Judge Awards Jockeys Millions

A federal judge in Los Angeles has awarded jockey Laffit Pincay and recently retired rider Chris McCarron almost $9 million in compensatory and punitive damages stemming from a lawsuit they brought against their former business managers more than 10 years ago.

Judge William Matthew Byrne Jr. ordered the Vincent Andrews Management Corp., which has an office in New York, to pay Pincay $5,758,253 and McCarron $3,074,809. In 1992, a jury in Los Angeles found Vincent Andrews and his brother Robert, who had represented Pincay for 19 years and McCarron for nine, guilty of breach of contract, intentional and negligent misrepresentation and concealment and breach of fiduciary duty. At that time, the Andrews appealed a combined jury award of $4.5 million.

“This is a big victory,” Neil Papiano, an attorney for the jockeys, said Friday. “The larger amounts are the result of interest on the original award, and an increase in the punitive damages. I would assume that there will be an appeal.”

Attempts to reach an attorney for the Andrewses were unsuccessful. After the 1992 trial, Vincent Andrews said that Pincay and McCarron had netted almost $2 million in tax savings from their investments, adding that those investments were then valued at $1.4 million.

Papiano said Pincay had invested $1.3 million and paid the Andrews firm $449,844 in management fees. McCarron’s outlay included $759,000 in investments and $369,906 in fees. Both riders are in the Racing Hall of Fame.

Pincay, 55, was enshrined in 1975. Currently riding at Hollywood Park, he had won a record 9,388 races before Friday night’s racing. McCarron, 47, was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1989. When he retired June 23, McCarron had ridden 7,141 winners and his horses had earned a record $264.3 million in purses.

The jockeys’ investments included a hotel in Hawaii, a shopping center in Florida, townhouses in Ohio, oil and gas drilling in West Virginia and a proposed movie with the working title of “Hunchback of the Morgue.” In management fees, Pincay and McCarron paid the Andrews firm 5% of their gross income.

“That sounded kind of high,” McCarron testified at the trial. “But it seemed like standard, so I went for it. Vinnie [Andrews] came across as a very trusting person.”

Pincay testified that before the breakup he had considered including Vincent Andrews in his will.

“The case boiled down to a scheme of concealment to misrepresent and exploit a couple of athletes who were not financial experts,” Papiano said.

The Panamanian-born Pincay’s connection with Vincent Andrews Management began in 1969, his fourth year of riding in the U.S., when he signed on with the brothers’ father. Pincay dropped the Andrews firm in 1987. McCarron hooked up with the firm about a year after he moved his base from Maryland to Southern California in 1978. He left the Andrews brothers in 1988.

The Andrews brothers represented other Hall of Fame jockeys, including Bill Shoemaker, Angel Cordero and Jorge Velasquez. In his 1988 autobiography, Shoemaker said:

“Vinnie [Andrews] was easy to talk to, and he wasn’t a smart.... Maybe he was even a little too conservative, but he read the riot act to [Shoemaker and his then-wife Cindy]. He said from now on he was running our money drawer.... Now when I have a business decision to make, I call Vinnie. He gives me straight answers.”

In an interview several years ago, Cordero discussed his relationship with the Andrews brothers.

“They were charging me 4% of gross earnings,” he said. “But it turned out to be more like 8%. They didn’t do right by me....”

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Hollywood Park’s 65-day meet ends this weekend with cards that include today’s $100,000 Hollywood Juvenile and Sunday’s $250,000 Sunset Handicap. Southern California’s virtual year-round major-track schedule continues Wednesday, when Del Mar launches a 43-day season.