Desormeaux’s Agent Not Short-Sighted

A jockey agent will always employ the first-personal singular when referring to the rider he represents. He will boast, “I rode three winners yesterday.” He will say, “I ride at the Meadowlands tomorrow night,” even if he plans to be sitting in a warm barroom while his jockey is freezing his rear end underneath the New Jersey moon.

This use of pronouns tells a lot about the relationship of riders and agents. It is not to be confused with the role played by sports agents, who negotiate a contract for their athlete, collect 10 percent and move on to the next client. The jockey and the agent are an inextricable team, dependent on each other for their livelihood. If a jockey lacks the talent, an agent’s constant hustling on his behalf will be futile. If an agent fails to line up mounts capable of winning, a jockey can possess the skills of an Arcaro and still be a failure.

So when Kent Desormeaux scored his 547th victory of 1989 aboard the filly Gilten at Laurel Thursday, agent Gene Short was entitled to say: I won more races in a year than anybody has ever won before.

The lives and fortunes of the two men have been intertwined ever since the 16-year-old Desormeaux arrived at Lousiana Downs in 1986 and moved in with Short and his family as the agent tried to hustle mounts for him. After Desormeaux had shown such brilliant promise and was ready to move to Maryland, Short severed his relationship with a journeyman jock who had provided him with a decent living, uprooted his whole life and came to Maryland with the kid. And if they go from here to California or New York, they’ll go as a team.

But they view their success from different perspectives. “Kent has never been anywhere but on the top,” Short said. “He’s never been struggling. I have. I know what it’s like to sweat just so you get a chance to ride two 25-to-1 shots in an afternoon.”

Short hadn’t set the world on fire as an agent in Louisiana, so when he came to Maryland -- where nobody knew him or could even pronounce his jockey’s name -- he said, understandably, “I was scared to death.” He made a list of the trainers he wanted to meet, went to the paddock to learn what they looked like, introduced himself, and tried to develope contacts.

The trainers were probably unimpressed, for Short bears little resemblance to the popular image of an agent as a slick, smooth-talking wise guy. Even today, a prominent Maryland trainer says: “It’s an odd situation to have a semi-unprofessional agent handling a top rider. Short always gives the impression that he doesn’t know much.”

But the agent managed to get his apprentice jockey a chance to ride for some of the big names in Maryland -- King Leatherbury and Bud Delp, among others -- and Desormeaux made the most of his opportunities. He demonstrated that he had not only the physical skills to be a top rider, but also an impeccable sense of racing tactics, and he quickly rose to the top of the state’s weak riding colony. As he won more and more races, and his services became more and more in demand, the fundamental nature of Short’s job changed.

The agent was besieged by trainers who wanted Desormeaux to ride their horses. There would be times when powerful trainers Leatherbury, Charles Hadry, Dale Capuano and Barclay Tagg would all have contenders in a race, and would all want Desormeaux’s services. When Short says yes to one, the others are going to be miffed. As a result, the agent said: “My job is harder than it’s ever been. We have to ride the best horses but we can’t afford to alienate trainers and burn our bridges.”

Short manages to maintain an uneasy peace with his prime clients, partly because he does honor firm commitments when he has made them, partly because there is still an air of countryish innocence about him, but largely because trainers covet Desormeaux’s services so much. Leatherbury said: “It’s irritating to any trainer to have a boy ride his horse, ride his horse, ride his horse -- and then choose another one. Very few riders get the privilege to pick their mounts and not be loyal to a trainer. But I’m not going to cut off my nose to spite my face by not riding him.”

When Short is called on to choose among the mounts offered him in a given race, he confounds and amazes the people who underestimate him. Talk to Short about the reason he has picked one horse over another and he seems no more sophisticated that an average regular player in the Laurel grandstand. Yet his choices have proved remarkably accurate. Frequently he will choose the horse who, on paper, looks weakest, and bettors have learned that Desormeaux is especially dangerous in such a situation.

With all the powerful stable contacts he has, Short could be content to pick and choose among the horses of Hadry, Capuano, Leatherbury et. al., but he still beats the bushes among lesser stables in his quest for mounts. A week ago he spurned horses trained by Leatherbury and Capuano, and Desormeaux showed up on a horse ridden by small-timer William Albright. It was Albright’s only winner of the Laurel meeting and it typefied Short’s energetic pursuit of every possible winner.

Desmoreaux leaves all such decisions in his agent’s hands; he may not know whom Short has chosen until he gets to the track and opens the program. “He relieves himself of all the pressure by giving me the decision and the power to override him,” Short said. “Then, when I’m wrong, he can chew my butt out.”

Last week Short had a choice between Primms Cupp and Brilliant Stepper in a claiming race at Laurel, and gave a commitment to the latter. When Primms Cup won and Brilliant Stepper finished seventh, Desormeaux’s first words to his agent were, “You big dummy!”

Ordinarily, agents live with such pressure every day -- and that’s why they aren’t overpaid when they earn 25 percent of a jockey’s earnings. But in the wonder year of 1989, it hasn’t been necessary to second-guess Gene Short very often.