Trainer Larry Demeritte made it to Kentucky Derby 150. It’s a first for his home country.
Larry Demeritte jokes that it’s becoming “almost old news” to him.
All the attention. All the interviews. All the questions that come his way.
It’s part of the territory when you’re a first-time trainer in the Kentucky Derby, a fresh face among the mega trainers who bring multiple horses to the Derby each year.
But it doesn’t take much digging to discover that, even with this qualifier, Demeritte’s story stands out.
The 70-something year-old Demeritte is one of the most captivating narratives this week at Churchill Downs in the lead-up to Saturday’s historic 150th edition of the Kentucky Derby.
The longtime trainer is a cancer survivor: He suffers from both multiple myeloma and amyloidosis, and has battled cancer since 1996. Demeritte is the first Black trainer to saddle a horse in the Derby in 35 years (Hank Allen finished in sixth with Northern Wolf in 1989), and he’s just the second Black trainer to have a horse in the race since 1951.
The horse Demeritte has in this year’s field — West Saratoga — was bought for only $11,000 by owner Harry Veruchi on the last day of the 2022 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.
Demeritte understands the interest.
“I’m pretty much repeating myself, over and over, you know?” he told the Herald-Leader. “I like the reporters who shoot me something different. ... It’s a cool thing to be recognized, so that’s why I don’t turn down anyone.”
If you want Demeritte to talk about something that he’ll never tire of, ask him about The Bahamas.
Demeritte was born and raised on the island country, located in the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean. He was the son of a horse trainer named Thomas, and part of a large family of boys.
Demeritte followed in his father’s footsteps. After training several runners in the Bahamian Derby, Demeritte set out for the United States with the Kentucky Derby as an end goal.
He made the move in 1976, just before horse racing was shut down in The Bahamas.
“We didn’t work for the money, we worked for the love of the horse,” Demeritte said. “We were always having a lot of fun down there, being young boys, hanging out at the end of the night. We slept there, we slept with the horses. That’s just our passion.”
Nearly 50 years later, Demeritte’s moment in the Run for the Roses has finally arrived. And he’s bringing The Bahamas with him.
“I just love my country,” said Demeritte, who previously said he plans to wear a necktie in the colors of the Bahamian flag (aquamarine, black and gold) on Derby Day.
Demeritte’s Kentucky Derby journey ties back to family
Demeritte’s earliest memories of horses are connected to his father and seven brothers.
“(My father) put us on horses. I could remember when he put the saddle on the stall door, and (would) lift me up and put me in it. That’s how far back I go,” Demeritte recalled. “I always say I know the horses better than I know myself, because it took me a while to get to know who I am, but I’ve always been around the horses.”
While in high school, Demeritte and his brothers spent their days working at the local track tending to their father’s horses.
One horse named My Son still stands out to Demeritte for his intelligence: The horse would get its stall door loose on a whim, go out for a jog and return on its own accord.
“Everybody in the family loved that horse. He was on top of all of us, all the boys,” Demeritte said. “That was the number one son there.”
Demeritte’s father, Thomas, was killed while trying to break a horse in the 1980s.
“He died doing things he loved,” Demeritte said.
Community and family remain at the heart of Demeritte’s life, even after being nearly 50 years removed from living full time in The Bahamas.
He jokes about having “45 nieces and nephews” and the number of gifts he must purchase if he goes home for Christmas. He wistfully recalls the life principles instilled in him by his grandmother, and the influence religion has had on his family.
Demeritte — who has also conducted pre-Derby interviews with reporters from The Bahamas — is keeping these connections close as Derby Day approaches for himself and West Saratoga.
One of Demeritte’s brothers, the younger Patrick, has been helping Larry tend to West Saratoga in recent weeks.
“I am happy he can take this journey with me,” Demeritte said of Patrick, adding that his brother often checks in on him given his ongoing health issues, which include chemotherapy treatment. “That means a lot to me, having him here and seeing the excitement in him, where he hasn’t been around horses in a while. Now, he’s got the opportunity to hang out with me again around the horses. ... We have a special bond out of all the boys.”
Demeritte’s father won’t be with him for Saturday’s magical moment.
When asked what his father, Thomas, would think of seeing one of his sons with a Kentucky Derby runner, Demeritte gave a glowing assessment.
“Oh, he would be so proud. ... I know if he was around for this Derby, wow!” Demeritte exclaimed. “Every time I won a race in The Bahamas he would get on the other trainers, although he was a trainer. He would brag about me so much. I know he was really proud of what I was doing. Walking in his footsteps to be a trainer. I can’t imagine what he would be like. ... I can’t even give him justice by talking about him.”
West Saratoga is Demeritte’s long shot Derby hope
Demeritte has already beaten the odds plenty of times.
Why not do it again?
That’s what will have to happen if West Saratoga is to provide Demeritte and his supporters with a Derby Day to remember.
West Saratoga wiggled his way into the Derby field by earning qualifying points (67 in total) across four different prep races.
“I can’t tell you (and) say, ‘Yeah, I knew he was going to go to the Derby.’ That would be wrong. But, I knew he was a good horse,” Demeritte said. “... He’s a horse that could get into gear quicker than any horse I’d seen. So I knew he wasn’t one dimensional.”
Most notably, West Saratoga won the first Kentucky Derby prep race of the season, the Grade 3 Iroquois Stakes, last September at Churchill Downs. He also ran second in last month’s Grade 3 Jeff Ruby Steaks at Turfway Park in Florence.
With his victory in the Iroquois to open the prep race season, West Saratoga is one of seven runners in this year’s Kentucky Derby field to have previously won beneath the Twin Spires at Churchill Downs.
“I told the guys in the barn, I said, ‘You know what, we got the first points. We’re not going to get off the leaderboard,’” Demeritte said. “We’re going to stay in the top 20. We had to map out his races (so) that he had a good chance of doing that. And he showed up, every time we sent him out there.”
West Saratoga drew post position 13 for the Derby, but he will leave from starting gate 12 after Encino scratched on Tuesday. Post position 12 produced a top-three Derby finisher last year with Angel of Empire, but a horse hasn’t won the Derby from starting gate 12 since Canonero II in 1971.
At 50-1, West Saratoga is tied for the longest morning-line odds of any horse in the field.
Other historical precedents also stand in the way of a West Saratoga win. He’s a gray/roan horse, and a horse of that color hasn’t won the Derby since Giacomo (at 50-1 odds) in 2005.
Only eight gray or roan horses have ever won the Kentucky Derby, and 41 gray or roan horses have tried and failed to win the race since Giacomo’s victory.
West Saratoga’s jockey is Jesus Castanon, a 51-year-old native of Mexico who finished fourth on his only prior Derby mount (Shackleford in 2011). Castanon then rode Shackleford to victory in the 2011 Preakness Stakes.
“(For) what I paid for him, if he could just turn out to be an allowance horse, (it) would have been fine,” Demeritte said of West Saratoga, who has career earnings of $460,140. That’s more than 41 times what Veruchi, the owner, paid for the horse.
“I want to do this for Larry,” Veruchi told America’s Best Racing last fall, when West Saratoga’s Derby journey was just beginning. “He worked his butt off all of his life and now he has a chance to go to the Kentucky Derby. I think it will be one heck of a story, I really do.”
Perhaps more than any other horse in the Derby field, West Saratoga’s performance could be affected by Saturday’s weather in Louisville.
West Saratoga is a son of Exaggerator, who won both the Preakness Stakes and Haskell Stakes in 2016 on sloppy tracks.
“All of his offspring have been way better in the mud,” Larry Collmus, the NBC Sports announcer who calls the Derby and a FanDuel TV racing host and analyst, told the Herald-Leader about Exaggerator.
All 10 of West Saratoga’s races have come on fast tracks.
“It would be a great story. ... People really love that stuff,” added Collmus about a potential West Saratoga victory. “You always root for the underdog right? And (Demeritte) is a great story. The Derby always has great stories. ... If West Saratoga won, that would be a great story for sure.”
Rain or shine, sloppy track or fast, Demeritte will take the walk at Churchill Downs on Saturday flanked by supporters near and far.
“I always tell people, ‘You know, the Derby is about the walk,’” Demeritte said, a tidy metaphor that can also be applied to his training career. “I told people, ‘I’ve been practicing this walk for a long time.’ I’ve run a lot of horses on the undercard of the Derby. ... That’s the reason for being in the game. To be a part of this walk.”
How does Demeritte, an improbable story in a sport that celebrates them, think he will feel come Saturday?
“I’m going to be pretty joyful, pretty happy, because I get to walk it with some special people in my life,” he said. “... I have some family coming up from The Bahamas who have never been to Kentucky at all, or have never been to a horse race. ... We’ll all be wearing something Bahamian.”
Kentucky Derby
When: 6:57 p.m. Saturday
Where: Churchill Downs
TV: NBC and Peacock.
Purse: $5 million (Grade 1)
Distance: 1 1/4 miles
For: 3-year-old Thoroughbreds
Kentucky Derby field with odds
1. Dornoch (20-1)
2. Sierra Leone (3-1)
3. Mystik Dan (20-1)
4. Catching Freedom (8-1)
5. Catalytic (30-1)
6. Just Steel (20-1)
7. Honor Marie (20-1)
8. Just a Touch (10-1)
9. Encino (Scratched)
10. T O Password (30-1)
11. Forever Young (10-1)
12. Track Phantom (20-1)
13. West Saratoga (50-1)
14. Endlessly (30-1)
15. Domestic Product (30-1)
16. Grand Mo the First (50-1)
17. Fierceness (5-2)
18. Stronghold (20-1)
19. Resilience (20-1)
20. Society Man (50-1)
21. Epic Ride (50-1)
Also eligible:
22. Mugatu (50-1)
Post positions drawn for Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks. See the full fields with odds.
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