DEL MAR : Desormeaux Loses Both His Fights

Fight City Hall? It doesn’t pay. Ask jockey Kent Desormeaux. He tried it on behalf of Fightcityhall, his mount in the fifth race Monday at Del Mar, and came away later convinced that the effort had cost him a victory on another horse two races later.

“No question,” he said. “The fifth race got my horse disqualified in the seventh race.”

In the seventh, Wende, ridden by Desormeaux, was disqualified and placed last. The disqualification moved favored Dame D’Onze Heures to first place and gave Gary Stevens his fifth victory of the afternoon.

Desormeaux’s horse bumped Castle Gardens, ridden by Chris McCarron, as the nine-horse field came out of the chute in the 1 1/16-mile turf race. Castle Gardens took up and trailed the field past the grandstand for the first time, but rallied for third place. The disqualification moved McCarron’s horse up to second.

Two races earlier, Desormeaux had been on the opposite side of such a situation, when he rode Fightcityhall to a second-place finish behind Poweroftheninetys. After the race, he engaged in a heated discussion on the stewards’ telephone next to the winner’s circle. His argument was unsuccessful and he ripped off his silks and stalked up the lane to the jockeys’ room.

“I just called up there to see if they had watched the race,” Desormeaux said. “She asked if I wanted to claim foul and I said no, I just wanted to see if they were looking at what happened. I’ve got a horse wheeling right in front of me and I end up beaten by half a length. I come back and I don’t even see (an inquiry sign).”

After the seventh race, the inquiry sign was lit and Desormeaux was the man under scrutiny.

“I was pressured from the outside,” Desormeaux said. “I kept the same distance between me and the outside horse. Where could I have gone? I couldn’t pull out.”

But his number came down.

The result, if Desormeaux incurs a suspension as a result of Wende’s disqualification, probably will be missing out on riding Lakeway in Saturday’s Alabama Stakes at Saratoga. New York does not allow suspended jockeys to ride in “designated races” as California does.

In the featured one-mile Bayakoa for fillies and mares, Exchange took an out-of-character front-running approach and won under Laffit Pincay Jr.