Demeritte sees Kentucky Derby as an important opportunity

Louisville, Ky.

Like so many racing professionals day in and day out, Larry Demeritte hears two words all the time.

“Good luck.”

As well-intentioned as that conversation ender may be, Demeritte would rather hear something else.

“Blessings.”

For a man who has toiled beneath the radar for more than a half-century in racing and who has been fighting and hopefully beating cancer for about a third of his life, Demeritte has good reason to be so specific.

“I want blessings, because blessings come from hard work,” he said last week. That was when one of his greatest professional blessings, his 3-year-old colt West Saratoga, was given program number 13 for Kentucky Derby 2024 on Saturday.

With one scratch since the draw, West Saratoga will start from post 12. More significantly, he will make Demeritte the first Black trainer in 35 years and only the fourth since the Great Depression to saddle a horse in America’s most prestigious race.

Demeritte has fielded questions about that since West Saratoga began the long road to this Derby with a victory at Churchill Downs late last summer in the Iroquois Stakes (G3), the first points prep on the calendar.

“That means a great deal, because I always tell my staff we represent a race of people,” Demeritte said last year. “When some trainers win, they win for them. I feel like when I win, I win for a country. My whole country. My country celebrates, and that’s the way we do it for our athletes in the Bahamas. ... We take a lot of pride in where we’re from, representing people.”

The Derby invitation was not certain for Demeritte, though, until West Saratoga finished second at odds of 36-1 in the March 24 running of the Jeff Ruby Steaks (G3) on the synthetic track at Turfway Park.

With that came a renewal of the conversation about Demeritte’s achievement and about the shameful record racing has had with race.

It was not always that way. Black trainers and jockeys dominated the early years of the Kentucky Derby. Aristides won the first running in 1875 with jockey Oliver Lewis and trainer Ansel Williamson, both African-Americans.

Seven of the first 17 runnings of the Kentucky Derby were won by Black trainers and 15 of the first 28 by Black riders. Then came the spread of institutional racism. After Will Perkins trained six starters between 1915 and 1925, Black connections in the Derby became sporadic and then virtually non-existent.

Fast-forward nearly a century. Demeritte does not dwell on the past sins of his sport or of society. Instead, he sees West Saratoga’s entry into the Derby as an opportunity.

“My perspective of life is still the same,” he said in the buoyant aftermath of last weekend’s draw at the splashy new Churchill Downs paddock. “You know a gentleman came up to me just now and asked me to speak to kids. That excites me more than anything. If I could encourage some young kids regardless of their race, because all of us don’t have the opportunity that I have had to start and get what we want in life. I want to encourage them. That they can be entrepreneurs if they work hard.”

Demeritte has done just that, especially since he went out on his own as a trainer in 1981. After moving from the Bahamas, he spent his earliest years in America working as a groom in Florida for horse owner Archie Donaldson and trainer Oscar Dishman, both Black men.

Before Demeritte pointed his friend and client Harry Veruchi to spend just $11,000 on West Saratoga, his best horse had been Memorial Maniac, a Kentucky-bred gelding who won the Stars and Stripes (G3) 13 years ago at Arlington.

West Saratoga was named not as a tribute to the track in upstate New York but for the street where Veruchi grew up in Littleton, Colo. More than eight months have passed since Demeritte told the story of how the son of Exaggerator caught his eye as one of the last 16 horses going through the ring in the 2021 Keeneland September yearling sale. That he was another example of how “I don’t buy cheap horses. I buy good horses cheap.”

The talk shifted to the Xs and Os of the 1 1/4-mile race itself. How jockey Jesús Castañón will ride West Saratoga out of the middle of the 20-horse gate at Churchill Downs.

“I don’t have to use him early,” Demeritte said. “I’m not down near the rail. I keep getting beat out of the 1 hole.

That had been West Saratoga’s millstone. He finally broke his maiden in August at Ellis Park after drawing post 1 for three consecutive races, all of which ended with second-place results. When he won the Iroquois, West Saratoga came out of post 2. Being in post 12 wearing number 13 will feel like open air.

“I really love this post position,” Demeritte said, who also felt like having a win on the Churchill Downs main track was vital. “I think that really plays big with this horse, because he already had a trip over the racetrack at a mile. So we’ve just got to add another fourth to do it.”

That may be easier said than done, but Demeritte felt the two-turn, 1 1/8-mile Jeff Ruby showed him something that will work to West Saratoga’s advantage going 1 1/4 miles Saturday.

“We always know that he’s a fighter. He’s a gamer,” Demeritte said. “Not only the way he finished, but he was 12 wide all the way. That’s the way we train him, being on the outside. So this post is going to help him a lot. I’m looking for him turning for home to be in contention.”

Demeritte, who prefers not to divulge his age and looks much younger than the math would suggest, said a dream-come-true finish in the Kentucky Derby would give him more fuel to inspire a new generation to look for opportunities that might have escaped their view.

“We have kids in this country that either want to be athletes or (in) music,” he said. “There’s more to life than that. More to their life. If they don’t have that gift, they should seek their own gifts and do their best to become entrepreneurs with their gifts.”

If those gifts should lead them to horse racing and perhaps be a means for increased Black participation in the sport, then that could bring the game back to a time when it was more open.

As Demeritte would say, “Blessings.”