SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – From her office at Barn 83 on the Oklahoma Training Track, all trainer Cherie DeVaux has to do to get a glimpse of the horse is look out the window. And she sees him, across the way, standing in his stall.
“He has this big, white face looking at you,” DeVaux said, and she smiles.
Gets her every time.
'He' is a 2-year-old colt who goes by the name of Dr. Agne (Into Mischief). He has never run but will on Friday when he starts his career in a one mile, $100,000 maiden turf race. DeVaux will be rooting hard for the young horse because, sure, she wants to win.
But the back story is one that resonates because of the history DeVaux has with Dr. Agne's dam. That is Lady Eli (Divine Park), who defied the odds and became a champion in 2017 when she was running for trainer Chad Brown.
DeVaux was an assistant to Brown back then and Lady Eli started her career with six straight wins, the last of which was the GI Belmont Oaks on the Fourth of July in 2015.
Things changed right after that when, on her way back to the barn following the Oaks, Lady Eli stepped on a nail. She then developed laminitis, which can prove fatal.
In stepped DeVaux, who was with Lady Eli every step of the way through her long journey to becoming an elite racehorse again.
“I was on a bucket with her the whole time,” DeVaux said. “I was there for her whole recovery.”
Lady Eli | Sarah Andrew
She, along with Dr. Robert Agne of Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Saratoga and Dr. Bryan Fraley of Fraley Equine Podiatry in Kentucky, did everything they could to give Lady Eli a chance to make it back.
And make it back she did. After over a year away from the races, Lady Eli returned and would run eight more times, winning four and finishing second three times.
While the story is heartwarming, there was nothing fuzzy about Lady Eli. She was never one to be confused with a barn pet.
“She was vicious, vicious,” DeVaux said. “Most horses, kids can go up to, but she was not a kid's horse. But she was really nice to me. I couldn't go up and kiss her or anything. She was tolerant, I would say, of me. We were a huge part of each other's stories at that time.”
Then, a second gut punch.
On Labor Day of 2015, Dr. Robert Agne, 54, was killed when he was hit by a car while cycling in Vermont. Dr. Agne would drive from Saratoga to Belmont whenever he was needed to help Lady Eli.
DeVaux, shattered when she heard the news of Dr. Agne's death, remembered thinking they would have to name a horse for the fallen doctor.
“I didn't think I would really have one that would be [Lady Eli's] or I would be a trainer for that matter,” said DeVaux, who went out on her own in 2018.
Dr. Agne the horse will be Lady Eli's first foal to race in the United States. He came to DeVaux's barn after he was purchased by a group of Lady Eli's former owners, particularly Sol Kumin, who raced under the name Sheep Pond Partners.
Dr. Agne is owned by Kumin's Madaket Stables LLC, Twin Brook Stables and Belladonna Racing LLC.
Dr. Agne, who DeVaux said is “much nicer” than her cranky mother, will be ridden by Jose Ortiz in his debut, which is the sixth race Friday. She said that Dr. Robert Agne's widow, Carrie, is expected to be at Saratoga to see the debut.
“It will be hugely emotional,” DeVaux said.
Chad Brown Aiming For 5th Consecutive Spa Training Title
Trainer Chad Brown has had a stranglehold on the Saratoga training title in recent years and he is hopeful that continues for the fifth straight summer.
Brown, who is from nearby Mechanicville, has been the leading trainer at Saratoga for the four summers (he shared the title with Linda Rice in 2023). Overall, the five-time Eclipse Award winner for outstanding trainer, has won the Saratoga title seven times, the first one coming in 2016.
Last summer, Brown rolled to the title with 45 wins ($5,848,233 in earnings) to easily outdistance Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher and Mike Maker, who both finished with 22 visits to the winner's circle. The 45 wins was one shy of the record 46, which Brown set in 2018.
“It's important to have a good meet up here,” Brown said outside his barn at the Oklahoma Training Track. “We focus a lot of our annual business around summer racing, and we target this meet every year.”
Brown, 46, is coming off his ninth Belmont spring/summer meet championship, which was held at Aqueduct while Belmont Park continues its massive reconstruction.
Dynamic Pricing takes the Just a Game Stakes at the Spa | Sarah Andrew
Opening weekend at Saratoga will see Brown take aim at the $500,000 GI Dunkin' Diana Stakes, a race he has won eight of the last nine years and nine times overall. He will saddle Dynamic Pricing (Ire) (Night of Thunder {Ire}) and Excellent Truth (Ire) (Cotai Glory {GB}), the one-two finishers in the GI Just a Game Stakes at Saratoga last month.
Also in Brown's barn is Sierra Leone (Gun Runner), last year's champion 3-year-old.
“I have a lot of high-quality horses,” Brown said. “I have a high-quality training business. It just fits to be focused on this meet. It's not only this meet, but it's sort of the centerpiece of our season.”
Brown said that he does about 80 percent of his racing and earns about 80 percent of the barn's price money from April through Thanksgiving. Right smack dab in the middle of that time is the 40-day Saratoga meet.
You bet he is going to be geared up for it.
“Some of the very best racing in the world is summer at Saratoga,” Brown said. “I am from up here, my friends and family are from here, a lot of my clients enjoy racing here. A lot of the most prestigious races in our country are right here at Saratoga.”
And Irad Looking For 4th Straight Spa Riding Title
Lately, Irad Ortiz Jr. winning the Saratoga riding title has been as constant as August thunderstorms and Hattie's fried chicken in the Spa City.
The 32-year-old Ortiz Jr. has dominated the Saratoga jockey colony like no other in recent years. He has claimed the riding championship the last three summers and has won it six times in the last 10 years (he also won in 2015, 2018 and 2020).
Irad Ortiz with trainer Chad Brown | Sarah Andrew
His brother, Jose, has three titles of his own in the last decade. The only non-Ortiz to win it was Luis Saez, the 2021 champ.
“It always means a lot,” Irad Ortiz Jr. said after morning workouts on the Oklahoma Training Track. “I just have to keep grinding and working hard. I love this place. They have some of the best horses, a lot of the best trainers in the summertime.”
He will take nothing for granted and knows he'll have to grind and work even harder than ever this summer. The competition in the jockey's room–as it always is–is stiff.
Last year, Ortiz won 52 races to edge Flavien Prat, who finished with 45 wins. Prat, the reigning Eclipse Award winner for outstanding jockey, is coming off his first New York Racing Association title. He was the winner of the Belmont at the Big A spring/summer meet with 43 wins.
“It's crazy how many good riders we have right now,” Ortiz Jr. said, rattling off the names of Prat, his brother, Saez, Dylan Davis, Junior Alvarado, Manny Franco, John Velazquez, Javier Castellano, just to name a few. “Those guys are really good. Riding against them and having the opportunity to ride live horses and win a meet here is just a blessing.”
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