By Maryjean Wall

Kent Desormeaux has long been a man of new beginnings, a two-time Derby-winning jockey who periodically has had to reignite his career.

(Photo at right: Desormeaux pumped his fist in the winners circle aboard Jade’s Revenge after the Ben Ali Stakes at Keeneland, April 26, 2007. David Perry | Staff)

His ride on Big Brown in Derby 134 would cap off Desormeaux’s latest comeback if he were to win the race Saturday on this probable favorite.

It would place him in an elite group of jockeys, currently numbering seven, who have won the race three or more times.

No one would be surprised if Desormeaux joined this group, for no one in the sport has ever questioned his superb talent. But neither was anyone surprised when Desormeaux abandoned his longtime base in California two years ago.

He had fallen into a slump. Where Desormeaux once had led the jockey standings in southern California 11 times, he found himself unable to ride enough winners to get into the top 10 lists.

Gone was that decade of the 1990s when no one in California rode more winners than Desormeaux. Over his final five seasons on that lucrative circuit, the jockey was making so little money that he had to spend part of each season riding in Japan — just to make ends meet, so he wouldn’t lose his house.

“I was stalemated in California,” Desormeaux said recently at Keeneland, where he turned the tide of recent seasons and topped the rider standings.

Keeneland must have seemed like old times for Desormeaux, 38, with him riding winner after winner over the three-week meet.

Throughout his long career he consistently broke records: the youngest, at age 25, to win 3,000 races; the youngest to crack $100 million in horses’ earnings. He broke Steve Cauthen’s record as an apprentice, then reset the standard of Chris McCarron’s record number of winners in a season.

He has won Eclipse Awards, is in the Hall of Fame, and visited the Derby winner’s circle with Real Quiet (1998) and Fusaichi Pegasus (2000).

“It’s a gut-wrenching experience,” Desormeaux said about the down times. “Once you’re leader of the pack, it sucks being in the middle somewhere.
You don’t get used to it. You just deal with it. You grit your teeth and do what you do and hopefully they’ll notice you again.”

He’s been getting noticed and reinvigorating his career at various times since 1996. He had done it so often that in 2005 the Daily Racing Form observed Desormeaux was poised “for another one of his fabled career comebacks.”

In the latest comeback begun in 2006, Desormeaux went back east where he was so successful when he burst into prominence in 1987. That was the year he had won an Eclipse as the outstanding apprentice, riding mainly in Maryland. In this 2006 occasion of starting over, Desormeaux headed to New York.

The force was with him. He joined up with trainer Bill Mott.

“Honestly, I think it has a lot to do with acquiring Bill Mott’s stable,” Desormeaux said. “The more I win the more I’m desired, and it just snowballs.”

“He’s the little girl with the curl,” Mott said at Churchill Downs. “When he’s good he’s real good. When he’s in the groove he can be very, very good.”

And when he’s bad?

Mott smiled.

No need to answer.

“It seems to me like most riders go through those cycles,” Mott said. “Momentum, confidence level, the stock they’re riding. I think when they start getting on good horses, they start doing well. They get in the groove.”

But few at the most elite levels have to keep reinventing themselves every few years, as Desormeaux seems to do.

Mott said he needed a regular rider to replace Jerry Bailey after his retirement. He hadn’t used Desormeaux much in the past but he wanted someone he could call on so he wouldn’t have to scramble for a jockey every time he entered a horse.

The Mott/Desormeaux combination has done a lot to boost the jockey’s stock — again — with other racing stables.

Down in Maurice, La., where Desormeaux grew up and learned to ride as a teenager, his brother, Keith, mulled over Kent’s latest career rejuvenation.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Keith said. “What has made the difference? Because the talent has always been there.”

Keith, who is a horse trainer, thinks the reasons are more than the typical, cyclical nature of the business.

“He’s a very brash young man and his attitude, his brashness, is better associated with the East Coast horsemen,” Keith reasoned.

Kent possibly would agree. At Keeneland, he talked about how success as a jockey comes in good part from campaigning with owners and trainers: always being “on,” always smiling, meeting and greeting.

“And can I say that always, during 22 years of riding, I was campaigning? No,” Desormeaux said. “Physically I felt fine. But I didn’t always remember to say hello.”

Kent’s and Keith’s mother, Brenda Desormeaux, said her jockey son “has always been dedicated to whatever he decided he wanted to do, and I think the fact that he’s back as No. 1 proves that.”

Said Keith about his brother’s latest comeback: “Whether Big Brown wins it or not, he’s back on track.”

For Desormeaux, that’s the place to be.

Notes from the backstretch

By Rick Bailey

A 5-furlong workout in under 58 seconds is special for any horse.

But when Colonel John was clocked in 57.80 seconds Sunday, he solidified his status as one of the favorites for the 134th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on Saturday.

“A ‘57’ is a pretty sensational work,” trainer Eoin Harty said Monday. “I’ve never worked a horse in 57 and change. Bob (Baffert, Harty’s former boss) may have, but not many.”

Harty wasn’t anticipating the speedy workout, but he wasn’t surprised either. “That’s what he’s been working like since Day One at Keeneland last year.

“He’s been on a sand track before, and he’s done very well. He trained on dirt as a 2-year-old, and he handled it well then. I’ve been confident in that regard all along.”

Colonel John caught the trainer’s attention with an opening eighth in 12.40 seconds (12 seconds according to the clockers).

“He started to pick it up and pick it up,” Harty said. “(Exercise rider Karine Lhuillier) looked like she was slowing him down, but she said there wasn’t much she could do.”

Harty said he felt “somewhat vindicated (by the workout). I have a lot of faith in this horse.”

Colonel John’s time was the best of 62 workouts at 5 furlongs on Sunday.

Females united

Eight Belles has been getting some extra encouragement as she prepares to enter the Kentucky Derby.

It’s not enough that trainer Larry Jones is doing all he can to prepare the filly, who won’t get the lilies from the Kentucky Oaks on Friday but will chase the roses in Saturday’s Derby.

“My wife (Cindy) talks with her,” Jones said. “She says, ‘Anything a man can do, a woman can do better.’”

Eight Belles must be taking the advice to heart. She turned in a 5-furlong workout in :58.20 on Sunday. “I had to run her down with a pony to get her to stop,” Jones said.

Winning Colors was the last filly to win the Kentucky Derby two decades ago.

“Winning Colors was a big filly,” Jones said. “Eight Belles is not as large, but she is close. She is definitely bigger than Genuine Risk (the 1980 Derby-winning filly). She’s as large as Hard Spun.”

The Jones-trained Hard Spun was second to Street Sense in the 2007 Derby.

Jones pointed out that other Derby horses have “holes” in their résumés.

He mentioned Colonel John’s history of racing on nothing but artificial surfaces, including his Santa Anita Derby victory that stamped his credential as a Kentucky Derby favorite.

Jones conceded that Colonel John’s speedy workout filled in that “hole.”

The trainer known as Cowboy praised Big Brown for “his superior race” in winning the Florida Derby by 5 lengths, especially overcoming his outside post position in a field of 12.

“Maybe the hole he has in him is his lack of experience,” Jones said of Big Brown’s three-race career, including a maiden, allowance and Grade I stakes race.

“Three races aren’t enough preparation for the Derby,” said Jones, whose Hard Spun had six starts entering last year’s Derby.

Happy return

The best thing about having Visionaire in the Derby, according to trainer Mike Matz, is being in Louisville to compete for the second time in three years. He won with Barbaro in 2006.

“I’m glad to be back, that’s for sure,” said Matz after Visionaire worked a half-mile in 48:40, 11th of 33 at the distance Monday. “Any time you’re here, it’s a nice situation.”

Asked whether the 2006 Derby was happy or bittersweet because of Barbaro’s ultimately fatal breakdown in the Preakness, Matz responded: “Very happy with what he did, what he accomplished. I hope to have the same feeling Saturday.”

Matz wants a quicker pace than the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes in which Visionaire was fifth. “At the end, he was the only one gaining on the leaders,” Matz said.

Bad news, good news

Trainer David Carroll sent Denis of Cork out for a mile gallop earlier than usual Sunday morning.

“It’s my son’s first communion, and we had to be at church by 9,” Carroll said.

With Behindatthebar skipping the Derby for the Preakness, Denis of Cork is 20th on the graded-stakes earnings list and should be a Derby starter on Saturday.

Before he got the news Monday, Carroll said, “It’s a crime. It is very frustrating now seeing the way he has trained the past couple of weeks.”

When he got the news about Behindatthebar’s defection, Carroll said, “I am over the moon.”

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