Kent Desormeaux
b. February 27, 1970

Kent Desormeaux grew up on a Louisiana farm, where he learned to ride horses at a young age. His early success earned him the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Apprentice Jockey in 1987. In each of his first three years of racing, Desormeaux won more races than any other jockey in the US. He is one of only four jockeys to have won three national titles in a row.

In 1989, Desormeaux set the record for most wins in a year with 599 and received the first of two Eclipse Awards. At Hollywood Park, in 1992, Kent was thrown by a horse and trampled, suffering multiple skull fractures and permanent deafness in one ear. The following year, he won the Breeders' Cup Turf and received the George Woolf Award. In 1995, at age 25, Kent won his 3,000th race, the youngest jockey to ever to do so. Two years later, he became the youngest jockey to surpass $100 million in career earnings.

Desormeaux won the 1998 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes aboard Real Quiet but was denied the Triple Crown victory when Victory Gallop beat his horse by a nose. In 2000, he won his second Kentucky Derby aboard Fusaichi Pegasus.

Kent was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 2004. He lives with his wife Sonia and sons Joshua and Jacob in La Canada, California.