She is Overlooked. 

Good. She Was Always Going to Win.

By Jenny & Regina, She is. Founders | May 2026 | 5 min read

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Jenny was watching the Kentucky Derby on Saturday when Golden Tempo crossed the finish line.

23-1. Dead last to first. Chaos.

And then Cherie DeVaux came on the screen.

First woman in 152 years to train a Derby winner.

Someone put a microphone in her face and she said:

“I’m glad that I can be a representative of all women everywhere that we can do anything we set our minds to.”

And that’s when Jenny screamed, “Fuck yeah,” at the TV.

Not politely. Not under her breath. Full volume. Arms up.

Because that wasn’t just a win.

That was a moment.

But that wasn’t the only thing Cherie said.

When she was asked what she was thinking while her horse was sitting in the back of the field, she didn’t talk about position.

She said:

“I was actually more focused on the pace that was in front of him.”

The pace.

Not where he was. Not what the other horses were doing.

The pace.

That landed.

Because how often are women taught to measure themselves by where they are in the field?

Who’s ahead. Who’s winning. Who got there faster.

And here she is, in the biggest race in the sport, with her horse dead last…

not watching the scoreboard.

not panicking about position.

just trusting the pace.

Trusting what she built.

Knowing the win was still there… even if it didn’t look like it yet.

Pace doesn’t always look like winning.

Until it does.

And here’s the thing.

The Derby isn’t just some random race we turned on this year.

It’s been a staple in Jenny and Regina’s friendship for over a decade.

Some of our best memories are Derby Day. Big hats, bigger energy, and for years, Jenny making the drive down to Bradley to place real bets at the off-track betting spot, then walking into whatever fundraiser or party we were at holding actual tickets while everyone else was just there for the aesthetic.

We were the only ones in the room who actually had something on the line.

Last year, we weren’t at the party either. We were in Portugal, on a girls trip, watching the race on Jenny’s phone like it was the Super Bowl.

And this year, we missed the party again.

Jenny was in a hotel room on the Alera Group Icon trip.

You know, breaking ceilings in her own male-dominated industry… while watching another woman do the exact same thing on the biggest stage in horse racing!

So no, this wasn’t just another Saturday race.

The overlooking was never loud, it was structural. It showed up in 152 years passing before a woman stood in that winner’s circle as a trainer. It showed up in 23-1 odds on a horse that came from dead last to first.

It shows up every day in quieter ways too.

A name left off the list.

A voice talked over in the meeting.

A career path that requires more proof, more patience, more resilience just to be taken seriously.

Not always a label written down.

Sometimes it’s just an absence.

And she won anyway. From last place. Spectacularly.

Overlooked becomes inevitable.

Because when you look back at a woman who spent over a decade learning every corner of her craft, who bet on herself when the industry wasn’t betting on her, who trusted her pace instead of her position…

was there ever really any doubt about how this was going to end?

The only person who wasn’t overlooking her…

was her.

And she’s not the first.

Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in front of 90 million people in 1973 and proved women’s tennis belonged in the same conversation as men’s. Janet Guthrie strapped into a car at the Indianapolis 500 in 1977 when nobody thought a woman had any business being on that track. Annika Sorenstam teed it up on the PGA Tour in 2003 and shot a 71 in her first round while the world waited to see if she would crumble. Danica Patrick won an IndyCar race in 2008 and became the first woman to do it. Katie Sowers stood on the Super Bowl sideline in 2020 as the first woman to ever coach in one.

Every single one of them was inevitable in hindsight.

And now Cherie DeVaux just trained the winner of the Kentucky Derby and added her name to that list. She did it from dead last. She did it with a mental constitution that she will tell you herself not everyone has.

We believe her.

Somewhere right now there is a little girl watching that replay who just decided what she wants to do with her life.

There is a woman in her forties who burned out working for someone else and is quietly wondering if it’s too late to bet on herself.

There is someone doing the work, showing up every day in rooms that weren’t designed to notice her. 

The odds are just someone else’s opinion.

They are not the outcome.

That label was never yours to carry. We are here to help you flip it. Overlooked becomes inevitable. Not because the room finally believed in you.

Because you never needed it to.

Change the Words | Change the World

With love and full volume,
Jenny & Regina
She is. Founders

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She is. is a women’s empowerment apparel brand and movement built on the belief that the language used to describe women shapes their opportunity. The mislabeling of women is not a personal problem. It is a pattern. And patterns can be interrupted. Shop the word flips. Join the movement. AllSheIs.com