This Desormeaux Looking to Take a Trainer’s Route to Fame, Fortune

Even before his younger brother put the family name on the racing map, Keith Desormeaux had planned to make a name for himself.

Kent and Keith spent their youths “like any two brothers, fighting and arguing.

“I’d tear him up,” Keith said. So when Kent beat his older brother to the punch in the racing game, it was, you could say, the first of his many upsets.

Now, after getting his college degree and paying other assorted dues, Keith, 23, has taken out his trainer’s license in Maryland. He’ll soon have seven horses under his care at Pimlico, and his first start in Maryland could come as soon as Tuesday.

Kent Desormeaux, 20, suffered a cracked rib in a Hollywood Park spill Sunday, but, Keith said Tuesday: “He’s all right. Knowing him, he’ll be back riding in two weeks.”

If anyone knows Kent, it’s Keith. They grew up together -- and with horses, of course -- in Maurice, La., the two oldest of Harris and Brenda Desormeaux’s six children.

When Kent came to Maryland in late 1986, Keith was enrolled at Louisiana Tech. Kent went on to stardom and three national riding championships. Keith graduated with a degree in animal science, with a specialty in equine studies, in the fall of 1988.

Since then, Keith has worked toward becoming a trainer. For the past year, he was an assistant trainer for Charlie Hadry -- who gave Kent the mount on his record-breaking 547th inner, Gilten, last November -- before he took out his trainer’s license two weeks ago.

In his shedrow this week, there was a 2-year-old that he trains for an older gentleman he met at school. There was a claiming horse owned by his father, who is back home in Maurice. And there are five 2-year-olds en route, all of them owned by Nick Bassford, whose horses race under the silks of his wife, Elaine.

“I couldn’t sleep the first night after Mr. Bassford told me he was giving me these horses,” Keith said.

“That’s what this game is all about -- people giving you a shot,” he said. “Sure, the name helps. But there’s a lot more to it than that.

“I just want to say that getting my education has been a big help for me. A lot of people told me that I wouldn’t need it, that I had my name and a few other things that would help me make it in this game.

“But I finished my education. I’ve got the formal skills that I think you need to talk to owners and other people. I’ve got knowledge not only about horses, but a lot of other things, and that’s important. I’d like to hope it’s one of the reasons Mr. Bassford is sending me these horses.”

Bassford is a well-known local owner who also has horses with King Leatherbury and Carlos Garcia.

The 2-year-old owned by his Louisiana Tech friend -- Earl Levine of Plano, Texas, took classes “just for the learning experience,” Keith said -- was bought at a recent sale at Timonium for $13,000. The colt is by the prominent sire Raise A Native out of a graded stakes-winning mare.

Keith trained horses at Louisiana Downs in Shreveport, La., in the summer of his senior year. Until now, it is the only time he has run horses in his name.

“I won with my first starter,” he said. “Spy Cliff. He was 25 to 1. Paid like $50. I won one other race with him and had some seconds and thirds with some babies (2-year-olds) I broke myself.”

When asked to pose for a picture, Keith was reluctant. “I’m the same as Kent, before Kent became famous. He had to learn how to become congenial and get used to all the cameras. Me, I’m shy. I don’t really like being in the public eye.”