Kent Desormeaux closing in on 6,000 wins
ARCADIA, Calif. – Sometime in the near future, perhaps as early as this weekend, jockey Kent Desormeaux will become the 18th rider to win 6,000 races in North America. Through Monday, Desormeaux’s most recent day of riding, the 48-year-old Desormeaux had 5,998 victories in the United States and Canada.
Overall, Desormeaux long ago soared past 6,000 career wins. He recalls winning more than 120 races in Japan and has had winners in Dubai and Hong Kong. When the 6,000th win occurs on this continent, Desormeaux will have a new goal – catching Eddie Delahoussaye as the all-time leader among jockeys from Louisiana.
Delahoussaye, who retired in 2002, won 6,383 races.
“My primary goal is I want to be the winningest rider ever from Louisiana,” Desormeaux said on a recent morning at Santa Anita.
“I might as well go all the way. It gets me out of bed. I’ve always been goal-oriented.”
Friday at Santa Anita, Desormeaux has one mount – Single Me Out in the fourth race. On Saturday’s 11-race program, he has two mounts – Tivan in the $100,000 California Cup Turf Sprint and Rye in the $200,000 Unusual Heat Turf Classic, the day’s richest and final race.
Desormeaux, who began riding in Louisiana in 1986, rode Rye to win in the 2018 Unusual Heat Turf Classic, one of 69 wins through the year for the Hall of Fame jockey. Desormeaux has five wins from 42 mounts at the Santa Anita meeting, which began on Dec. 26.
Desormeaux knows he will need a few years to catch Delahoussaye. Along the way, he hopes to add to his three wins in the Kentucky Derby. Eddie Arcaro and Bill Hartack share the all-time record of five wins. Desormeaux won the 1998 Kentucky Derby with Real Quiet, and was aboard Fusaichi Pegasus in 2000 and Big Brown in 2008.
“There is nothing like the Kentucky Derby, he said.
Earlier this month, Desormeaux rode the Triple Crown prospect Sueno to a second in the Grade 3 Sham Stakes at Santa Anita. Trained by Desormeaux’s older brother Keith, Sueno is scheduled to start in the Grade 3 Robert Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita on Feb. 2.
