The decision by Kent Desormeaux to move his tack to Keeneland for the 15-day meet that runs April 4-25 was not made in haste. "When he rode (intermittently) during the fall meet there last year, we had the highest win percentage among jockeys in the top 10, and the highest percentage in the money among the top 10 riders," agent Tom Knust said Thursday morning. "Many trainers asked us at that time to come back for the entire meet. Kent liked it there and had a lot of success, so it's been in the making since last year.
"Our focus back there will be to ride for the big trainers. It's a meet that you can ride six and seven races a day, and they're all good races. Our plan is to go back there and ride as many live horses as we can. "The purses at Keeneland are a lot higher than any other race track in the country. I think they give out $600,000-something a day (actually $615,000 in overnightpurse money), which is the most in the country. "We'll be coming back (to California) to ride in stakes for our major clients, like Laura DeSeroux, (Neil) Drysdale, Craig Lewis and Bob Hess (Jr.). But there will be a lot of people based here who will have horses at Keeneland, like Wally Dollase, Bob Hess (Jr.), (Bobby) Frankel, and hopefully we'll be able to ride some for Bobby, so we'll see what happens."