A Dead Heat at 8,833

By BILL CHRISTINE

Dec. 10, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The jockey who finished second in the race acted as if he had won. A trainer with no horse in the race made a strange $8 across-the-board bet. There was a Panamanian flag in the winner’s circle. And Marje Everett, the former head of Hollywood Park who seldom goes to the races anymore, showed up, just for old times.

This was part of the tableau Thursday as Laffit Pincay Jr. latched on to the first leg of racing history by riding the 8,833rd winner of his career. Less than three weeks from his 53rd birthday, Pincay has caught Bill Shoemaker, who has held one of racing’s gaudiest records for 29 years, and today at Hollywood he’ll have five more shots to go for No. 8,834.

Shoemaker, retired from riding since 1990 and a quadriplegic since a 1991 automobile accident, sat in his wheelchair in the jockeys’ room, cheering with all the idle riders as Pincay’s I Be Casual, a 3-year-old gray gelding, won the fourth race by a head over A J Flyer.

“It looked like he was [going to win],” Shoemaker said, “then it looked like he wasn’t. Then it looked like he was. He’s a great person and a great rider, and he’s been my friend for 35 years. I want him to go to 9,000 before he quits. He’s the greatest, in my opinion.”

After the record-equaling win, which came on the 44,640th mount in a career that started in his native Panama in 1964, Pincay finished the day with a sixth, a seventh and a fifth in his last three mounts. He had started the day with a bonus, an unexpected mount when jockey Emile Ramsammy called in sick, but the best he could do with the pickup assignment was second, beaten by three-quarters of a length, on De Witt, trainer Bob Baffert’s odds-on favorite.

Pincay’s mother, Rosario, who is 76, was ill with flu and unable to join the crowd of 5,578, but Pincay’s wife, Jeanine, and his three children were on hand.

“This was very nice and I’m very proud,” Pincay said. “One more win and it will be a dream come true. I was hoping to break the record [Thursday], because my [oldest] son is leaving tonight [for New York, where he has a cable television job]. It’s getting very expensive. My wife is shopping all the time.”

When trainer Jack Van Berg gave Pincay a leg up on I Be Casual, it was one Hall of Famer assisting another.

“Try to break him good,” Van Berg told Pincay, “and let the speed go on. Then he should come running for you.”

That’s the way the six-furlong maiden race played out. I Be Casual, running for a $25,000 claiming price, settled into fourth place after a half-mile and moved to within 1 1/2 lengths of the lead at the eighth pole. After passing Bay Fox and A J Flyer in the stretch, Pincay had to worry about jockey Omar Berrio and A J Flyer, who had no quit in him as the wire approached.

“The horse broke sharp, and wasn’t up to the speed, so I dropped back,” Pincay said. “The jock on the lead [Pat Valenzuela with Bay Fox] went outside, so I went inside. For a while, I thought that other horse [A J Flyer] might come back and beat me, but I had enough horse to prevail.”

Berrio, 31, a fellow Panamanian who has marveled at Pincay’s skills since he was 10, had road-blocked Pincay’s parade earlier in the day. In the second race, Berrio rode the 13-1 longshot Bujones to victory, beating Pincay and the 2-5 De Witt.

Trailing Pincay and I Be Casual as the riders pulled up their horses after the fourth, Berrio waved his whip toward the sky, usually the reaction of a winning jockey in a big race. In the crowded winner’s circle--it seemed as though there was one person for every one of Pincay’s wins--Berrio flipped his riding helmet high in the air.

“Laffit is my star, my hero, my idol,” Berrio said. “I would have felt very bad if I had beaten him for the second time on the day.”

I Be Casual, a $47,000 auction buy last year, races for Robert Alick’s Whispering Woods Farm of Beachwood, Ohio. As though it mattered, his time was a plodding 1:12 1/5 and he paid $4.40, $3 and $2.20 across the board. Souvenir mutuel tickets on Thursday’s winner, and investments on the eventual win No. 8,834, will go uncashed forever. Trainer Sandy Shulman massaged his fourth-race ticket Thursday.

“I bet $8 across the board,” said Shulman, who’s from Pittsburgh. “Eight dollars because Laffit was riding No. 8. Is this bigger than [Bill] Mazeroski’s [1960 World Series] homer?”

Both I Be Casual and Van Berg had been in slumps. I Be Casual, never ridden by Pincay before, had lost all 11 of his races but had improved in recent starts. Before winning consecutive races Thursday, Van Berg had won with only two of 44 starters at the Hollywood meet.

“I’m happy for Laffit,” Van Berg said. “Bobby [Pincay agent Bob Meldahl] has been a friend since he first became an agent. A few years ago, when Laffit came back from weight problems, I gave him some horses to ride. I wanted to do something to help him again.”

In the winner’s circle, someone handed Pincay a Panamanian flag. The jockeys’ room emptied out to join the celebration. Shoemaker was there. Pincay had to go up a few stairs, back to the trackside scale, so he could weigh in, and Pat Valenzuela and Chris McCarron, along with a host of other riders, carried him there.

“I thought they might throw me in the cake,” Pincay said, referring to a winner’s-circle celebration after a milestone several years ago.

Hollywood Park presented Pincay with the original of an old, prescient PEB cartoon from the Daily Racing Form, titled “The Conquest of Mount Shoemaker.” The track also wrote a $10,000 check, on behalf of Pincay, to the Shoemaker Foundation, which aids needy jockeys. There was a brief video presentation on the infield TV screen, which harked back to Del Mar in 1970, when Shoemaker broke Johnny Longden’s record of 6,032 wins. Pincay said something in Spanish, for the people back home in Panama.

“I want to congratulate Laffit for reaching the top of the mountain,” Shoemaker said to the crowd. “Now you need one more to be up there by yourself.”

In the background, Marje Everett looked on and smiled. In 1966, when Pincay left Panama, he went to Chicago, and on July 1 he won his first race at Arlington Park, then run by Everett and her family.

“In the very beginning, he was somebody special,” Everett said. “We’ve been friends ever since then. This is a class act.”

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Tied At The Top

Laffit Pincay Jr. caught Bill Shoemaker for most victories by a jockey:

MOUNTS THURSDAY (5)

With race, horse, finish (first in bold), final odds:

*--*

2nd: De Witt 2nd 2-5 4th: I Be Casual 1st 6-5 5th: Finally 6th 4-1 6th: Justice Bold 7th 9-1 7th: Alert To Go 5th 7-2

*--*

MOUNTS TODAY (5)

With race, horse and morning line odds:

1st: Demidoll 8-1