Desormeaux’s First Is Only Second-Best

Saturday was the second-best day of Kent Desormeaux’s life.

It was the day he rode the winner in the Kentucky Derby, the dream he’s had since he was 6 years old and coaxing his Shetland pony out of the starting gate at Acadiana Downs, the track his father built in Louisiana.

Crossing the finish line first on Real Quiet, Desormeaux, 28, was overcome with emotion, crying as he remembered he’d finished 16th on his first Derby horse 10 years before on the day his grandmother died.

Later, he could remember little else about those first, sweet moments of triumph.

“The joy hit me,” he said. “I couldn’t thrust my fist up into air high enough. I was on the highest cloud in the sky. Then I came back to. I pretty much remember bits and pieces from there in the walk back to the winner’s circle.”

Desormeaux, riding in his seventh Kentucky Derby, had finally reached the pinnacle of his profession, a pinnacle he’d seemed destined for much sooner, back when he was a precocious teenager and based in Maryland, where he won a record 589 races in one year and became known as the next Steve Cauthen.

Then came the move to the more competitive Southern California track and the accident at Hollywood Park on Dec. 11, 1992, that almost cost him his life.

Nothing came as easy after that.

Although he continued to win often, he seemed to lose his concentration, maybe even his killer instinct. Once, he misjudged the finish line in a big race. Other times, he let up when it became apparent his horse would not finish first.

That angered bettors, who booed him; stewards, who suspended and fined him on more than one occasion; and trainers, who no longer were so eager to hire him.

But Bob Baffert, who trains 1997 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Silver Charm, still believed Desormeaux had the talent to achieve the potential he’d flashed so early in his career and gave him the reins to some of his horses, including Real Quiet.

Baffert didn’t change his mind about Desormeaux even when he dropped the reins and broke his whip during Real Quiet’s second-place finish to Indian Charlie in last month’s Santa Anita Derby.

Desormeaux, having vowed to make it up to Baffert, could hardly believe it when he lost his whip minutes before Saturday’s race and beat a quick retreat to the jockey’s room, only to discover later it had been in his valet’s pocket all along.

He could laugh about it later, standing between the Twin Spires on the Churchill Downs roof while doing one interview after another. At one point, he reached over to pick up his 5-year-old son, Joshua, and kissed him on the forehead.

Watching from a few feet away, his wife, Sonia, fought back tears.

She and Kent have known each other since high school in Maurice, La., where he used to pray that he would grow so that he could play basketball and then that he wouldn’t so that he could become a jockey, and she stayed to the side Saturday so that he could have his moment.

But anyone who knows the Desormeauxs will tell you that the cheers spilling onto Sierra Madre’s streets Saturday night from her restaurant, the Cajun Way Cafe, were for her as much as him.

There had been bad times in her husband’s career, she acknowledged, but they were never desperate as a family because they knew they would be there for each other even at the darkest hours.

They learned that in the aftermath of Desormeaux’s accident nine days before Christmas in 1992 at Hollywood Park, caused when his horse, Judge Hammer, veered suddenly and dumped him onto the track. Three trailing horses evaded him. A fourth--Cartagena Slew--didn’t.

Sonia said that X-rays of his skull, which was fractured in 16 places, resembled a spider’s web. To stop the bleeding in his brain, doctors at Centinela Hospital discussed inducing a coma. When they said they couldn’t be sure whether he would wake up, his agent called Desormeaux’s parents in Louisiana and told them to pack their bags in case they needed to be at their son’s bedside.

Sonia, bedridden for three months with a difficult pregnancy, received a similar call at their home and immediately went into labor, four weeks before she was due.

She was taken to Arcadia Methodist Hospital, where doctors discovered she had a serious blood disorder and put her in intensive care.

Five days after the accident, Desormeaux had recovered sufficiently so that he could be moved across town and into a bed in the intensive-care unit next to Sonia’s. By that time, doctors had decided a Caesarean section would be necessary to deliver the baby. Weighing 4 pounds 1 ounce when he was born, Joshua quickly followed his parents into intensive care.

There was enough time, however, for Sonia to place the child in her husband’s arms. Desormeaux’s face was still so swollen, according to his doctor, that it “looked like he’d been in a fight with a truck.” But it didn’t hurt too much to smile. The date was Dec. 16, 1992.

That was the best day of Kent Desormeaux’s life.