When Hall of Fame jockey Kent Desormeaux heads to Baltimore to ride Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown in Saturday’s 133rd Preakness Stakes, he will be returning to familiar territory.

“I grew up in Maurice, Louisiana, but I grew up in horse racing in Maryland,” said Desormeaux, 38, who led the nation in wins while riding at Laurel and Pimlico from 1987-89.

It was as an apprentice in Maryland that the young Desormeaux first burst onto the national racing scene. In 1987, he won 450 races and broke Steve Cauthen’s apprentice record with 20 stakes victories; two years later he won 598 races, a record which still stands. He was the youngest rider, at age 25, to win 3,000 races and the youngest to break the $100 million mark in earnings.

Along the way he earned three Eclipse awards, was inducted in racing’s Hall of Fame, and won two other Derbies aboard Fusaichi Pegasus (2000) and Real Quiet (1998).

Although he moved to California in the 1990’s and has been based in New York since 2006, Desormeaux, who lives in Garden City with his wife, Sonia, and sons Joshua and Jacob, recalls his days in Maryland with a smile.

“All I did was win,” he said. “Less than three winners a day was a bad day for me. After I won the Derby, I got as many calls from Maryland as I did from Louisiana. So going back will be like a homecoming. I can’t wait to get there. Having ridden at Pimlico for so many years I’m very comfortable there.”

Desormeaux has had 10 mounts in the Preakness, winning the second leg of racing’s Triple Crown once, aboard Real Quiet. As well, Desormeaux has finished second in the 1 3/16th mile race three times, with Sweetnorthernsaint (2006), Free House in 1997, and with 1-5 favorite Fusaichi Pegasus three years later, the latter of which serves as a reminder that horse racing can be a humbling experience.

“We just don’t know how resilient [Big Brown] is,” said Desormeaux. “We don’t know if he gets into a dogfight that he’ll just say ‘not this time I’ll catch you next time’. That’s what is so awesome about the Triple Crown and the 11 horses who have accomplished the feat. It takes an absolute freak to be ready to go again in two weeks.”

Desormeaux, who missed winning the Triple Crown in what is widely considered the toughest beat in sports history when Real Quiet was beaten a nose in the Belmont Stakes by Victory Gallop, got a first-hand glimpse of what could be the main competition last Saturday, when he rode the 3-year-old Casino Drive, a Japanese import, to a most impressive 5 ¾-length victory in the Grade 2, $200,000 Peter Pan Stakes, a traditional prep for the Belmont.

“There’s our competition,” said Desormeaux of Casino Drive, a sibling of the last two Belmont winners, Jazil and Rags to Riches. “He’s a phenomenal talent and we’ve got our hands full with this one.”