Feat for a King

By BILL CHRISTINE

Dec. 11, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Fittingly, they gave the good guy the white hat, and threw in a $50,000 white car as well.

This was in the winner’s circle Friday at Hollywood Park, minutes after Laffit Pincay Jr. had ridden Irish Nip, an inexperienced 3-year-old colt, to a two-length victory in the sixth race.

Irish Nip was running on grass against maidens for a $35,000 purse, normally chopped liver compared to all the Kentucky Derbies and Breeders’ Cup races Pincay has ridden in and sometimes won, but for the 52-year-old jockey this was the summit.

Irish Nip produced the record 8,834th win of Pincay’s career. Bill Shoemaker, who broke Johnny Longden’s record with his 6,033rd win in 1970 and rode until he had reached 8,833 in 1990, gracefully stepped aside as the old record holder.

“Shoe was the greatest,” Pincay said. “It’s an honor to break the record of someone who was the greatest.”

There are more than a few racetrackers who think Pincay is the greatest.

“Arguably, he’s the greatest rider in the world,” said Pincay’s agent, Bob Meldahl. “But in terms of dedication, he is the greatest rider--the greatest athlete--in the world.”

Irish Nip carried 119 pounds, all but about two pounds of it sheer Pincay, the rest made up by the dead weight in the horse’s lead pads. Pincay, unable to recall the last time he has tasted beef, said he would briefly fall off his torturous diet Friday night. The gorging was to amount to three or four ounces of steak.

In handing Pincay the keys to a 1999 Porsche, Rick Baedeker, president of Hollywood Park, characterized Pincay’s record as “the final great sporting achievement of the 20th century.”

Win No. 8,834 came on Pincay’s 44,647th mount, before a crowd of 5,855. Earlier on the card, he had been last, third and fourth. He added to his chances in the second race by picking up a mount after Victor Espinoza, who will be fined $100 by the stewards, didn’t get to Hollywood in time.

“I’m very proud that Laffit broke my record,” Shoemaker said. “He’s been a credit to racing. He’s a wonderful family man and has a lot of friends. Despite all his ups and downs, he’s always shown dignity. He’s ridden in rain, sleet, hail and snow. He’s been one of those guys that just wouldn’t take off.”

One of those friends is trainer Richard Mandella, who in effect squared a 25-year-old debt when he gave Pincay the assignment on Irish Nip, owned by Ted and Martha Parfet of Kalamazoo, Mich. It was in 1974, Mandella’s first season at Hollywood Park, when Pincay won with a 2-year-old colt named Matchless Deeds, giving the young trainer one of his first victories.

Brice Blanc, who had ridden Irish Nip to a fifth-place finish in the colt’s only previous start, stepped aside for Pincay on Friday.

“I asked Brice to let me put Laffit on, and he was very gracious about it,” Mandella said. “I wanted Laffit to ride this horse, because it would mean a lot to me.”

The official chart might say that Irish Nip was a gate-to-wire winner, but actually, between calls, he trailed the longshot Laps N’Bounds at the start of the run down the backstretch. Irish Nip edged ahead several strides later, and at the top of the stretch he pulled away. Pincay tapped him five times with a right-handed whip through the lane.

“I had studied my mounts the night before,” Pincay said, “and I thought this was my best mount, but it was going to be a tough race, because this was only his second start. At the eighth pole, I said that there was no way they were going to beat me now.”

Quiet One finished second, two lengths ahead of Kilauea, as Laps N’Bounds faded to fourth place. Irish Nip ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:41 3/5, his across-the-board parimutuel payoffs being $7.60, $5.20 and $3.60. The colt shouldn’t have been favored, but he was, like many of the horses Pincay rode as he approached the record.

There were at least four bottles of champagne uncorked in the winner’s circle, the spray coming at Pincay and Irish Nip from many angles.

“I can’t believe how cool that horse was,” Mandella said. “I told Laffit to get off the horse in a hurry. You know, anything could have happened.”

Jockeys not scheduled to ride Friday--such as Chris McCarron, who didn’t have any mounts, and Gary Stevens, who is recovering from recent knee surgery--were still at the track. McCarron is fifth on the career-wins list, with 6,844, but at 44 his chances of overtaking Pincay are remote.

“There’s only one thing that made me feel better than today,” McCarron said, “and that was winning the Kentucky Derby with Alysheba [in 1987]. Laffit’s done this on the toughest circuit in the world. And knowing Laffit, he could be riding until he’s 60. If he gets the support from the owners and trainers that have ridden him in the last six months, he could wind up winning 10,000.”

Pincay has talked about riding one to three years more.

“His body will tell him,” Meldahl said. “Winning 9,000 races is very realistic. As far as 10,000, I don’t know.”

Besides his family and horsemen, one of the thank-yous from Pincay in the winner’s circle was for Fred Hooper, the owner-breeder who brought the teenage jockey to Chicago from his native Panama in 1966.

“I’m 102 years old, heading for 103,” Hooper said by phone Friday from Florida, after he had heard on television that Pincay had broken the record. “I’ll tell you this, I wasn’t this old when I picked out Pincay to ride for me.”

Two years after Pincay’s first win, in Panama, he registered his first U.S. win by riding Hooper’s 2-year-old filly, the Cot Tinsley-trained Teacher’s Art, in a race at Arlington Park.

“I signed Laffit to a three-year contract in the beginning,” Hooper said. “I wanted him to work that filly a half-mile in :48, and he did it in :49, but I still let him ride her. I had also promised another jock the mount, so I wound up paying both of them.”

Despite Friday’s hoopla, Pincay returned to ride the final two races on the card, but won neither and he will have to wait until today before he can add to his record total.

Meldahl was asked if he was surprised that Pincay would ride out the card. After all, that morsel of steak was waiting.

“Six or seven years ago,” Meldahl said, “they were about to run the last race of the day, and all the remaining jockeys had cleared out of the jocks’ room. There was one horse without a jockey, and Laffit was fully dressed and ready to go home. It looked like the trainer was going to have to scratch the horse. Laffit took off his street clothes and rode the horse to a third-place finish. Was I surprised that he stuck around today? It would have been out of character if he hadn’t.”

BILL SHOEMAKER

Of his many duels with Pincay, the most memorable probably was the ’79 Jockey Gold Cup at Belmont Park. Page 10

* PINCAY’S CAREER: Page 10

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Riding To The Record

35 Years as a jockey in the United States and his native Panama

44,649 Total mounts, an average of more than 1,276 per year

19.8% Career winning percentage

22% Winning percentage this meeting at Hollywood Park

4 Triple Crown victories: Kentucky Derby (1), Belmont Stakes (3)

Record-Breaker: 8,834

6th Race, Hollywood Park