Desormeaux named to ride two horses on Gulfstream card

Llamarada will likely be considered one of the outsiders among the seven fillies and mares entered in Friday’s featured fifth race at Gulfstream, a $61,000 allowance carded at one mile on the main track.

What is noteworthy about the 3-year-old filly is that she has Kent Desormeaux listed to ride, one of two horses the Hall of Fame jockey has been named aboard Friday by trainer Laura Cazares along with Lady Cha Cha, who figures to be among the favorites in the afternoon’s co-featured seventh event for Florida-bred fillies and mares.

Desormeaux is returning to ride locally, at least temporarily, for the first time since the 2013-14 Championship meet during which he won with six of his 63 mounts. That was the last of six consecutive winters Desormeaux rode regularly at Gulfstream Park beginning with back-to-back, 48-win seasons in 2008-09 and 2009-10.

Desormeaux, 54, has been riding sparingly thus far this season at Santa Anita, where he’s won three races from just 31 starts in 2024. The last of those victories, the 6,172 of his career, came Monday aboard C’Mon Man in a lower-level claiming race.

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Jockey agent Jose Santos Jr. will accompany and represent Desormeaux during what, for the moment, will be his brief local stay.

“Kent is coming in just for the weekend, for now, to try to get a feel for whether relocating here permanently would make sense for him, career-wise, at this time,” Santos said. “We’ve gotten a pretty good response from local trainers via text, and I think he’s on a couple of live mounts to start off. He’ll be here through Sunday, meeting people and working horses, after which he should have a better idea whether he’ll decide to switch his tack here permanently this summer.”

Llamarada is the only 3-year-old in a field of seven entered in Friday’s headliner. She will be returning to dirt off a very dull performance over the Tapeta track four weeks earlier. She was claimed by Cazares for $35,000 out of a 5 1/4-length maiden win going seven furlongs on the main track March 1.

Batacuda, who takes a big class plunge dropping in under $25,000 claiming for the first time, figures to be the heavy favorite in the main event while also the biggest question mark in the race. The daughter of Union Rags is just two starts removed from finishing third behind stakes winner Beth’s Dream under allowance conditions March 17.

Double Cosmo Girl comes into the race a bit of a question mark herself. She has easily the highest last-race Beyer Speed Figure of this field, an 80, earned for her second-place finish against entry-level allowance foes on the turf at Tampa Bay Downs. She is winless in five career tries on dirt.

Trainer Jose D’Angelo will put blinkers back on Mama Maria, another key contender in the headliner, after she failed to change leads through the stretch while finishing third under similar conditions going 6 1/2 furlongs in her last start.

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