BREEDERS’ CUP : Handful of Jockeys Have Dominated the Competition

With a total of $10 million in the wind Saturday at Belmont Park, the trainers of the horses in the seven Breeders’ Cup races will leave as little as possible to chance. Once a horse walks through the tunnel leading from the walking ring to the race track, its fate is taken out of the hands of the man who has done the planning and preparation and placed in the hands of a jockey who weighs about 110 pounds and must make decisions while going 40 m.p.h. straddling the withers of a 1,000-pound beast.

The jockeys are left to deal with the actual heat of battle. A trainer may have methodically prepared a horse to be at his best on a given afternoon and every detail may be in place, but the difference between success or failure often depends entirely on the decisions and reactions made in fractions of seconds by the man on its back when the gate opens.

Since 1984, 85 jockeys have ridden in 42 Breeders’ Cup races, but only 19 have ridden winners, 16 Americans and three from Europe. Not surprisingly, the most successful riders on Breeders’ Cup days have been the leading figures of the last decade--the money riders, whose skills are in perennial demand by top stables.

Six jockeys have won 22 of the 42 Breeders’ Cup races. The same half-dozen have ridden the second finishers in 20 races and finished third on 20 others. That totals 62 of a possible 126 placements, almost 50%.

The leader is Laffit Pincay, who has ridden in 39 of the 42. The 43-year-old native of Panama has ridden five winners: Tasso in the ’85 Juvenile, Capote in the ’86 Juvenile and Skywalker in the ’86 Classic, Is It True in the ’88 Juvenile and Bayakoa in the ’89 Distaff, his finest Breeders’ Cup moment.

He has the mount on Bayakoa again Saturday.

Angel Cordero, who has ridden in more Breeders’ Cup races, 38, than anyone except Pincay, shares second position in wins with Pat Day. Each has four, although Day has had fewer mounts, 29.

Two of Cordero’s victories have come in the Sprint, which he won astride Dancing Spree for trainer Shug McGaughey last year at Gulfstream Park, and on Gulch in 1988. His other winners have come aboard D. Wayne Lukas-trained fillies, Life’s Magic in the 1985 Distaff at Aqueduct and Open Mind in the 1988 Juvenile Fillies at Churchill Downs.

Cordero also shares the lead for second-place mounts in the Cup with Chris McCarron. He is in position to win the Sprint for a third straight time when he rides Dancing Spree, who appears to be his most formidable mount in the seventh Cup. In the Turf he will ride El Senor, a horse who always has a chance at 12 furlongs.

Day rode the first Classic winner, long-shot Wild Again, was on Lady’s Secret in the 1986 Distaff and rode two winners in ‘87, Epitome in the Juvenile Fillies and Theatrical in the Turf. He has not ridden a Breeders’ Cup winner since, although he was on heavily favored Easy Goer in the ’88 Juvenile and the ’89 Classic. His most prominent mount on Saturday is Kentucky Derby winner Unbridled in the Classic, and he will ride Jalaajel in the Mile.

McCarron, Jose Santos and Randy Romero each have ridden three Breeders’ Cup winners.