Desormeaux-Hess combo aims to click in Breeders' Cup

In 1991, Robert B. Hess Jr., won the first of back-to-back Del Mar training titles. In 1992, Hess’ championship cohort was jockey Kent Desormeaux, who would score his first of back-to-back riding titles and rack up 135 wins in the two-year span.

A lot has happened in the 30 years since.

Desormeaux, 51, has notched victories in three Kentucky Derbies, three Preaknesses and a Belmont Stakes. He has six Breeders’ Cup wins, three Eclipse Awards and has held membership in racing’s Hall of Fame since 2004. With two wins Sunday at Santa Anita, Equibase statistics show him with 6,101 career victories from 32,413 mounts in a 35-year career.

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Hess, 56, has gone nationwide, with strings in Kentucky and Florida. But the native of Chula Vista, Calif., has remained headquartered in Southern California and unabashedly said Del Mar holds a special place in his heart.

“Del Mar is my paradise,” Hess said Sunday. It is, after all, the place that provided him with his first winner (Palapiano, July 31, 1987), first training title in 1991 and first graded-stakes winner (River Special, 1992 Del Mar Futurity).

And as they have over the years, Desormeaux and Hess hope to make headlines again when they team up with Cairo Memories in the Juvenile Fillies Turf and Chaos Theory in the Turf Sprint during Breeders’ Cup weekend.

“I’ve got gray hair and he’s got a couple of wrinkles, but hopefully we’re older, wiser and hopefully a little better,” Hess said. “But we have the A-team back together, and we’re looking forward to it.”

Cairo Memories, a daughter of Cairo Prince, was pre-entered in the Juvenile Fillies and Juvenile Fillies Turf and will go in the $1 million, one-mile grass event. She is 2-for-2 in a career begun at Del Mar on Sept. 5 and comes in off a win in the Surfer Girl Stakes at Santa Anita on Oct. 3.

“Cairo is splendid, a wonderful, gifted filly and just a pleasure to be around,” Hess said. “Unless the jock screws it up (with a wink toward Desormeaux), I think we’ll get the money.”

Chaos Theory, like Cairo Memories owned by David Bernsen and partners, is a 6-year-old gelded son of Curlin. He has six wins in 18 starts with earnings of $359,454. Chaos Theory is 0-for-5 in 2021 but won both his career starts at Del Mar – the Green Flash in August and an optional claimer in November 2020. Desormeaux was aboard for the first time in a third-place finish in the Eddie D Stakes (G2) at Santa Anita on Oct, 1.

“I’ve tweaked a few things, Kent knows him even better and it will be at his favorite distance on his favorite turf course,” Hess said.

Desormeaux has one other Breeders’ Cup mount lined up: Oviatt Class in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile for his trainer/brother Keith.