Pincay Rides Two Winners on Occasion of 53rd Birthday

Honored on his 53rd birthday with a brief celebration between races in the winner’s circle at Santa Anita, jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. did not rest on his laurels. He rode two more winners Wednesday.

Two races after taking Foggy Day gate-to-wire on the turf, the world’s winningest rider directed Kitty On The Track to a 1 1/4-length win over favored Cover Gal in the $150,000 California Breeders’ Champion Stakes for 2-year-old fillies.

“This is a very nice birthday gift,” Pincay said after his second victory.

Pincay, who set the record recently at 8,834 wins and kept right on going, has won 44 races in the last 39 racing days and has extended the record to 8,848.

“I’ve been working this filly in the mornings and it seems like, with every work, she’s just getting better . . . . She just keeps going and going. She’s already a nice filly.”

Owned by a partnership that includes Sid and Jenny Craig and trained by Bill Spawr, Kitty On The Track, a 2-year-old daughter of Kitwood, won for the third time in four starts, completing the seven furlongs in 1 minute 22 3/5 seconds.

Cover Gal, the 9-10 favorite, was looking to remain unbeaten in her fifth start and, showing her usual tendency to drift out, still led by three lengths after six furlongs. But Pincay angled the eventual winner, who paid $4.80 as the 7-5 second choice, to the inside, and she was going away at the finish.

Inez, the second-longest shot in the field of California-breds at 32-1, was third, seven lengths behind Cover Gal. Then came Vote Getter, Gambling Champ, Starring Me and Sweetrando.

The 13-10 favorite in her debut, Sept. 4 at Del Mar, Kitty On The Track proved no match in the stretch to Vote Getter, losing by four lengths.

She did have an excuse that day, according to Spawr.

“She was sick after that race,” he said. “I knew something was wrong. She didn’t eat, and it turned out she had a lung problem. She had a real high white [blood] cell count.”

Kitty On the Track was ready Wednesday. “They set a pretty nice pace, and that’s a nice filly she beat,” Spawr said.

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Trainer Bob Baffert, who won his 20th Grade I of the year with Hookedonthefeelin in the La Brea Stakes Monday, has a chance to end 1999 with two more stakes wins the final two days of the year.

Baffert has more than a third of the 11 horses in today’s male version of the $150,000 California Breeders’ Champion Stakes and, on Friday, he will start 125-pound high weight Tuzla in the $100,000 Monrovia Handicap.

Only three of the four Baffert horses are expected to start, however. Either Gibson County or Gator In Excess, both owned by Mike Pegram, will probably be scratched, according to the trainer. Baffert’s other pair, Stormy Jack and Naughty Nacho, are the 3-1 second choices. They will race coupled as the Jack and Florence Arnold-owned entry.

After being soundly beaten in his first two starts, Gibson County has won his last two by a combined 11 1/2 lengths, including a romp in the Don B. at Bay Meadows Oct. 30. Gator In Excess beat maidens in his second start Dec. 12 at Hollywood Park.

Stormy Jack, who hasn’t been worse than second in his three starts around one turn, is shortened up in distance today after finishing a distant third as the 7-10 choice in the California Cup Juvenile, which was run at 1 1/16 miles. Pat Valenzuela will ride the son of Betrando for the first time.

Tuzla was second in the Matriarch and Breeders’ Cup Mile in her last two starts.

Notes

Gary Stevens, who retired as a rider Sunday, said it will be four to six weeks before he decides what he will do. He said Wednesday that he has had some offers to work in television and offers to manage racing stables . . . . River Bay, a multiple-stakes winner on the turf in this country for trainer Bobby Frankel, has been retired and will be a stallion in France. . . . Stop Traffic, who won the Santa Monica Handicap last January and other sprint stakes for trainer Richard Mandella, also has been retired and will be bred to Seattle Slew next year. . . . Eddie Delahoussaye rode three winners Wednesday at Santa Anita. He won the opener with 14-1 shot Penny Blues, then took the fourth with 5-1 shot Most Of All and the sixth with 5-2 favorite Bountiful Table.