Golden Tempo and the Gendered Structure of Sports Leadership

When Golden Tempo crossed the finish line at the 2026 Kentucky Derby, the win felt historic. Not because the horse charged up from 13th place with a quarter-mile to go to place first by a neck in the last few seconds. Instead, the win was historic because, despite being the 152nd annual derby, it was the first ever win by a female trainer: Cherie DeVaux. But with a race that’s been run every year since 1875, a win by a female trainer doesn’t feel as inspiring as much as it feels jarring. It exposes the real problem with female representation within sports. It’s not that women need more playing time; it’s that women are still systematically excluded from the positions of power behind the scenes of male sports, where decisions are made and success is defined.

What makes DeVaux’s win feel especially overdue is that women are not absent from horseback riding in the same ways as other major sports. In fact, most horseback riding disciplines are female-dominated at the lower levels, with roughly 75 percent of all competitors being women. But the higher you go in the ranks, whether up to Triple Crown races or Grand Prix showjumping, the more the roles reverse. For example, at the 2018 World Equestrian Games in Tryon, USA, 78 percent of the show jumping riders were men. As of May 2026, less than 20 percent of the top 50 riders on the Longines international showjumping standings are women. Once the jumps go up, the money starts flowing, and the stakes of behind-the-scenes decisions increase, women are excluded.

Yet horseback riding is not the only sport to operate like this. Golf is also notorious for excluding women, most notably within the role of caddies for Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) players. As in many other sports, the only reason for this is years of bias, prejudice, and stereotypes. In history, there have only been a handful of female caddies in the PGA. Fanny Sunesson, who caddied for Nick Faldo in the 1990s, was one of the only ones who wasn’t a wife or mother of a player. An article on the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) website claims that “part of the reason why there aren’t more women is because of the travel demands.” Former LPGA caddie, Theresa Durand, added on with, “It’s a hard life for a woman on the road unless you have someone to travel with.” These struggles, though, are clearly not exclusive to women, and reinforce the stereotypical idea of women depending on a man or needing companionship. Even more alarming and blatantly sexist are programs like “The Platinum Tees,” which provides young models for hire as caddies and whose slogan is “play a round with us.”

Golf is just one of many examples of a lack of serious female representation. Men’s major league football, basketball, baseball, and hockey have never seen female head coaches. In fact, out of all of those leagues, female assistant coaches like Becky Hammon for the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs and Jessica Campbell for the NHL’s Seattle Kraken are making headlines just for being there. When Campbell became assistant head coach for the Kraken in 2024, it was such news that we covered it with The Spectator. But currently, neither of these women are still in these roles. 

Beyond coaching or assisting, women are especially excluded from ownership. Out of all four of these major leagues, none of their major teams are solely owned by a woman. The NFL is doing relatively well, with 12 out of 32 of its teams having female involvement. But the fact that a league is doing “well” when less than 40 percent of its teams have female involvement in their ownership and management exposes the problem.

The truth is that male sports will always have a leg up. You can’t create a roster of at least 6’2” 220-lb football players or 6’5” and agile basketball players out of women the same way that you can for men. That doesn’t make female achievements less than, but it does change the games, and that’s a valid point. 

To be clear, the argument isn’t for female representation within female sports. That conversation, of arguing for female leagues, equal salaries, and equal viewership, while valid, has been had over and over again. It’s stale. To an extent, the fact that male sports are preferred is reasonable, but the fact that women can’t be a part of the behind-the-scenes of male sports is not, especially in the positions that actually control the game. Training. Coaching. Owning. Decision-making. The places where power and money actually exist.

That’s why hearing that DeVaux was the first female trainer to win the Derby didn’t feel like such a win for women. It’s something that you assume must have already happened. When you find out it hasn’t, suddenly the timeline feels off. People like to act like conversations about gender in sports are overdone, like we’ve already moved past this. But moments like this prove that we haven’t. Because if we had, we wouldn’t still be keeping track of “firsts” like this in 2026.