Spot in Hall of Fame Goes to Desormeaux

Jockey Kent Desormeaux, denied admission to the Racing Hall of Fame in 2002 when the late Jack Westrope carried the ballot, reached the wire first this time. Hall of Fame officials announced Tuesday that Desormeaux had been elected into the shrine, along with trainer Shug McGaughey on his first try and two of the best horses from the 1990s, Skip Away and Flawlessly.

For Desormeaux, 34, whose Hall of Fame credentials are unquestioned, election was only a matter of time, and after ballots were cast by about 140 voters, he swept in on his second try, ahead of Eddie Maple, Randy Romero and Jose Santos.

Desormeaux, whose career started in his native Louisiana, continued in Maryland and peaked after he moved to California in 1990, has won 4,419 races and ridden horses who have earned $169 million. He has won the Kentucky Derby twice, with Real Quiet in 1998 and Fusaichi Pegasus in 2000. He also won the Preakness with Real Quiet and took the Breeders’ Cup Sprint with Desert Stormer in 1995 and the Turf with Kotashaan in 1993.

Desormeaux said Tuesday that Best Pal was his favorite horse to ride, Fusaichi Pegasus was the best horse he ever rode and his Derby wins have meant the most. Desormeaux won the 1992 Santa Anita Handicap with Best Pal.

“Best Pal wasn’t the fastest, but he was a push-button horse who didn’t have any mental deficiencies,” Desormeaux said. “Smarty Jones reminds me a lot of Best Pal.”

Smarty Jones is one win away from sweeping this year’s Triple Crown, a title that eluded Desormeaux when Victory Gallop beat him and Real Quiet by a nose in the 1998 Belmont Stakes.

“Maybe I didn’t let Real Quiet go early enough, when he wanted to run,” Desormeaux said. “He might have been 35 lengths ahead if I had done that. Then, when Victory Gallop came at us toward the end, I desperately -- probably foolishly -- tried to hinder his path.”

Desormeaux is one of only three riders -- Steve Cauthen and Chris McCarron are the others -- to win Eclipse Awards as both an apprentice and a journeyman. He won the apprentice award in 1987, and added the other Eclipses in 1989 and 1992. In 1989, still based in Maryland, Desormeaux won 598 races, which is still a record.

McGaughey, 53, has won 1,379 races, 237 of them in graded stakes. He has trained eight divisional champions, seven of them after he was hired as the private trainer for the Ogden Phipps family in 1985.

One of those champions was Personal Ensign, who was retired in 1988, undefeated in 13 starts. “She did what nobody had done [in 80 years],” McGaughey said. “She was a career-maker.”

McGaughey won six races in one day -- five of them stakes -- at Belmont Park on Oct. 16, 1993. Of his eight Breeders’ Cup wins, two came with Lure in successive years (1992-93) and two came on the same day, with Dancing Spree in the Sprint and Rhythm in the Juvenile in 1989.

In 1989, Easy Goer foiled Sunday Silence’s Triple Crown bid with a victory in the Belmont Stakes.

Others on the trainers’ ballot this year were Nick Zito and John Veitch.

Skip Away, who finished ahead of Lure and Manila in voting, goes into the Hall of Fame a year after his trainer, Sonny Hine, was posthumously elected.

“How can one woman be so blessed?” said Caroline Hine, the trainer’s widow, who owned Skip Away. “I’m so honored. I’m living a dream.”

In a tight vote, Skip Away lost out to a 2-year-old, Favorite Trick, for horse-of-the-year honors in 1997, but the next year he won his first seven starts -- including the Hollywood Gold Cup -- to clinch the national title. Skip Away twice won the Jockey Club Gold Cup, beating Cigar in 1996, and won the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Hollywood Park in 1997. In four years, he earned $9.6 million, which is second to Cigar on the career money list.

Flawlessly, who was on the ballot with Mom’s Command and Sky Beauty, is a daughter of Affirmed, the 1978 Triple Crown winner. Flawlessly’s career began in New York with trainer Dick Dutrow, but she was a bleeder and won only three of eight starts. Owners Louis and Patrice Wolfson sent the filly to Charlie Whittingham in California, where, unlike New York at the time, bleeder medication was permitted.

Under Whittingham, Flawlessly won 13 of 20 starts, including three Matriarchs and two Beverly Hills Handicaps at Hollywood Park and three Ramona Handicaps at Del Mar.

Induction will be at the Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., on Aug. 9.

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Pat Valenzuela, who still hopes to forestall a monthlong June suspension through the courts or an appeal to the California Horse Racing Board, was at Belmont Park on Tuesday to work Rock Hard Ten for the first time. After a couple of false starts, Rock Hard Ten, the likely second choice in the Belmont Stakes on June 5, finally got going for Valenzuela and was clocked in :47 2/5 for four furlongs, 1:00 for five and 1:12 4/5 for three-quarters of a mile. Trainer Jason Orman will work Rock Hard Ten again Monday, in company with another horse and with blinkers added. “He’s a bit of a challenge now,” said Orman, whose horse was a problem gate loader before the Preakness.... Smarty Jones, the Kentucky Derby-Preakness winner, probably won’t be vanned to New York for the Belmont until a week from today. Smarty Jones is scheduled for a seven-furlong workout at 5:30 a.m. Friday at Philadelphia Park.