Pincay Still Riding High With Hollywood Park Title

The 38th riding title in the career of the unsinkable Laffit Pincay was secured 32 years after he won his first, and 10 days after he had displaced Bill Shoemaker as racing’s winningest rider. Can Christmas and a guy’s 53rd birthday--all in the next several days for the Pincays of Glendale--possibly be an anticlimax?

Proving there are actually a few around whose lives have second acts, Pincay clinched his latest title on closing day Monday at Hollywood Park, where he hadn’t been a meet champion since 1991. Pincay, who will turn 53 on Dec. 29, was aboard two winners and finished with 32 in the 31-day meet, four more than runner-up Pat Valenzuela.

Pincay virtually clinched the title when he won with Ruff Ruckus for trainer Mike Mitchell in the fifth race, then locked it up when Valenzuela, who didn’t win all day, finished off the board with his mount in the sixth. Pincay added to his margin by winning with Fantasy Leap in the last race of the meet. At 52, he is believed to be the oldest jockey to win a title at a major track, and perhaps the oldest anywhere.

Pincay’s double on Monday leaves him with 8,844 victories as he awaits the next challenge, a tougher Santa Anita meet opening Sunday. On Dec. 10 at Hollywood, Pincay broke the record for career victories, which had stood since Shoemaker retired in 1990 with 8,834 wins.

“If you had asked me at the start of the meet if I could become a leading rider, I would have said, ‘No way,’ ” Pincay said Monday. “At the end, I tried very hard to be leading rider, because I’m getting old and there may not be many more chances.”

The Pincay-Valenzuela exacta in the final jockey standings would have been difficult to pick before the meet. Valenzuela, beset by drug and alcohol problems for much of his career, hadn’t ridden since 1997 when he returned to the races at Santa Anita this fall. He scored his 3,000th victory during the Hollywood Park meet.

“I’m happy for Laffit, and not winning the title doesn’t disappoint me at all,” Valenzuela said. “Just being here, and winning races again, is enough for me.”

Leaving Panama, Pincay began his career in the United States in 1966 in Chicago, where he won his first U.S. title with 109 wins at Arlington Park in 1967. Pincay also won a title at nearby Hawthorne in 1968, a year before he led riders at Saratoga. He posted all his other titles in Southern California: 14 at Hollywood Park, 13 at Santa Anita, three in Oak Tree meetings at Santa Anita and five at Del Mar.

“You can tell me Bill Shoemaker is the greatest rider of all time, and I won’t argue with you,” Mitchell said. “But I’ll take Laffit. I’ve got horses in my barn that don’t want the whip, and Laffit can give them that real strong hand ride, just like he always has.

“And over the years, I’ve also sent out horses that if Laffit scratched them at the gate, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But he’s gone out there and won with them. And he’s always been so classy in everything he’s done. No matter what the horse, he comes back and thanks you for the chance to ride in the race.”

Mitchell took it hard in an earlier race Dec. 10 when Pincay, needing one more win to pass Shoemaker, rode another horse--Flying Journey for trainer Bill Spawr--instead of Mitchell’s Jolie’s Tattletale. Pincay had been riding Jolie’s Tattletale, but the jockey’s agent, Bob Meldahl, wanted him to ride Spawr’s horse.

Jolie’s Tattletale, ridden by Valenzuela, won the race. Flying Journey and Pincay finished fourth.

Said Mitchell: “It would have been nice for me to train the record setter, but overall I’ve got to hand it to Bob the way he’s handled Laffit. He’s had every right to enjoy his part of it. He’s got a good philosophy. He gets Laffit mounts on certain horses because he knows they’re going to be able to ride them back. A long time ago, I had actually fired Laffit, but it was because a couple of his agents [before Meldahl] had spun me around and jumped ship on some of my horses.”

Four of Mitchell’s nine winners at the meet were ridden by Pincay, whose win rate was 22%. He was in the money with more than 45% of his 145 mounts

“I think the trainers realized that I was riding well, and they stuck with me,” Pincay said. “Breaking the record was the ultimate for me, a dream come true, and then leading the meet was just icing on the cake. Pat Valenzuela was also riding well, and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to beat him out. I congratulate Pat for the meet he had. He deserved it.”

Shoemaker went on a farewell tour the last several months he rode. Pincay, whose career projections range from three to four years, may go on a world-wide tour well before the end approaches.

“Something is being planned,” he said. “I hope to go to a lot of different countries. It would be a chance to visit a lot of places that I’ve never been before.”

Several hours after he passed Shoemaker, Pincay the weight-watcher enjoyed a rare taste of steak, as he had promised himself, and then went to bed early. The other day, he ate a whole bagel and cringed at facing the scale the next morning.

“I was the same weight,” he said Monday. “So tonight, I’m going to have another bagel.”

The only downside to the month-long Pincay festival was that his oldest son had been fired as a TV sports reporter in New York. Laffit Pincay III, 24, had been working for Cablevision and was at Hollywood Park the week his father broke Shoemaker’s record.

“He took an extra day because he wanted to be here with me while I went for it,” Pincay said. “I was surprised that they took such action.”

Pincay said that his son will return was to California to restart his career. In the Pincay family, restarts can begin at any age.

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Pincay’s chase of the Shoemaker record contributed to a business resurgence at the Hollywood Park meet.

During a time when on-track crowds are nosediving at many tracks, Hollywood’s live attendance averaged 7,603 a day, an increase of 2.1% over last year.

Off-track attendance was down less than 2%, but on-track handle--$1.8 million daily--rose 11.3% and the overall average handle--$9.6 million--was up 6.4%.

Per-capita betting at the track--the average amount bet by each customer daily--went from $229 to $249 this year.

“We had great weather, frequent [pick six] carryovers and Laffit’s quest for immortality,” said Rick Baedeker, president of Hollywood Park. “This was a meeting where the stars were aligned. Everything came together, we caught every good break.

“We may one day match the good weather and the good betting cards, but we will never match what Laffit Pincay did here.”

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Bob Baffert was the meet’s leading trainer with 14 winners, three more than Richard Mandella.

Alex Solis’ five stakes wins led the jockeys in that category.

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The closing-day feature, the $75,200 Dayjur Handicap, went to Accomplice, who beat the favorite, Howbaddouwantit, by 2 1/2 lengths.

Horse Racing Notes

Laffit Pincay has 2,810 of his wins at Hollywood. . . . Anees, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, had a half-mile workout of 48 1/5 at Santa Anita on Saturday and may run in the Santa Catalina Stakes there on Jan. 30. . . . Tailor Fit, a 6-1 shot, beat Hes My Dasher by three-quarters of a length Sunday night in the $350,000 Champion of Champions for quarter horses at Los Alamitos. The 19-10 favored entry of Corona Cash and Honor Ease finished fourth and fifth, respectively. Taylor Fit, owned by Betty Jane Burlin, is trained by Steve Van Bebber and was ridden by Steve Fuller. SLM Big Daddy, trying to win the stake for the third consecutive year, finished last in the 10-horse field.