Day Not Feeling the Weight of Chasing Record

On the December day when Pat Day came to California to ride Surfside in the Hollywood Starlet, he stepped on the scale and weighed 102 pounds.

“I usually weigh about 105,” the 4-foot-11 Day said, seeming to apologize for having let himself dwindle away to nothing.

Since he won his first race, at Turf Paradise in Phoenix in 1981, Day has never faced the daily penance--the battle of the scales--that so many jockeys must. Like Bill Shoemaker, Day is a natural lightweight who can walk into a restaurant without guilt pangs.

“I can eat everything, but I try to do it in moderation,” Day said. “I also try to eat the things that I know are good for me.”

Day won the Starlet with Surfside, and will be back in California on Sunday to ride the Wayne Lukas-trained filly in the $100,000 Santa Ysabel Stakes at Santa Anita.

At the start of this week, he had won 7,618 races, but you had to do the math yourself to know that this total left him 1,231 short of Laffit Pincay, who broke Shoemaker’s record of 8,833 on Dec. 10 at Hollywood Park. Day is too far away from Pincay to start keeping score.

“It gave me goose bumps the day Laffit broke the record,” Day said. “When you know the person well who’s doing something like that, it does something to you. Laffit has been a man of such discipline his whole career. What he’s done is phenomenal.”

If Day is the Twiggy of the horsebacking set, Pincay is the opposite, the 140-pound man compressed into the 117-pound body. For years, Pincay has fought to stay within riding weight.

“Laffit’s had two careers,” trainer Eddie Truman said. “One’s been very enjoyable and the other’s been horrible. The enjoyable career has been winning all the races and doing something he loves. The horrible career has been the one where he’s gone through life without eating.”

The Pincay-Day gap in the win column might seem cavernous, but there are valid reasons for considering Day as the jockey who might someday break the record. For openers, he is 46, seven years younger than Pincay, and he weighs less than 105 pounds. Day isn’t going to wear himself out with demanding reducing regimens.

The day Pincay rode Irish Nip for the record-breaking win No. 8,834, Hollywood Park played a video tribute on its infield screen. Among the other Hall of Fame jockeys who had taped their congratulations was Day, who said, “Don’t forget that I’m going to be making a run at you. I’m still going to be wearing these white pants every day.”

Reminded of that, Day smiled.

“Naturally, I was just messing with him,” said the deeply religious Day. “Only God knows whether I’ll ever do anything like that. It’s not like I woke up on that Saturday, the day after Laffit broke the record, and said to myself, ‘This is something I’m going to do.’ ” Day, who didn’t ride much in the final weeks of 1999, was actually closer to Pincay in wins on Dec. 10 than he is now.

“That’s the thing,” Day said. “You don’t know when Laffit will stop. He’s doing awfully well right now, and I’d be surprised if he didn’t ride on for another three, four or five years.”

Day consistently puts up the numbers that are no longer within the scope of the aging Pincay. In 1999, Day won 254 races, and since 1995 he has averaged more than 260 victories a year. His lifetime winning mark, for almost 32,000 mounts, is .218, and for the last five years it has been only slightly lower. Pincay’s next goal is 9,000 wins, and at Day’s recent pace--assuming he rode 1,200 horses a year and won with about 20% of them--it would take him almost six years to reach 9,000. He would be 52 then.

“If I broke the record, I would say, ‘Hallelujah!”’ Day said. “But I’ve never been one to look at long-range goals. If I’m riding five horses today, then my objective is to win five races, but that’s as far as it goes.”

To project that a jockey, having reached his mid-40s, will ride 1,200 races a year into his 50s is a future bet that any bookmaker in Las Vegas would cover, but Day’s profile encourages that sort of a scenario. Besides his feathery weight, he has dodged the pitfalls that frequently interrupt riding careers--injuries and stewards’ suspensions.

Pincay has broken his ribs, pelvis and, 12 times, his collarbone. Day had to think hard to recall his last serious injury.

“It was 1989, at Arlington Park,” he said. “I broke my collarbone. I was out seven weeks. But nothing since then.”

Day thought hard again, and could not recall receiving any days from the stewards for riding infractions in 1999. He was asked about that $1-million Canadian race in September, the Atto Mile at Woodbine. He had finished first with Hawksley Hill, the California shipper from trainer Neil Drysdale’s barn, but the horse was disqualified after the stewards ruled that Day had hit another horse with his whip.

“It certainly wasn’t intentional, and I could never actually feel doing it,” Day said. “But they said I did it, and I accepted that. I’ve only appealed a ruling once in my life, a couple of years ago. All the rest, I just accepted. But this one was black and white, in my judgment. There was no gray area.”

Day was fined $1,000 for the incident at Woodbine. He had lost $63,000--his 10% share of the $630,000 winner’s purse--and he thought that the extra grand smacked of kicking a man while he was already down.

“Look at it this way,” one of the stewards said. “At least you can pay in American funds. You’ll get the benefit of the exchange rate.”

Horse Racing Notes

After a couple of two-turn losses--second in the Norfolk and sixth as the favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile--Forest Camp will be sprinting again in Saturday’s $100,000 San Miguel Stakes. Forest Camp, winner of the Del Mar Futurity, drew the rail for the six-furlong race. Others in the field of just-turned 3-year-olds are Remember Sheikh, Joopy Doopy, Archer City Slew, Swept Overboard, Kolob and Fortifier. David Flores, who rode Forest Camp in his first four races, will be replaced by Chris McCarron.

Garrett Gomez will be at Gulfstream Park on Sunday to ride Buck’s Boy, the 1998 Breeders’ Cup Turf winner, in the Mac Diarmida Handicap. When Buck’s Boy was a 3-year-old, in 1996, Gomez rode him for the first three wins of the horse’s career, then rejoined him for a third-place finish in the 1999 Breeders’ Cup Turf.

John Giovanni, national manager of the Jockeys’ Guild, said that Gary Stevens could remain president of the group until the end of the year. Usually the guild is headed by an active jockey, and Stevens retired on Dec. 26. It’s also possible, Giovanni said, that a special election could be held to replace Stevens.