NEW YORK (AP) -Kent Desormeaux stood on the first base line at Shea Stadium wearing a Mets jersey with a bat slung over his shoulder, but sure didn’t seem to have baseball on his mind.
“I’m looking at you but I’m daydreaming about the race,” said the jockey for unbeaten Big Brown, who on Saturday will try to become the first Triple Crown champion since Affirmed in 1978 when he goes to post in the Belmont Stakes.
Desormeaux threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the New York Mets played the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday night, drawing a big ovation from a hometown crowd that has come to view Big Brown and Desormeaux as one of their own.
The strapping 3-year-old colt is, after all, stationed at Belmont Park, and Desormeaux lives not far away on Long Island. Even trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. is based at Belmont, making Big Brown’s attempt to break the longest Triple Crown drought since Sir Barton became the first horse to take all three races in 1919 a home game of sorts.
“I’m honored to be here and it’s all because of Big Brown,” Desormeaux said. “New York is home. I know where every grain of sand is on that Belmont track and so does Big Brown. He lives here too, so we are in our back yard. They are going to come and try to knock us off from home.”
If he rides Big Brown as well as he pitches, it shouldn’t be a problem. His toss to Mets manager Willie Randolph was a perfect strike.
Desormeaux has been close to winning the Triple Crown before. He rode Real Quiet to victories in the first two legs in 1998 before Victory Gallop, second in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, crossed the wire ahead by a nose to spoil the attempt.
But Big Brown has been far more dominant in taking the Derby and the Preakness, and Desormeaux said not even a slight crack on the inside of his left front hoof that caused the horse to miss three days of training last week will trip up this try.
Big Brown had steel sutures inserted to pull the crack together last week and had them changed on Saturday.
“The only thing they have left to do is probably patch it close,” Desormeaux said. “They left it open so it could breathe and heal and I think they are either go to patch it close tomorrow or the next day. It depends on whether he works Monday or Tuesday.”
Dodgers manager Joe Torre, who has dabbled in thoroughbred racing for years and has a couple horses in training with Dutrow, said one of his own horses had a similar injury and doesn’t expect the cracked hoof to be a problem for Big Brown.
“I think Big Brown is going to do it,” Torre said. “I think a Triple Crown is something that horse racing really needs right now and I don’t think there’s another horse that can challenge him.”
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