MAURICE, La. - The Cajuns call them "bush tracks," and until late in the 20th Century they flourished in dots-on-the-map towns in the heart of Louisiana bayou country.

Acadiana Downs between Lafayette and Maurice. Carencro Raceway. Cajun Downs in Abbeville. The Quarter Pole in Duson. Derby Downs in Breaux Bridge.

Kent Desormeaux got his start at tracks like those.

The 38-year-old jockey who once aspired to be a basketball star is on the cusp of history, his horse, Big Brown, favored to become racing's first Triple Crown winner in 30 years with a victory in Saturday's Belmont Stakes. Desormeaux is the latest in a line of accomplished riders of Cajun ancestry who as kids started competing in a potpourri of unsanctioned and sometimes bizarre races.

The list includes Eddie Delahoussaye, a two-time Kentucky Derby winner in the early 1980s; Robby Albarado, rider of 2007 Horse of the Year Curlin; and Calvin Borel, who rode 2007 Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense.

The rest of the story

By Neil Milbert | Tribune reporter
nmilbert@tribune.com
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Like many families in the Bayou, the Desormeaux family always kept horses, but Brenda (Kent's mom) was never wild about them.

"My husband was the one who had a dear love of horses, and our first argument after we married was over a horse," she said. "He was in college at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and working two jobs as a lab technician and a security guard. I was a secretary getting my PHT—putting hubby through [school]. [/igm]