect of his other jockeys.

They all look up to him. And he's such a great guy.

And so seeing his emotions of winning the Derby, I wrote an

article about him and the World Dubai World Cup a couple days

after I'd called him and talked to him on the phone because he

was so emotional when he won that race.

And you could see him crying when everyone that race.

And you don't usually see that too much from from the Ortiz

brothers is that kind of emotion unless it's on the huge, super

big stage like this. And so you could see that

emotion in him again, probably his whole career flashing before

his eyes as he's coming across the wire there.

So it's hard to think that neither him or Irad had won a

Derby up until this point. So for.

That's how tough it is, man. I know that's how tough it is,

but for him to finally breakthrough and get it done

here was phenomenal. All right, well, here's our

interview with Jose Ortiz, winning jockey aboard Golden

Tempo in Kentucky Derby 152. All right, so grateful to bring

in the man of the moment. His name is Jose.

Ortiz piloted Golden Tempo to a win in Kentucky Derby 152.

Jose, I have to imagine. Welcome to the program.

Thanks for taking the time. But I have to imagine you're not

gonna get tired of being being introduced as the Kentucky Derby

winner. Congratulations.

Thank you, Louis. No, not at all.

A dream come true. I mean, doesn't feel real, but

win the Kentucky Derby special. Can you at all put it into words

what it felt like as you cross the wire?

Because we all saw the celebration.

We saw you go all the way around the clubhouse, turn with your

arm raised, saluting the crowd. Just can you try to put into

words what that moment felt like for you?

Hey, it felt it felt like I was going like in slow motion just

looking at the crowd cheering for you.

It just something I want to remember forever.

So I just was looking and it was like slow motion and it was

beautiful. I, I talked to you a couple days

after you won the, the Dubai World Cup pretty much about the

same thing about kind of your celebration and your reaction a

little bit. But was this, I mean, is there

any other moment that can kind of compare for you like that?

Like, or what does it hit you in the moment?

Like this is the Kentucky Derby. As you like, you're hearing the

crowd and as you're doing that gallop out, like, is there

anything else, any other race that could possibly compare to

that? No, I don't think so.

No. Dubai was amazing, but the

feeling of the Derby just something else.

You know, Jose, a couple years ago you tweeted out a photo of

the Derby winner's circle and that's kind of made its way back

into much of the online, you know, talk around this Derby.

Did you really believe it when you tweeted that out?

Did you really have that kind of faith that you would be in the

winner's circle one day? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, why not? That's why we work hard every

day. And I knew within the years I

was going to get good opportunities.

So I always approach every year like I'm going to win it.

So I believe I'm going to win it next year.

That's how I that's how I feel. You know, that's how I approach

every year. The mind is very strong.

You got a like the way you think it is.

It helps you a lot. If you positive is positive,

things are going to happen to you.

Any chance you can already slide us who you're going to be riding

in next year's Derby so we can place those future wagers?

Anything like that? Not many 2 year olds yet I don't

think. We haven't.

We haven't seen the Derby winner yet.

Well, we'll get into the ride itself in a moment, but before

we get to the ride, let's talk about before the ride in the

lead up. So you ride Golden Tempo to a

third place finish in the Louisiana Derby, and then you

got six weeks before the Kentucky Derby.

And we saw there were quite a few good horses out there who

needed a different rider, partially because your brother

rode half of them and so he can only pick one.

But I mean, was it tempting at all to, you know, if you had

gotten an offer on one of those to go to one of the other

horses, or did you, I feel like coming out of the Louisiana

Derby, that this was the horse that was going to get it done

for you, if you could just work out the right trip.

I'll honestly, I like the horse. I thought that the distance was

going to help them being a closer.

I felt like a last time in Louisiana Derby was a fast track

and you know, the time seems fast 46, but they were going a

bit slower and it was very hard to catch up.

And you know, Emerging market is a very nice horse as well.

Not taking nothing away from him, but I knew that this time

was going to help him. I felt like that Louisiana Derry

was first race with the blinker. I think everything was new for

him. And I knew he got very he got a

lot of room to improve. But I'm not going to lie to you.

When, when, when it was so many orders open, I didn't know for

sure who I was going to ride. You know, one day Steve didn't

say anything. It was quiet, very quiet.

And usually I don't talk to Steve much like he text me, my

workers, he say congratulations at the end of the day when I win

and that's about it. I don't I don't like to be

calling my and talking for 20 minutes.

I don't have none of that business.

Tell me who where I got to go. Tell me who I'm writing if I got

to go out of town and that's it. I called him one day.

I was like, who are we riding in the Oaks?

Who are we riding in the Derby? I'm like, And he was like, no,

in the Oaks you probably got a few shots.

You can write shots maybe meaning who knows what they

going to do. And there was another horse

around too, but I was like, wow, Mini and Chad are both very nice

Phillies, but I think Chad Philly is very nice.

She just wanted the distance. Maybe meaning Juan Rotor.

They probably going to stay with one.

And he said OK, OK. And then the next day I show I

just riding the Philly. I was like great, you know, we

got a great mount. Hollyoaks has very important and

I say, all right, who we riding in the Derby?

He say, I don't know yet Golden Temple you've been riding, but

it's a lot going on, you know. So I haven't committed Sherry

Cole, you know, but we knew Golden Temple was there for us

every at all times. And I like the horse.

Like it's not like I didn't like him.

I want to ride him. I like the horse.

I know the horse. I'm going into a race like the

Derby. I want to be on a horse that I

know that I know what he like. I know what he don't like.

But like you say, you know, it was commandment open father I do

was open horses who could end up being the favorite easily.

But you know, I'm glad I'm staying.

I didn't tell Steve what to do. I mean, he figured it out was

we're staying Golden Temple. And I'm thankful he picked the

right horse. Jockey Jose Ortiz with us, part

of those connections, Jose, was you deciding to move most of

your year here to the Commonwealth of Kentucky to ride

at places like Keeneland and Churchill and certainly at the

fairgrounds as well? How much has that?

And I got to tell you, Jose, it's been one of the my favorite

stories, frankly, in horse racing the last couple of years.

Watching your personal development professionally in

the ranks here in Kentucky and in New Orleans, for sure just

one of the better betting on yourself sort of moments that I

can remember. How great has this move to

Kentucky been for your career? Well, it's been great for me

business wise and with my personal life as well.

I really love living here. My wife love it, my kids as

well. That's good, that great

community where I'm living right now and we honestly love it.

The business side, I'm very thankful for the horsemen here.

They welcome me with open arms and I talked to Steve and told

him that if I wanted to be here, I think I had to go to the

fairgrounds. And I think he caught him by

surprise a little bit because the year before I was second

leading rider in golf stream, which I didn't do bad.

You know, Irad was only Irad was on top of me.

But he he agreed, you know, he, he let me, he let me be me make

that decision and whatever make me happy.

He was kind of have my back. And same thing with the move to

Kentucky. He just say this, I have your

back, just go there, be happy. And we figure out the rest of

it. Just if you want to be there, go

there. And I'm thankful for him because

he allowed me to be me. He don't tell me where I got to

go or where I need to go. He whatever tomorrow I decide to

winter somewhere else. He will have my back and not

make me happy, you know, but I think we are very, very happy in

fairgrounds and I, I see myself going back there for the rest of

my career. I think fairground has been

great for my career. Like magnitude, the horse that

trained there, Golden Tempo horse that trained there as

well. You know, obviously golf

training is you got Todd, you got Brad now.

So we have Brad Cox in in in fairground a little bit, Chad

Brown, Clement, you got some big names going to Florida, but at

the end of the day, unfortunately they're going to

have to go somewhere else. Fortunately, Gulf Tree is going

to be closing in the next few years and we're going to see how

that goes. And you know how everybody move

around. But I'm very happy in the

fairgrounds and I don't see myself live in the fairgrounds

in the next few years. I think it's a great place to

winter, good weather, good horses and it's good racing.

And I love the the people. It's great people, great food

and it's great people. I really love Louisiana and just

very happy with my circuit right now is I got a little bit of my

old self in New York. When I go to Saratoga, I see a

lot of my old friends and come back to Kentucky and then go to

Louisiana. I meet a lot of new people that

are very nice and I'm very happy to be there.

Well. Obviously being there was the

right choice this winter as you ended up being on golden tempo

throughout the lead up. So let's dive into the race here

a little bit. I know he's a closer and so we

expected him to be far back, but were you expecting to be as far

back as you were and how, how did you decide when was the

proper time to go ahead and push the button on him?

Yeah, I was anticipating I was going to be far back.

That's the way I wanted to ride him because I see Calvin so

successful with riding this Derby, just breaking, letting

the horse take him, saving ground the first turn and then

make his move on the second turn.

So I was like, I spent all week watching mine, that bear Super

Saver. I was like what, where is it

moving? What is it?

When is the right time? Like I'm riding here every day

as well. That that helps a lot when you

come from New York and you cheap only for the day is different or

for the week like you like a little afraid where, where

should I move Where you know? But now riding making my move to

Kentucky, being here every day, I think it helped me a lot.

But I still study those derbies as many others, but the ones

that caught my eye more was carving because I felt like

Golden Temple could be falling in the back of the pack.

So I wanted to see where he start making his move, the way

he way through traffic and. And he was just beautiful.

And I was watching those videos the whole week.

And yeah, when I start making my move, he responded, Well, when

we pass the kitchen around there, that's half a mile time.

That's a good point. You know, the kitchen, that's

it. So when I start moving there,

it's the horse start moving beautifully.

So I was just trying to take him in the right direction and then

Renegade was right in front of me.

So I was just following Renegade all the way around there and

finally take him out in the airport.

There was a point in the stretch when I was watching the overhead

where it looked like, as he's mentioned, you were following

Renegade, and there was a point where it looked like you were

about to go inside as Renegade was a passing Incredible.

And then like at the last second, you made the decision to

swap to the outside. And like right after you made

that choice, Renegade kind of drifted in and pushed Incredible

to where it would have closed the whole yeah, had you been

going through it. What went into the choice?

Did you see it was going to happen before it happened?

No, that's what went into I was I wasn't I didn't want to go in

there. But what happened, what happened

was that Jamie on incredible, he came out a few pads, you know,

looking for clear run and they kind of meet with Ira kind of

brush a little. And then Ida finally when that

happened, the hole was there. But I knew that renegade was

moving nicely And I knowing Ira, I'm riding with him every day.

I know he's going to push, push him back in.

So I'm not going to get in there.

So I knew I was going to come outside because I knew as soon

he put 3/4 of a land in front of him and land in front, he was

going to come back over. And honestly, I didn't want to

be inside, inside of him there, you know, make my horror on

contour or something. I'd rather be come outside, you

know. And he's surprised to see

Renegade back there with you when you did get to the top of

the stretch. Yeah, but I knew it would be a

possibility. Being on the 1 hole, I knew it

could fall a little bit far back than usual, but I knew it was it

was going to be on the third fly kind of.

I wasn't expecting Renegade to be on the mix early.

The pace was going to be too hot for him to be too close and

being on the 1 hole was going to be almost impossible for him to

be close. He had to break too good and he

don't have the speed anyways. I think I had to give him an

amazing ride. Watch the RIP a few times and

his ride was flawless. I mean, he kept position leaving

the gay. He was pumped really hard, but

he kept he hold his ground nicely and you know, that's a

brave horse and I think he he got a bright future.

That's a very nice horse as well.

Studying not just the horses that you're competing against,

but also the riders you're competing against there.

As you mentioned, knowing the move that Irad was probably

going to make now, we all saw kind of the first one to

congratulate you as you cross the wire was Irad.

I know it was obviously a heartbreaking thing for him to

lose, lose the race so closely, but what did it mean to you to

have him kind of right next to you as you won and have him be

the first one to reach over and congratulate you?

Yeah, I think that shows the kind of person he is to lose the

biggest race in the world. I would say it's not the

richest, but I think it's their biggest just to lose it that

way. Kind of heartbreaking.

And his first reaction just was just reaching, reaching for me

and then just be happy for me. I think he's he make a special

and I showed, you know, what kind of person he is and he's

always been a role model for me. And to have him there just kind

of not heartbreaking. It's like kind of weird just to

beat him because I know how much it means to him, but he also

know how much it means how much it means to me.

But it's like mixed emotion because I'm very happy I win.

But outside the track now that I keep watching, like, man, I

just, you know, his dreams. I was the why this year.

Why, why, like God, go on. It couldn't be somebody else

this year or, you know, like, I think he's a very special writer

and he he's going to have his Derby hopefully soon.

A lot of the jockeys, a lot of the younger jockeys that, you

know, are kind of starting to be on be in the Kentucky scene or

some of the other places now more frequently when we talk to

them and we ask them about, you know, jockeys that they're

looking up to in the jocks room, your name is always one of the

first ones mentioned. What does it mean to you to have

those guys kind of looking up to you every day?

It means a lot. It's also give you some kind of

responsibility. You got to carry your way the

right way. When you are seen as a role

model is you know, it's it's nice, but it's a responsibility.

You got to do the right thing, set the example, be a leader and

you know, it's very special to have these guys looking up to

me, some of them, and I respect them a ton.

I think that's that's why they get along with me nicely because

I always show this respect and I always go talk to them like it's

normal, you know, and sometimes they see us big and

unfortunately some guys don't get along with the little guys

as. I, I'll say I'll see it happen,

but I like to get along with the little guys.

It's, it's kind of fun and just nice to see them working hard

and, and trying and trying, you know, and sometimes the people

that don't win as much, it teach you so much because they are

resilient. Like they, they can't win for

two weeks, 3 weeks. And you can see them every day

out there just trying and trying and trying and trying and

trying. And for me, I learned from that

and I respect that. Like thankfully I win almost

every day. But you know, to see that is I

respect them a lot, you know, and I get along with everyone

that's and the new generation, the young kids, I try to help

them every time I can. Somebody needs some equipment, I

try to help and somebody need me to translate, I help.

I never have an O for young people and whatever I can help

with, they call me always from Puerto Rico trying to find agent

for the buck boys and I'll try to open as much as I can.

Honestly, it's kind of fun to help somebody and then to see it

succeed is that's that's really fun.

We'll have to get to Puerto Rico for the city del Caribbean this

this summer, man. We'll have to go hang out of

Camarero for the weekend. But Jose Ortiz with us, you

mentioned moving to Kentucky and, and those, those horsemen

and those horse women that make up our scene here in the state

and, and Cherie Devoe, certainly part of that.

Jose, just describe what it's like working with Cherie.

It's great. I'm not Cherie for a long time

since she was chat assistant and we always have a good

relationship. When she opened her her barn,

she moved to Kentucky. I stay in New York for a while

and then I make my move here and I soon she knew she, she was

like, you can ride anything you want in the barn like you, you

should be like, I'm going to try to get you on on most of them

and honestly then move to fairgrounds.

She had to do something to do with as well.

She she taught me all her good horses.

The young horses was going to be there and I could ride anything

I want. I knew she had good quality

horses and yeah, I I wanted to change for my career as well.

Fairground was was a very good move and I'm glad I did.

Now looking ahead two weeks, I know there's no decision yet on

whether or not he's going to win the OR run in the Preakness.

But if he did end up running in the Preakness, how do you kind

of envision him as a horse that could handle the two weeks that

could handle the cut back to the mile in 316?

So how how would you see him being able to handle that

challenge? I think the mile in 316 is not

bad. I think he can handle that very

well as handle the two weeks rest.

That's something that Sherry gonna have to keep eye on and

see how the horse come out of the race in the next couple

days. But I think the race is not in

Pimlico, right Laurel, It's in Laurel, which take the speedy

Pimlico track out of it, which is probably a good thing for for

us. And yeah, but it's more like

it's more decision. We'll see what she thinks of the

horse in the next couple days. I'm sure she probably want to go

for it because as a human being you want to go for history.

But like she said yesterday, the horse always going to come

first. Yeah, I'm agree with that.

The horse come first. If the horse not 100% to run,

I'm sure she she won't run. Well, I also want to ask you I'm

I'm a New York Yankees fan, so I got to ask you about your about

your cousin Elmer Rodriguez, a rookie on the Yankees.

I saw he was he was pretty happy about you got and I rad running

well this weekend. What what do you just think

about him starting off his baseball career and is there are

there any tips that you can give him as a professional athlete

yourself? Yes, I always tell him he's very

young, I need to obviously got some silliness in him, but I

told him to show up early. When you are in the hotel and

the boss is leaving, don't be late to the bus.

Be the first one in the bus. You know, you are rookie and

yeah, those kind of things. Be early, be responsible, be

respectful is the more important thing.

But Elma always been that way. He's been respectful, he's been

quiet. He he, he's very good and we are

very happy, very proud of him and I can't wait until tomorrow

that he's going to start in Yankee Steady that's.

Going to be pretty cool. That's a.

Little baseball, a little baseball.

I love it. All right, so all right, Jose.

So last one for me. The next family get together,

right? The Ortiz's all get together.

A little cookout, maybe, you know, a little get together.

After the Triple Crown things settle down a little bit.

Is I read the kind of guy that you can you can kind of, you

know, needle about this have some fun with or is this not

something that we're going to be joking around around the cook

out of the art? Teasement.

Yeah, I can. I can.

All right, let's go. I like it.

Let's. Go there I can, but I don't.

I won't go there. Let it cool down for like a year

first or something. If he if he turns the.

Table. Yeah, that's nice.

Honestly. He's been great about it.

He told me yesterday I was like, man, I watched the replay.

I don't know where the hell you came from.

And you shouldn't be. You shouldn't be following me.

You know, He was like, why are you following me?

It's like, I mean, one of the best joggers in the world is not

the one. So that's right following you.

Where else is Jose going to go? Of course he's going to follow

Iran. What?

Are we doing that good, that good guy to good guy to follow,

right? Yeah.

Exactly right, man. I, I, you know what, I, I lied,

Jose and I'll ask you can as long or short as an answer as

you want. His the video that Sean took in

the in the circle, you know, after the race with Mike Ropoli

and with your brother. Have you gotten to see that?

And, and I mean, what's your reaction when you do see

something? Amazing.

Mikey is a great guy, obviously is a very vocal next, but I'm I

think he wants the best for the sport and you have to respect

that. As long as the video, I think it

was beautiful moment. It was a beautiful moment and

actually he text me today, congratulate me and it's

awesome. Respect Mike a lot.

I think he's been a huge part on on IRA's career.

He played a big role. He gave him very good

opportunity to ride his horses to me as well.

But obviously I ride more and yeah, he's a great guy, a great

family man. And like I say, he's, I love

Mike, I love Todd. I think Todd is a very classy

guy. I love I ride, you know, but

somebody have to win. Somebody 19 oh, that's got to

lose. So if I wasn't in it, I will be

pulling for them. But I was in it.

When I'm in it, I'm going for it.

I I got what I wanted. They win well.

Jockey Jose Ortiz, Kentucky Derby winner, It's going to

sound good for the rest of your life.

My friend Jose, thanks so much for joining us here on BLOOD

HORSE Monday. Thank you.

I don't have to say no anymore. Everybody asked me, are you

winning Kentucky Derby? No, no, not yet.

Who's gonna be the Are you excited?

For the first time, you get that question from somebody who just

meets you and you could say yes. Are you?

Excited. Some airport somewhere.

Yeah, right. Everybody know me here now, not

like in New York, in New York is in Louisville, everybody know

horse races. So everywhere I go, they know

who I am. I don't know how to ask me.

Have you wondered ever? Yet they know I did.

Well, next time you go somewhere, maybe if you're

flying to Baltimore, you're going to get on a plane.

Somebody is going to be like, oh, you ride horses.

And then they'll ask you. You can just pop up the you

winning on the phone, like, oh, yeah, this is me.

Just like last week. And they know my mom and dad

left yesterday and they knew him.

He was like my mom and dad told me.

People started clapping in the plane and it was.

Awesome. That's awesome.

Yeah, it was great. Yeah, it was great.

That's good. Well, congratulations again,

Jose. Be well.

All right, guys. Thank you.

Thank. You, Jose Ortiz, joining us here

on Blood HORSE Monday. I appreciate him carving out.

I'm sure he's doing 700 interviews today.

You know, between him and Cherie, they're almost certainly

going to talk to most of the media in the United States a lot

there, a lot of good things. But the cool part of that was,

you know, we talked earlier in the week on the Blood Horse at

Derby 152 with Jaime Torres and his agent Liz.

And you you heard about that relationship and how those

things work out and the work Liz does so that Jaime doesn't have

to worry about it, etcetera, vice versa.

And you hear, you know, you hear Jose in that spot talking about

Steve rushing his his agent and just how much like Derby mounts

Jose is trying to keep his head off of.

He says, well, you're always going to have golden tempo.

And it's interesting that that's the verbiage that they used in

that conversation when you can tell with Jose, he was like, I

got a good horse. Yeah, like Golden Tempo's a good

horse if we're. Getting one of the other ones OK

if I don't I'm. Fine, I've got golden tempo and

I know what I'm going to have to do, which is make that late

rally. It worked out, Sure, and you can

whatever. Oh, it fell apart.

Sure, whatever. You still have to do it and you

still have to have the horse. And that's where the golden

tempo conversation is probably lacking is us not giving him

enough credit for how good of a run that.

One, and what he mentioned too, of, you know, I, I want to go

into a race like the Kentucky Derby with a horse that I know,

right? If imagine this is his first

time on golden tempo. He doesn't know what kind of

kick he's going to get. He doesn't know exactly.

You know, he mentioned watching all Calvin's replays.

Calvin Burrell. By the way, that is, that is now

the second year in a row we have talked to A jockey after the

Derby and they mentioned watching Burrell's runs.

Ryan did it last year or? Two years ago or two years ago?

Excuse. Me, you're right, Brian, two

years ago and then we hear from Jose this year.

Yeah, backup and makes an impact on talking about riding in the

Derby. Guys go back and they watch his

YouTube over and over. Yeah, it's unbelievable.

Thank you for saying two years ago.

I apologize. Yeah, but yeah, he but like you

want to have think about the Derby and all the pressure that

comes in on it and the the possibility of, you know, going

too soon, 'cause you're like, it's the Derby, I've got to get

going, I've got like, and you make the move too soon, you burn

out at the end, something like that happening.

And he timed it exactly to perfection 'cause he knows the

horse. He got up right in time, didn't

give, you know, some horse. I don't know if Golden Tempo is

one of these horses, but you know, some horses that are

closers, when they get to the lead, they stop a little bit and

they kind of wait on other horses.

Didn't give him any time to do that.

He got. Yeah, he got up there at the

exact moment he needed to and a hearing to like his decision

that he mentioned there when he decided to go outside of IRAD

instead of inside. Just knowing the competition, If

you ever make it to the Kentucky Derby Museum and they've got the

movie in the middle about the Derby, one of the riders in

there, I want to say it's either is it John Velasquez that says

it? But one of the riders in there

says, you know, you not only need to know your horse, you

need to know the competition. And that was an example.

Now Irad's going to be the competition.

Jose knows the best, but just knowing that he.

Mentioned how he Torres too and how he rides.

Exactly. And he said I knew that once

Irad got 3/4 on him, he was going to let him go inside.

And so I didn't want to be in that position where I was going

to be inside. That was the winning move.

The decision to go outside from Jose was the winning move

because he knew the competition. He was running.

So he knew his horse, he knew the competition, he had been

watching Calvin to see where that move was made online, that

bird, you know, on street sense and those kind of horses.

And so it was an, you know, incredible study job by him.

And also, you know, just, I mean, you don't think about how

much the riders really put into that sometimes and are thinking

about it. And Golden Tempo.

I said all the lead up this winter on this show on Blood

Horse at the Derby about how I didn't have faith in the

Louisiana horses, how I didn't think the Louisiana horses were

any good. And he just comes out and proves

me wrong right there. So I'll take that one.

I was dead wrong on that. I also want to say that based on

the conversation with Jose, that if he goes in the middle of

those two horses, Ocelli wins the Derby.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, what a weird game we

follow. I know, but that's what makes it

so exciting because you know that exact same.

Because I'm not wrong at all about that by the way.

Yeah, and that exact same scenario could come out in the

in the Belmont or something. And Jose does decide to go

inside and that doesn't work out.

And then Ocelli wins the Belmont.

And so that's what makes this sport so exciting.

I also wanted to ask him how much does the Triple Crown mean

to you? But he said it and he said it

explicitly. You want to be part of history,

but no one, no one is willing to take the step and they should

not be to say, yeah, if it's an 80% horse, we go.

No one's done that today. You haven't heard that one time

today, right? Horse has to be at the level

that he was before the Derby ain't going.

And so it'll be interesting to see if he gets to that spot.

But Jose was very clear, yes, winning the trouble crown

matters. Being part of history matters.

And so it was nice to hear that when we hear other needless

comments that people spew at the Preakness there.

What I love too, is he was already thinking about the dirt

surface at Laurel versus the one at Pimlico.

I know that wasn't, that wasn't even something I put my mind to.

And that's the second that he starts talking about it.

You could see where that popped in his mind.

He's already. He's already gone there.

That's exactly right. He was already setting up that

mile and an eighth, you know, course that they have.

That's the thing about how Laurel sets up.

A closer like him is going to get that Laurel stretch that

they just don't have at Pimlico. Exactly.

Right. They just don't have.

And so it'll be really interesting to see who does end

up there. But I think that the course

itself, it will not be easy for him just because of his running

style. He did essentially what what

Sierra Leone couldn't do a couple years ago, right?

It's come from way, way back and do exactly that.

Can he do it in the Preakness again?

In other words, get a trip like that back-to-back.

Very difficult question, but I don't think it's the mile on the

316th that'll be the thing that does.

It No, I don't think so either. And he ran well at the mile on

the 316 said in Louisiana. But the one thing that seems to

sometimes be the the kicker for these deep closures that win the

Kentucky Derby when it comes to the Preakness is a lot of times

it seems like they the the rider tries to move at the same time

they moved in the Derby. And because it's a shorter

distance, it's too late. So like you think back to like

when Animal Kingdom came up just short or mine that bird.

Well, mine that bird. Had I think mates ran out of gas

but they also moved too late with.

Him, yeah. And it's like you, you see some

some of that kind of stuff sometimes.

And then it just it seems like the closer, the close deep

closing Derby winners that run in the Preakness, they always

seem to run well, but it always seems like they end up getting

second or third. They just don't quite get up

there in the Preakness now. But as Ortiz mentioned, it's a

different surface. This time it's going to be

Laurel and not Pimlico. Could that provide any kind of

difference to that? We'll have to wait and find out,

but it sounds like he's already starting to think through the

game plan. The other part of it, we

mentioned it earlier in the show, is it looks like at the

moment we're going to have a pretty full gate.

It's going to be awesome. And you remember Mind That bird,

even with Rachel Alexandra in the field with Mind That bird,

everybody kind of clogged the rail And so he had to go way

outside and he came with the run, but he had to go way

outside for it. They're going to know that he's

coming late and they're going to be doing everything to try to

get in his way. That's I mean, you're riding the

Preakness is one of those races where you that you ride against

someone in addition to writing for yourself, you're writing for

yourself, but you're also riding against the Derby winner.

I agree. And or at least that's the way

it used to be, you know, prior to American Pharaoh and Justify.

And so and same with the Belmont, where you would ride

against the Derby Preakness winner.

And so it'll be interesting to see if he gets some kind of

traffic. The one thing I kept mentioning

on this show and on the Derby show was with the amount of

closers that were in the field this year in the Derby, that

there was bound to be traffic somewhere.

I ended up not being the case because those deep closures fell

so far behind that there was a lot of space to for Jose to make

those decisions, for Irad to make those decisions and Tyler

and Ocelli to make those decisions as to where to go.

It might be different this time in the Preakness.

That doesn't look like there's going to be a whole lot of speed

at this point, I feel like. And he could potentially, you

know, if there's a, if everybody's kind of packed

together, might be a little bit harder to find space, which he

could still make it through. But is it going to be too late

for him to get through? You know, we talk a lot about

confidence in horses and and watching trainers move horses to

spots where they might get easier wins just to get them

back to the winner circle, get used to being in front of

groups. Did you not get a sense from

talking to Jose that that's what the fairgrounds has been for

him? That is a place where he got his

confidence in in in this part of his career.

He got so much from riding there, from being there in the

winters. Loves the people, loves the

connections and the horses there.

It's really interesting. He went on and on about the

fairgrounds. I mean, I know, yeah, a

surprising amount, frankly, for a Kentucky Derby post race kind

of show that this is. But it it does speak to the

ecosystem of this sport man. And he very casually talked

about Gulfstream Park and those sorts of things.

And I really do, you know, guys like that thinking about where

they're going to be. But when a guy like that says

I'll be at the fairgrounds until I retire, yeah, is a hell of a

statement. All right, so we've talked to

Cherie, we've talked to Jose. There are other connections we

need to get to. Yes.

And you and I got to start our day by talking to a FIPS.

Yes, we did, young Sean Collins. When I started something called

the Horse Racing Happy Hour, which whose logo is a smoking

horse, I did not anticipate talking to the FIPS as part of

that. Program you didn't plan that far

ahead back and then, did you? Still not still not on the horse

racing happy hour at this point, but of course we talked with

Daisy, who's from that Phipps family, Monique, who's from

Saint Elias stable as well. This was an awesome

conversation. Yes, I mean, just a high level

awesome conversation. Both of these women adding to

the list of women around this horse in the connections, in the

immediate connections, in the spotlight with this horse.

A reminder that, you know, and you and I on this show, we

interview women all the time because that's who's involved in

the horses and those kinds of things.

So it's not so surprising to us. But I'm so glad that people

around the country, whether it's a today show audience or

whatever it might be, is discovering that in the sport of

horse racing, the ultimate meritocracy exists.

If you are good at this, people will hire you period, period,

period. And, and Cherie Devoe is one of

those people. And now Monique and, and, and

someone like Daisy can be in that conversation as well.

What stood out to you? Yeah, well, I just think, you

know, it's always interesting to hear the perspective of the

Breeders in addition to the owners, the fact that we they

were both involved on both ends of this.

I just think this is a really cool conversation, especially

hearing some of the the importance of the Phipps family

and all the years that they've put into this and hearing some

of Daisy's thoughts in this interview about their, you know,

what it means kind of the family as a whole and the generations

that have gone into preparing this horse I think is a huge

thing. The other part is there has to

be in just an implied pressure of being in a family like the

Phipps to have not just success, but high level success.

And so I don't want to say that winning the Derby's more relief

than anything else, because that's not the sense I got from

Daisy at all. Rather just, I think almost a

sense of I'm keeping the Phipps name where it belongs, which is

at the top level of this sport because it is as royal a name as

we have in North American racing.

It just is. And so I, I, I just, I

appreciated the, the tone of this.

I think these two have an incredible amount of trust in

one another. But here is our interview from

earlier today with the connections of Saint Elias and

of course, the FIPS table. All right, continuing our

celebration of Kentucky Derby 152 and of course, the win by

Golden Tempo. Really pleased to welcome in

Daisy Phipps Polito. She's the racing manager there

at Phipps Stable. And of course, Monique Delk, who

is the executive director of racehorse operations for Saint

Elias, Boy, Phipps and St. Elias.

That's a heck of a team. And here we are, the two days

after the Derby with the result that we got the other day at

Churchill Downs. Ladies, welcome and

congratulations. Thank you.

Thank you. Good.

Morning. Yes, Thank you.

Well, I guess just First things first.

Take us back to that moment 2 days ago as you're seeing him

making that run down the stretch.

What was going through your minds?

I think that we hope that we would we would keep moving

forward and get to the finish line first 'cause he was

certainly far back there for a long time.

It, it was exhilarating to say the least.

And that's his running style. But I think Daisy, don't you

agree? It was a little farther back

this time than normal. Made me a little anxious for a

little bit, but quite a kick. I think Jose just having the

patience and confidence in him was truly just amazing.

You know, he knew when he asked him for it, he was going to give

it to him and it was just brilliant to watch.

I watched it 100 times. Yeah, Jose's ride on that horse,

and he said he was. And being in the Kentucky Derby,

where everyone kind of loses their minds anyway, I mean, his

ride was masterful. Brilliant, brilliant.

Yeah, it's as good as I could remember for sure.

And it's it's it's sort of a testament to, you know, sticking

with Jose after those rides, Jose sticking with this horse,

having a real sense that Golden Tempo had a shot here in the

Kentucky Derby. You know, before the race,

Daisy, did you get a sense, you know, with Jose sticking with

the connections here, maybe he thinks something here.

And then you watch Jose win every race on Friday and

Saturday ahead of the Derby. Yeah, I mean, when Irad was on

those three good horses and they all won, I did get nervous that

one of those trainers was gonna was gonna try to grab Jose.

Thankfully he rides a lot for Cherie and we have a great

relationship and St. Elias has a great relationship

with him and, and thankfully he stuck with us and he believed in

the horse the whole time and the horse was doing really well.

He had been quietly showing good signs.

His numbers have been improving, you know, throughout his races.

So we did have sort of a quiet confidence that he was going to

run well in the Derby. And he obviously he ran very

well when you come out of, you know, he won so, so well in the

Lecomte Stakes. When you come out of, you know,

a couple defeats, although close defeat like in the Louisiana

Derby, we've seen now a couple of years where the Kentucky

Derby winner did not win their final prep race.

What's kind of the mindset coming out of the Louisiana

Derby and then kind of waiting for the Kentucky Derby, waiting

to see if he's going to fire his best shot?

MO, you want to take it? I think we all looked at it kind

of as stepping stones to the final goal.

He's never been off the board. He's as honest as a horse is.

We just had to get it all right. We had to get the distance

right, the timing right, his focus right.

He's an amazing horse to be around.

He's incredibly smart. So that job, that part of it's

easy. It's just getting him up to

where he could do what he did on Saturday and it came together

beautifully. And I think the talk in the barn

with Cherie the whole time was these are prep races for a

reason. You're prepping for the Derby,

right? That's exactly you know how it

happened. Right.

You talk about it all coming together, the Phipps St.

Elias Alliance. How did this come together as

particularly on on Golden Tempo? Daisy Well, Phipps stable had

gotten down. We didn't have a lot of horses

in training. You know, we had 16 to 20

broodmares. I want to say we had 20 at the

time. Vinnie and I started talking

about doing stuff together. We had partnered on a couple

other horses Dynamic one that Phipps Staple had bred and and

sold and and Vinnie offered us a a piece of his Cher to stay in

on him and we did that and we had a great relationship.

And after that Vinny and I started talking and we were

saying, you know, let's do some more stuff and I and we were

talking about partnering on the Colts at a Phipps stable mares.

And this golden tempos year is the first full year that we did

that with all the Colts and and it's worked out really well for

all of us. Success right off the bat there

on the on the first year you guys were doing this Monique

from your perspective, just how exciting is it to kind of team

up with, you know a family is well known as successful in this

industry as the FIPS's and seeing the success right off the

bat. So family, the word is the key.

Both families are amazing. There is a true love and respect

for each other. I know Vinnie is Mr. Viola is a

he's a love. He loves the breeding and loves

the dynamic of that. How could you not love the

Phipps Family Foundation program?

I mean, it's it's all there. I think this was a partnership

that kind of came very organically.

I think it's going to be very successful.

It's a great mutual respect on both sides.

And I think the really cool thing for us and for the Violas

is, is it's, you know, my grandfather and my father gave

us children the gift that own FIPS table now of having really

good horses when we were our kids his age.

We were 131415 years old and we were racing easy goer and

seeking the gold and personal Ensign who's behind me there.

Those gave us those thrills that made us love our brood mares and

love our horses and love the sport.

And the fact that we, it's Fib Stables 100th anniversary this

year and the fact that we were are now able to do that for our

children and for Vinnie's children and Vinnie's

grandchildren that they all get to share in this experience.

They are now lovers of horse racing for the rest of their

lives too. And I think that that's probably

the most important thing for us, that St.

Elias has a huge fan base in their family to root for and fib

stable. Our children are now fully

invested. And Saturday, they will all say,

was the greatest day of their lives.

Well, keeping on the family theme here, Daisy, tell us a

little bit about the Mayor Kurumba here in Golden Tempo.

He goes back several generations with your family, so just tell

us a little bit about his pedigree.

Yeah, I mean Kurumba's by she's, she's out of Castanet by

Bernardini. Obviously Bernardini is a

really, really good mayor Sire it she's been, she's had a

couple other foals. Golden Tempo obviously is by far

her best and and she was bred to gun runner a couple weeks ago,

but she Phipps table always believed she was one of our

better ones. You know, going back deep into

that family, you know, with the dancing forevers and the

heavenly prizes and the oh, what a windfalls and dancing spree

who won the Breeders Cup Sprint. So, you know, we, we, we have

some really good pedigree and that was one of the things when

we, when we made this with St. Elias, it allowed us to put

really good stallions, to breed them to really good stallions

and, and, and have offspring like this.

When when you have a horse that goes back several generations

like that and you know, there's been multiple members of the

family that have dealt with this horse family and there been

multiple, you know, all the different staff members that

you've had over over the decades kind of working with this.

Does that just make it a little little extra rewarding to see,

you know, these decades of hard work on this family pay off in a

Kentucky Derby victory? Yeah, I mean, it's my

grandfather, my father, my great grandmother.

I mean, they, they really cultivated these families.

It's and, and we're reaping the benefits right now or we did it

on Saturday and it is special. And that weighs heavy on me.

It's. Awesome.

Monique, I wanted to ask you, you know, Mr. Viola was

involved, of course, with Always Dreaming in 2017.

I I know nine years isn't a long time between Derby wins because

Eddie Derby win is a great one. But how was this?

How was this compared to the previous experience for him?

Both were amazing to, to do it once is, you know, you think

once in a lifetime to do it twice, That's, that's pretty

amazing. And again, just the family

connections between the Phipps and the Viola family, the

excitement in that box, if you could bottle it up and sell it,

you know, it's something like she said her kids will remember

forever. Just a spectacular day.

Well, when you look at, you know, the celebrations of Cherie

Devoe and all the hard work that she's put into this industry and

all the recognition that she's getting as the first female

trainer to win the Kentucky Derby, what does it mean to you

guys to see that and to be part of that?

For for me, I know Cherie works very hard every day.

She's at the barn every day. And to see that kind of

culminate into what happened on Saturday, not many people get

get there. I hope for her that she can take

time to kind of absorb it after all the dust settles a little

bit and kind of wrap her head around what she's accomplished.

So I think right now everybody's just in in in mode.

And she's her first priority is always the horse.

She doesn't put herself first at all.

So maybe in a couple weeks she'll be able to kind of

reflect back on what actually happened.

Right now it's all about the horses in the barn and getting

back to the barn for her, you know?

Yeah, I'm super proud of her. I think she just, she's done a

fantastic job. She she, she's got the a lot of

demands on her time right now. She is 1000% focused on all of

her horses that she trains and, and she's doing a great job

right now going through all of that.

And I hope she gets to to sit down for a few minutes in the

next couple days and really look at what she's accomplished

because it is amazing. It's the pinnacle of our sport.

Right. Daisy one one person was not

able to be in attendance with you all on Saturday and that is

Andrea. How did she take things in and

how did how? How was Saturday?

Yeah, So my mom was in Florida. She's she's got some health

stuff going on right now. She's doing really well.

She was overjoyed. I mean, what what this would

have meant for my father and my grandfather and what it means to

her and all of us is really special.

I got to call her right after he crossed the wire while we were

going into the winner's circle and then she was over the moon.

That's. Great.

Just describe that, that scene in the winner's circle after the

race, You know, only only one group of connections gets to go

in there every single year. Just what is it like taking

those steps into that winner's circle?

Seeing your horse walk in? Just put us in that moment.

It's hallowed ground, the Kentucky Derby winner's circle.

I, you know, I wouldn't walk through it if I didn't, if I

didn't win the race. It's hallowed ground.

Yeah. It is.

It's life changing. It's life changing.

Anyone you ever meet in the airport on an airplane, when

they ask you what you do and you say you work in horse racing,

the first thing they say is did you win the Kentucky Derby?

And, and you can say yes. And that is one of the most

important things to people that are not in horse racing about

our sport. And it's it's special.

And Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby have done a

phenomenal job of marketing and branding that yes.

They have and for you, Monique. The same, you know, it's just

kind of surreal at the moment. You're going through the

motions, but being able to watch the Phipps family and the violas

up there, you know, like she said, it's the culmination of a

lot of hard work. There's a lot of sleepless

nights. You know, what we do isn't easy

all the time. And to have everything to come

together like it did is just, it's indescribable.

So I'm so, so happy for everybody.

The first win for Curlin in this thing.

But you all really have operated largely, as you know, let's get

the best female members of our breeding family together.

But the decision to breed to Curlin, it's turned out to be an

OK one, hasn't it? Yeah, I mean, he's a remarkable

stallion. So and and match with that mare,

you know, when they're born, what do you do?

You say, oh, this could be the one, it's a colt.

He looks like this. This could be your Kentucky

Derby winner. And then you spend the next

three years of your life wondering if that's going to

happen. And it did.

What was it like seeing him, you know, as as a youngster, as a

fool? And just how did he kind of

gradually take those steps to get to the point where he is

today? Just how?

How did he develop? You know, he was always a

correct, well muscled, good boned horse.

But even when he came into, you know, when, when Monique and I

were kind of going through them and talking about, you know, do

we want to, who do we want to send this to?

He was nice. He was a very nice horse.

He wasn't probably the standout standout, but he was a super

nice horse. And then he got to Keeneland.

Was it the end of October? Yeah, yeah, a little bit middle

end of October. And he always did everything

right. He wasn't flashy, but he always

did everything right. And then when he got down to New

Orleans this winter is when when things started taking off and,

you know, Barry Eisman broke him and and Monique is down there

and watches him go all the time. And MO, you can speak to that,

but you know, there was nothing that said he had a lot of speed,

which he showed that. But he has a really good final

kick. That's kind of been.

That's kind of been the joke a little bit now, right?

You know, they should all be that they should.

But like, just like Daisy said, he was kind of a it did, has

always done everything right, didn't flash that brilliant

speed. So typically we send our two

year olds out right around this time of year.

We waited till October for him. We knew that he needed a little

more time to kind of get everything going in the right

direction. It was growing.

You know, you want to give him the best chance to succeed.

So giving them that extra few months I think was very good in

his development and Cherie's done a phenomenal job with him.

The decision to send to Cherie in the 1st place though, where,

where was the, you know, what was the final deciding factor I

guess. So Cherie's a wonderful

horseman, first and foremost. I know she had a connection with

Daisy before us, so I've gotten to know her.

We had lots of talks about it. We thought she would pay very

close attention to detail with this horse.

Excuse me. And just be patient with them.

I think that's all that we really wanted was someone to be

patient, someone to pay very close attention to them.

You know, you have trainers that have a lot of horses.

Sometimes when horses do everything right, you know, they

still don't flash that brilliant sort of brilliance early.

And we knew it was going to take a little bit and we thought that

was a great spot for him. Well, you mentioned the

patience. Obviously, we have a very

important race coming up two weeks from now with the

Preakness Stakes. I know we're going to be kind of

thinking along the lines of we're going to wait and see how

he comes out of the race. He'll go back to the track this

week and we'll see how he is there.

But from and I'm sure Cherie is going to be the one that really

makes that final call. But from your guys's

perspective, what are your thoughts just on the Preakness?

Daisy, you want to take that? I mean, I don't, I don't, I

don't know yet. We'll really wait for Cherie to

make that decision by the end of the week to see how he's doing

and and all of that. Obviously the Belmont distance

sets up better for him than the Preakness distance, but but

we're gonna wait to see how he comes out of the race.

I swear, closers in the Preakness, I don't get it, but

they're always great. They're always great.

I'm just saying. We know which race movie he

wants. Yeah, good.

There you go. No, it's it's a fascinating

question this time of year, every year and we've been

fortunate. You know, we talked with Michael

Banahan last year after sovereignty won the Derby and

those decisions that go into the long term planning and this is,

you know, This is why the conversations with the FIPS

stables, with the Saint Elias stables.

This isn't just, you know, you've talked about this is

generational kinds of decisions here, Daisy.

It isn't as though you're making a two week decision here.

You're making a decision for your operation long term.

Yeah, we're absolutely. We both are and we will let the

horse make that decision for us. We're not going to rate run him

if he's if we don't think he's 100%, there's no point doing

that to him. Agreed.

Agreed there you. Go pretty straightforward there.

All right. Well, Monique and Daisy,

congratulations again. I'm very impressed by the way

that either of you have a voice. I would not.

After Saturday it's. Touch and go.

Yeah, I. Believe it.

I I would not have a voice at all after Saturday, but

congratulations, just an unbelievable story.

Congratulations to the FIPS. Congratulations of course, to

the violas as well and a continued success in the future.

And I really hope we get to see you at Laurel Park.

That'd be nice. Thank you for your time.

Thank you guys. Appreciate it all.

Right. Thanks to Daisy and Monique for

joining us here on the program. As you mentioned during the

interview, just a, a ton of female connections around Golden

Tempo, but it's a reminder that isn't surprising to us doing

this show or being around the industry, just swimming all over

the place, running things, doing all the tough work for sure.

But just an awesome relationship.

You can tell just a high level of trust between those two women

and their operations and what they wanted to bring together.

And when you put together names like St.

Elias and Phipps, man, you're talking about the exact kind of

of connection that you need, that level you need to be at to

win these kinds of races. And to think of a Phipps as an

underdog or Saint Elias as an underdog is kind of the funnier

part of this weekend. But man, great run from Golden

Tempo. Just an incredible, incredible

comeback. A reminder you're never out of a

horse race if you don't want to be, just keep going.

But just a very, very cool connection, and both of them

between Daisy and Monique very clearly understood what the

objective was and what they wanted to try to accomplish

together. Obviously the curling connection

as well, I thought was pretty cool.

But yeah, just your general reaction.

Yeah, no, it was awesome to kind of see all all the all the work

that kind of goes into this behind the scenes.

And you think about, you know, Daisy kind of mentioned that

they were starting to get a little emotional thinking about

the generations of the family that have gone into, you know,

preparing this family line. I think this the the horses in

this family date back to being in the Fipses care since the 60s

or something like that. And so, you know, think of all

the all the generations that have touched those horses, all

the staff members over the years and for that all to culminate.

In getting a horse that wins the Kentucky Derby and then you

think all the success that St. Elias has had on their own.

And then something comes together where they're able to

kind of come together with the FIPS's, have that strong

relationship and pair together. And then the first year that

they go ahead and do this together, they end up getting a

horse like this. And so, yeah, it's a, it's a

pretty incredible. Thing here's the other part and

I had this question ready to go but I didn't need to ask it

because I think Daisy answered it which was your last name is

Phippsis. They're added pressure to win

the Kentucky there. It's clear there is like here in

the family tradition to do those things and and you you but you

know there's a calculated thought process behind what

they're trying to accomplish when they when they when they

combine forces with a St. Elias right.

You're really trying to elevate yourself alongside someone else.

You know the old rising tides and you know boats and all that.

It is interesting to hear that that level of of work together,

if you will, of that kind of cooperation between the two

parties. But just that's what

overwhelmingly in that interview, what came across was

the trust. Just overwhelmingly.

Either one could have answered all the questions and the other

would have agreed that kind of. It was stunning how often they

were in lockstep on. Answers and the trust that they

had in Cherie too, being able to identify who the perfect trainer

for each individual horse will be.

Recognizing that early on that this is a horse that needs time,

he needs patience. We need somebody who's going to

pay attention to all the small details.

And so for them to recognize that early and know that Cherie

is the person that can compliment all these things that

we need. And it's going to do everything

that this horse needs to get him to the point where he can win a

Kentucky Derby. It's just a great job by the

whole team all the way around being able to, you know, not

just you know, breed him and then raise him, but also in

order to get him in the proper hands to where he can be

successful. Also, you know, they I believe

the sellers while they keep all their horses at Claiborne farm.

I don't know if you saw there was a a video going around the

other day of the other guy who was the one that took care of

him, like was his groom as he was growing up as a full and a

yearling. There was a video on social

media, I believe I reposted this.

I'm pulling it up here. Yeah, Bryce Lee, the the

yearling groom for Golden Tempo. If you haven't, go on to Twitter

and find this video of his reaction watching Golden Tempo

win the Derby where he goes running off and jumps into the

pool afterward. It was it was awesome.

So. Derby.

Derby makes us all a little stupid.

It's OK. But you look, you look at that

and I mean, you just, you know, you watch the Derby, you see

Jose Ortiz, you see Cherie Devoe, you, you see, you know,

you see the owners in the winner's circle and everything

like that. And you don't think about all

the all the people who had a little, little touched in

getting this horse to where he is all the way down to the

yearling groom and everybody like that.

All the people along the way who had the greatest moment of their

lives on Saturday and they're going to say for the rest of

their life loud and proud. I had a horse that won the

Kentucky Derby. I was involved with that horse

and, and it's incredible and people like you and I are like,

we got to talk to the winning trainer afterwards, the winning

jockey afterwards, you know, I got to interview the first

female trainer to ever win the Kentucky Derby the day after the

race. You know, all these, all these

little connections are part of what makes the Kentucky Derby

such a such an phenomenal event. All right, put you in a terrible

spot and I'll put myself in a terrible spot alongside you.

How many Derby horses run at Laurel?

I'm going 2. I'm going three.

OK. Yeah, I hope you're right.

I think Golden Tempo will be 1. I think two others are going to

jump. OK.

I I was between two and three. OK, good.

The Peter Pan is this weekend. I just want to preface, I don't

actually have any information. I get ready.

No, you and I are totally guessing that's exactly.

Right. Yeah, I just, I just, I feel

like that's going to happen. It it is the same feeling about

who will go to Laurel. Not the same, but similar to Oh

yeah, no one's going to scratch out of the Derby on Friday

before the Derby like you. No, someone's going to.

Scratch out. There's a ES on the list.

Yes, the. Peter Pan is this weekend.

Can you name last year's winner of the Peter Pan Hill Rd.

Was it very good the year because he was at the Belmont?

The year. Before, can you name the winner

now a Grade 1 winner? Oh, this race has an

unbelievable. Winner's actually.

I wasn't at the 2024 Belmont so I'm trying to remember where the

field was. Was he in the Belmont?

Antiquarian One, he was 24. He won the 24.

Arcangelo 123. So that's why I wanted to bring

up the Peter Pan, because we met the Belmont winner and the first

female trainer to win a Triple Crown race in that Peter Pan.

And Jen Antenucci, obviously the connections there, looking

forward to that one for sure. We don't need to do a huge race.

I. Gotta say I haven't even has

even entered for. That I want you to no, but I

want you to hear the list of winners from this race because

you know, one of the things that happened, Sean, is, is we really

have two parts of the three-year old season, the one leading into

Derby and then the summer part right where we we meet the what

I call the Saratoga horses. Now we're meeting the Matt Wynn

horses and the Ellis Park horses and whatever else.

But you know, those, those Saratoga Del Mar 3 year olds

that we meet at some point Hill Rd. and Aquarian Archangelo.

We the people promise must Keeper Country Grammar Global

campaign Blended Citizen Unified's on here Tonalist is on

here. Charitable man is on here.

Casino Drive is on here. This is a list man.

Pay attention to the Peter Pan. Yeah, especially when you're

thinking about the Belmont, that's exactly right, because

that's going to be the horse that's going to be the kind of

the main prep race for the horses that are not going to go

to the Derby of the Preakness but are targeting the Belmont.

And so you want to get a greatest stakes?

Yeah. Nothing wrong with getting Grade

3 Exactly. Yeah.

And so, you know, keep an eye on that race this weekend.

That'll definitely have a big impact, I think, on things going

forward. I will be talking with Bobby

Hall at some point this week. Who else am I going to talk to?

I mean, that's a pretty good guy to talk.

To That's pretty good, yeah. Does Sean know that Peter Pan is

a brand of peanut butter? Find out next week.

The Blood Horse is dedicated to the improvement of Thoroughbred

breeding and racing over 100 years.

Don't forget to like, subscribe and save Blood Horse Monday on

all your platforms. For the latest news, analysis

and insights, visit us at bloodhorse.com.

Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.