Can the best story going shock us back into a boundless sports world?
I can’t get enough of Cherie DeVaux.
It’s because she appears so out of place, but in all the right ways.
We know Bob Baffert from his white hair and sunglasses. We knew D. Wayne Lukas from his cowboy hat (and sunglasses). We might know Todd Pletcher, even if we tend to mistake him for Baffert (white hair, sunglasses).
Now, it could be you know none of these people because, regrettably, they’re stars in a niche sport, even if once upon a time there were only three sports that really mattered in this country and the other two were baseball and boxing.
These people are thoroughbred trainers.
I continue to believe the Breeders’ Cup Classic is the most important horse race in the world, but it’s not the most celebrated, not the one everybody knows, not the one that began 152 years ago on the same track, Churchill Downs, it’s still run on today.
Nope, that’s the Kentucky Derby, run three days ago, Saturday, the one 150,415 attended. Yes, seating capacity has increased over the years.
Baffert’s saddled six Derby winners, Lukas four and Pletcher only two, though he’s entered more horses, 66, than any trainer in Derby history.
Before Saturday, DeVaux had saddled none.
Now, she’s not only saddled one, Golden Tempo, ridden by Jose Ortiz, but won one: Golden Tempo, ridden by Jose Ortiz.
The first woman to ever do it.
Jena Antonucci trained Arcangelo to victory in the ’23 Belmont, the Triple Crown’s third jewel, and other women saddled previous Derby entries. None, though, had lived the real dream, winning the “Run for the Roses,” what many still call “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports.”
DeVaux’s been everywhere since.
The Today Show. CBS Mornings. NBC News Daily. The Dan Patrick Show. The Rich Eisen Show and who knows what else, and all of it’s been better than anything ESPN typically puts on the air until, say, 6 p.m., when it quits yapping about sports and starts broadcasting them.
While her predecessors have been cool and detached — sunglasses, remember? — DeVaux has been original and exuberant, not playing a role but offering her genuine self, which would be the out-of-place part, which has been wonderful and we need more of it.
Besides, how much more yapping can we take about the Lakers and LeBron, the Lakers and Luca, whether Giannis will return to Milwaukee or not, what’s wrong with the Chiefs, is Patrick Mahomes’ window closed, and anything, anything, anything about the Cowboys.
They are tales, told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Know what I mean?
And here comes Cherie DeVaux with a new story to tell.
She was pre-med, then left college for another college, moving home to New York a couple of years after her parents had done the same. Paying her own way, she needed a job and, being a horse person, she got one as a “hotwalker,” literally walking horses for a training barn. Soon she was an exercise rider and soon enough an assistant trainer until eight years ago when she went out on her own, waiting 10 months for her first victory.
She’s won more since.
The race turned out to be an all-timer, too, Golden Tempo going last to first down the stretch and DeVaux losing her mind along the way, all of it caught on NBC’s broadcast which, get this, drew an average 19.6 million viewers and 24.4 million over its last 15 minutes.
That, if you can believe it, is more than the 16.4 million (and peak 19.3 million) that watched Game 7 of the NBA Finals between the Thunder and Pacers, itself the highest rated pro hoops since Game 6 of the 2019 finals between the Raptors and Warriors.
All of it with next to no mass media coverage coming in to the race.
Google AI is not perfect, but it tells me not one segment in the week leading up to the race appeared on “First Take,” Stephen A. Smith’s debate show ESPN uses to set a national sports conversation that’s becoming narrower and narrower and only one mention on the network’s other flagship talk show, “Pardon the Interruption,” coming Friday, the day before the race.
It’s the same way ESPN mostly treats baseball, hockey, auto racing, golf and tennis even though it broadcasts all but the racing often, particularly on ESPN Plus. Like it’s happy to put stuff on the air, yet loathe to give oxygen in the lead-up to anything that’s not the NFL, NBA or big conference college football.
Could somebody tell the “First Take” folks Game 7 of last fall’s World Series, Dodgers and Blue Jays, drew an average 27.3 million viewers, peaking at 33.1 million, leaving their favorite topic, the NBA, in the dust.
I’ve said it so many times.
Once, we followed all the sports.
We knew something about horse racing, stock car racing and open wheel racing. We knew something about the best sprinters, milers and marathoners, sometimes even high jumpers and pole vaulters.
Big fights drew big coverage for weeks and U.S. Open tennis after dark felt like the biggest thing in the world. And as the NFL took over the world, it didn’t mean making baseball smaller and smaller, even if the fans missed the memo.
And one good hour, hosted by Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann, later Kenny Mayne, back when ESPN made us love it, was enough to keep track of it all.
Hey NBC Sports Network, there’s an opening here.
Because Cherie DeVaux made some history, illuminating the error of our ways.
Let’s hope the world responds.