For Pincay, It’s No Routine Chore

Jockey Laffit Pincay stopped growing at 5 feet 1, but he is still a 114-pounder living in a 140-pounder’s body. He has been able to move from a 600-calorie-a-day regimen to 850 calories by diligently exercising to burn off the difference. He usually rides at 117 pounds, which include two to three pounds of equipment and riding attire. That’s about the maximum a jockey can weigh and still expect to ride regularly.

Before he resorted to calorie-watching, he went through all sorts of tortures to keep his weight down. He crash-dieted, he became a vegetarian. A la Archie Moore, the champion boxer, Pincay would chew cooked red meat, savor the taste and spit it out. Not a pretty sight. Just as disarming were his habits of scraping the salt off soda crackers before eating them, and cutting peanuts in half and eating them a piece at a time, hours apart.

Not long ago, he would start his day by running several miles around the Santa Anita racetrack. Horsemen, busy with their morning duties of exercising their stock, might see him anywhere: Running through the parking lot, through the barn area and even circling the racing strip itself.

Now, instead of all that running, he finds exercising in a gym or at home is more effective. All that distance running drained him of the strength needed to control 1,000-pound animals in the afternoons.

He tries to make every day the same, even the days when Santa Anita or Hollywood Park or Del Mar might be dark. He begins about 6 a.m. with a fruit breakfast. Apples, oranges and blueberries are his favorites. Then he’ll either go to the track, to exercise horses, or head for the gym, where he works on a treadmill, does aerobic stretches and gets on a stair master. Sometimes he’ll skip the trip to the gym and exercise on equipment at home.

Lunch at the track might be a protein bar, combined with vitamins and nutritional supplements. During the racing day, when he seldom rides in every race, he reads the Daily Racing Form’s past performances so he’s familiar with the horses he rides and the horses he’ll try to beat. He’ll watch television in the jockeys’ room, and, to keep his mind off snacking, he works a book of crossword puzzles.

By evening, he hopes to have left himself 350 to 400 of his daily quota of 850 calories. Dinner is a small portion of chicken or fish, with vegetables and a dinner roll without butter. By 10 or 11 p.m., he and his wife Jeanine, who he married in 1992, are asleep. There are few exceptions to this routine.

On Dec. 10, 1999, several hours after Pincay rode his 8,834th winner to break Shoemaker’s record, he went overboard, celebrating with a filet mignon dinner. All through the meal, though, he was thinking about whether the meat might keep him from making weight at the races the next day. It didn’t.