HORSE RACING : For Desormeaux, It’s Paradise Postponed

DEL MAR —  Midway through a recent turf race at Del Mar, jockey Kent Desormeaux was poised to score a victory the way he had done hundreds of times in Maryland. He was riding the favorite, Imploding, and he had a powerful horse beneath him as he sat in perfect striking position behind the front-runners. On the turn, he urged his mount vigorously and took a two-length lead.

But in the middle of the Del Mar stretch, Imploding abruptly ran out of gas. He was caught by a rival named Dusty Sassafras, the beneficiary of a perfectly timed move by Chris McCarron, the pre-eminent jockey in the West.

He moved too soon, again, the critical railbirds said of Desormeaux.

That defeat was, in some ways, a metaphor for Desormeaux’s whole venture to California. He has established himself as a tough, formidable competitor against the best jockey colony in the world. But he still falls just short of the elite riders -- McCarron, Laffit Pincay, Gary Stevens, Pat Valenzuela -- who continue to dominate the sport here.

Desormeaux occupied the limelight in Maryland so long, and won races with such regularity, that it might have been a startling adjustment for him to accept a role where he’s not No. 1. (Currently, he ranks third in the Del Mar jockey standings.) But he’s a level-headed 21 year old, and he knew when he came here he was unlikely to be an overnight sensation in California.

To outsiders, indeed, it appeared Desormeaux had made an imprudent decision when he headed west at the end of 1989. He had set a U.S. record by winning 598 races that year, and he had nothing left to prove at Laurel and Pimlico. But he could have gone to New York, where he already had close contacts with many top stables and where the riding competition was thin.

The fact a journeyman such as Jerry Bailey could emerge as New York’s star rider this season suggests Desormeaux easily could have been No. 1 there. Desormeaux knew this, but he took the long view: “I think coming to California was a bad business move, because I could have done a lot better off the bat in New York. But in the long run I don’t think that I’d be as happy. This move from Maryland was supposed to be my last one. I hope to spend the next 20 to 25 years here.”

Desormeaux’s reputation preceded him here, of course, but even the fact he owned an Eclipse Award did not cause trainers to clamor for his services. “I was completely starting over,” he said. But he made the most of his limited early opportunities, and he quickly showed he belonged, adapting to the unique style of racing in California, where horses are put into high gear as soon as the gate opens, and where he who hesitates is lost.

“Here,” he said, “there’s always somebody coming at you. You’ll be on the lead and three horses will be shooting at you. The other riders are just waiting for you to make a mistake, so you’ve got to stay aggressive.”

And Desormeaux has. “By California standards,” said Jay Hovdey, columnist for the Racing Times, “he was overly aggressive. Some of the other riders didn’t like the idea of a young swashbuckler jeopardizing their health and their business.”

Soon, Desormeaux started to ride for top trainers such as Gary Jones and Richard Mandella; he was No. 2 in the Del Mar standings last summer and No. 1 at Santa Anita in the fall. But even with such success, he wasn’t getting mounts on the top stakes horses who can make a jockey’s reputation -- not even for trainers who would ride him regularly on their lesser stock.

This spring, Desormeaux got another lesson about the toughness of the California racing game. He broke his wrist in a spill at Santa Anita on St. Patrick’s Day -- “no luck of the Irish here,” he said -- and was sidelined for two months. When he came back, he found what even luminaries such as McCarron and Pincay have discovered under similar circumstances. His business was gone. He had been displaced on his best mounts, and for the second time in two years he was virtually starting over.

“We had some good stakes horses and when he got hurt we lost them all,” said Desormeaux’s agent, Gene Short. “The two months we lost blew us right off the track.”

Desormeaux is back in high gear now, vying for the riding championship at Del Mar. He was won 14 races in the first 12 days of the meeting. From the financial standpoint, he is doing as well as he did in his banner Maryland years, because the large purses compensate for the smaller number of wins.

“When I was in Maryland,” Desormeaux said, “I could be on the fourth-best horse in a race and talk myself into thinking that I’d find a way to win.” And, as Marylanders remember well, he’d often do it.

“I want to win too bad,” he said. “That’s the reason I’ve made premature moves on some horses. The key is confidence. When you’re confident, you know what the right decision is and you make it.”

The cure for his problems in California, he knows, is what racetrackers call the “big horse,” the champion who brings his jockey public recognition and who convinces other trainers that the jockey is a top stakes rider.

One of Desormeaux’s contemporaries in the riding colony here, Corey Nakatani, was catapulted to prominence last season by the turf champion Itsallgreektome. Now he is riding the star filly Lite Light. In the eyes of most people here, Nakatani -- not Desormeaux -- is the hot young jockey. Many of them talk as if Desormeaux has passed out of fashion.

And then you remember he is only 21 years old, that he has already proved he can compete on a daily basis against rivals who are enshrined in the Racing Hall of Fame. He has successfully made the east-to-west move that this year proved a dismal failure for New York’s leading jockey, Jose Santos, driving him back home in disgrace, and that years ago so frustrated the legendary Steve Cauthen that he left the country.

Having entrenched himself here, Desormeaux has the drive, the intelligence and the maturity that suggest he will do better and better. He won’t become No. 1 in California as effortlessly as he did in Maryland, but he has an excellent chance to do it.