Cherie DeVaux - trainer of Kentucky Derby runner - Golden Tempo

Few races inspire the pageantry and glory that the Triple Crown classics do. For anyone involved in American horse racing, a win in any of the three puts you in an exclusive club, your name forever etched in the history of the sport.

"These big races are the ones you dream of when you look at these young horses that are being born right now, and you say, 'We might have a chance.' That's why every single person on every single level loves the sport," said Daisy Phipps Pulito, whose Phipps Stable won the Derby with Orb in 2013.

On a rainy late September afternoon in 2024, Adrianne DeVaux sent out her first starter and got her first winner at the same time, a confluence of events that left the now-27-year-old in tears. With husband Rodrigo Ubillo by her side, the youngest daughter of Janet and Adrian "Butch" DeVaux entered the training game with a bang as Shoot the Nickel earned his first win. The neck victory at six furlongs was a hint at things to come for his rookie conditioner.

WORDS: ALICIA HUGHES

The words come easily and in uninterrupted batches, forming detail-laden sentences delivered with a genuine timbre. They go on for minutes at a time, not because the orator is indulging in a stream of consciousness but rather, when Brook T. Smith is asked to speak on topics that have hit the marrow of his soul, he isn’t going to skimp on the breadth and depth of their context.

Don’t ask the Louisville, KY native and serial entrepreneur how he got into Thoroughbred racing if you don’t have, at minimum, a 15-minute chunk of time at the ready, lest you miss the key intangibles of how he went from cheering on whatever Kentucky Derby (Gr.1) contender’s name he picked from a bowl during his family’s annual rite, to being enthralled after a horse part-owned by his roommate’s father won a graded stakes at Churchill Downs, to taking every half bottle of champagne he could find in his hotel’s minibar into the hot tub after the colt who ignited his current fantastical reality triumphed in the 2024 Breeders’ Cup Classic (Gr.1).

HOW FEWER HORSES & SHARPER FOCUS PLACE HIM AMONG RACING'S ELITE

It is said that numbers tell a story. And when it comes to the yarns weaved in competitive landscapes, the Thoroughbred industry relies as heavily as any sporting realm on metrics and percentages when it comes to anointing their most successful participants.

As with most narratives, though, context is a key part of interpreting raw data. In the case of trainer Jonathan Thomas, the framing of said figures is a necessity to appreciate the full scope of his professional standing.