Since hitting a stratospheric career zenith winning the Kentucky Derby, trainer Cherie DeVaux has gone pretty quiet. Since Golden Tempo’s last-to-first Derby triumph May 2, DeVaux has sent out only six starters. All raced at Churchill Downs, and other than Spare Me, 10th in a May 14 turf-sprint maiden, all have run respectably. Supercharger, in fact, ran quite well winning a maiden turf route on May 9.
“We just have a lot of 2-year-olds getting going right now,” DeVaux said Friday. “We’re in a little lull, but we have a lot of entries this weekend.”
Six, in fact, between Churchill and Horseshoe Indianapolis, and if Being Myself runs to form, she will win the featured eighth race Sunday at Churchill
Being Myself and just five others went into a second-level, dirt-route allowance race restricted to older females and open to $80,000 claimers, of which there are none. Being Myself, Derby-winning jockey Jose Ortiz named to ride, is listed at 6-5 on the morning line but figures to go to post an odds-on favorite given her form and that of the competition.
From six starts, Being Myself has turned in four good runs and two lesser performances. She finished a distant fifth sprinting in her debut, won by the precocious behemoth Muhimma, and turned in a dull showing racing without Lasix in the Grade 2 Mother Goose on Nov. 8.
Two months later, Being Myself showed up in a Fair Grounds dirt route at roughly this same class level, went to post at 4-5, but wound up second, beaten two lengths. Not her fault the betting market misjudged the race: Victorious Bless the Broken came back to finish second in the Grade 1 Beholder Mile and third in the Grade 1 La Troienne. Being Myself worked back once and got another break.
“She lost some weight and needed a freshening,” DeVaux said. “Now she looks great and she’s training really well.”
Indeed, Being Myself has put together a six-race breeze pattern that should have her set to run back to her Fair Grounds race, and that will suffice in the Sunday feature.