Pincay May Move in Pursuit of Record

Laffit Pincay Jr., who has won only 66 races this year in his quest to catch Bill Shoemaker as horse racing’s all-time winningest rider, could become a regular on the Northern California circuit early next year.

Pincay, who will turn 51 on Dec. 29, said he will move to Golden Gate Fields and Bay Meadows unless things improve dramatically for him on this circuit. Going into today’s card at Hollywood Park, he has ridden only two winners among 32 mounts at the meeting that began Nov. 5, and he’s had only 660 mounts all year. By comparison, Alex Solis, who tops the standings at Hollywood Park with 17 winners, has had 1,248 mounts in 1997.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while,” said Pincay, who, with 8,564 victories, is 269 behind Shoemaker’s 8,833. “Things are very slow for me here and I want to try and break Shoe’s record.

“I’m going to ride at Santa Anita [which begins its winter-spring meeting Dec. 26] for about a month and then I’ll decide what to do. I’m hoping it gets better and I start getting a lot more mounts, but I don’t know how things are going to change.”