Pincay, In Top Shape At 50, Struggles For Mounts

ARCADIA, Calif. - He was en route to victory in one of the country's most important races.

He still won't say when or where or who the horse was.

But Laffit Pincay felt sick and frightened.

"I was afraid I was gonna pass out before we got to the wire," Pincay was recalling a few days ago.

"My muscles felt weak and I didn't think I could control the horse. I don't know how I was able to walk back to the jockeys' room."

It was no isolated incident.

During the years Pincay was acknowledged as physically the strongest jockey in North America - a man who could muscle a flighty, 1,200-pound thoroughbred to the wire - he often rode weak and depressed from arduous dieting.

Last Sunday, a week after his 50th birthday and three days after becoming the second jockey in history to ride 8,500 winners, Pincay was honored at Santa Anita.

The oldest rider campaigning on a daily basis on any of the country's major Thoroughbred racing circuits said he is in the best shape of his life.

"I haven't taken a diet pill in 10 years," he said, licking salt off a potato chip in the jockeys' room at Santa Anita.

"I learned more about nutrition than any doctor from reading and trying different things. I was bulimic for 10 years, but I was one of those people who actually put on weight after throwing up all the time.

"I take 700 calories a day. But I run mostly every day - sometimes a mile around the Rose Bowl - and I know what I need to do to stay 117 pounds and feel good without hurting myself. I wish I'd felt this good 25 years ago."

Long shots and claimers

And there's the irony.

As many have before him, Pincay is finding that for an athlete there is no honor in aging.

He once had his choice of the best mounts. But his workdays now mostly consist of climbing aboard 30-1 long shots and cheap claimers.

His latest major victory came 15 months ago, in the 1995 Oak Tree Invitational at Santa Anita with Tipically Irish.

In 1996, he had fewer than 1,000 mounts - 980 - and rode fewer winners - 129 - than in any year since he came to the United States from Panama in 1966.

"People don't tell me they think I'm too old, but you know they're thinking that," Pincay said.

Eddie Delahoussaye, at 45, is the second-oldest member of Southern California's colony of thoroughbred jockeys.

"I don't think I could accept being in Laffit's situation," Delahoussaye said. "But obviously this is what he loves to do."

Trainer Bill Spawr, who runs a successful claiming stable, uses Pincay to ride many of his horses.

"I use him because he wins races," Spawr said.

"But I have to admit that some of my owners don't want me to use him. They pay the bills so I have to listen."

D. Wayne Lukas, whose purse earnings perennially lead all thoroughbred trainers, teamed with Pincay to win the 1986 and 1988 runnings of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

"I don't remember the last time I rode a horse for Wayne," Pincay said.

Said Lukas: "If I had multiple entries in a big race I wouldn't hesitate to use Laffit. He's like Johnny Unitas. On a given day, he can still give a great horse a great ride."

He was rough

Pincay was known for his hot temper as a young rider - another effect, he said, of his constant battle with weight.

"I never knew how rough he used to be until I went to Louisiana with him for a race and he went in to get his (racing) license," said Jeanine, Pincay's wife of four years.

"They ran his name through the computer and all these sheets of paper came out - with lists of his suspensions for rough riding, fighting with other jockeys, arguing with stewards. I couldn't believe it."

There is not a hint of anger in Pincay's voice when he speaks of the present - and the future.

He would like to break Willie Shoemaker's record of 8,833 riding victories, set between 1949-1990, and once thought beyond challenge.

One of the major reasons for Shoemaker's longevity as a jockey was the fact that he weighed barely 100 pounds and didn't have to diet to make riding weight.

Pincay said he will have to edge toward Shoemaker's record, not take giant steps.

"I would like to keep going through the end of 1998 and see where I stand," Pincay said.

"There's no point in complaining about which trainers use me and which don't. If I think I need only a few more months to get the record by the end of next year, I'll keep going. If I'm way behind, I'll probably just retire."

Wife eager for retirement

There'll be a one-week delay in Pincay's record quest. The Santa Anita stewards suspended him for five days, starting last Wednesday, for a riding infraction the previous week.

Jeanine Pincay, 25 years her husband's junior, was delighted. She planned a week at the couple's summer home in Del Mar with Jean Laffit, their 3-year-old son.

"I wish he would just retire now so we could move down there full-time," she said.

Pincay has two older children by his first wife, Linda, who committed suicide 12 years ago.

"My kids had to go to therapy for about two years before they could deal with it," he recalled.

Less than two years after Linda's death, Pincay found his financial manager had falsely represented the status of the jockey's holdings.

"Later on I found out that $4 million was missing," Pincay said. "I'll never be broke, but there were a few times I thought I could have retired if I had that money. After all these years the case is still in court, but I don't know if I'll ever see any of the money."

Cordero's Western counterpart

For years, Angel Cordero was Pincay's New York counterpart, a swashbuckling competitor who rode into middle age.

He rode 7,057 winners - the third-highest total ever - before retiring at 50 to become a trainer in 1992.

Cordero saw his old rival at Aqueduct in New York on Nov. 30, where Pincay rode little-known Pacific Fleet to an upset victory over Unbridled's Song, the 1995 2-year-old champion.

"I told him if he wanted to get Shoemaker's record, he should come here and I'd make sure he got a lot of good mounts," Cordero said by phone from his New York home.

"I know he doesn't like cold weather, but if he came in the spring and stayed till the fall he'd win all kinds of races. The trainers here know him and the fans would love him."

Thanks, Pincay said, but no thanks.

"I'll stay here and do the best I can," he said.

Bob Meldahl is Pincay's agent and also books mounts for Corey Nakatani, who at 25 is considered a riding superstar whose powerful handling of horses often draws comparisons to Pincay.

Said Meldahl: "Laffit has the class to understand that Corey is my No. 1 rider. But a lot of horsemen still want to ride him because they know he'll get everything out of a horse the horse can give."

"Everybody wanted him"

Richard Mandella, who sent out Dare And Go to upset Cigar in Del Mar's Pacific Classic in August, is one of the biggest names among trainers who regularly employs Pincay - though admittedly not on his top stakes runners.

"When I started my stable 20 years ago, it was impossible to get Pincay," Mandella, 46, said.

"Everyone wanted him. It was an honor that he would even consider riding a horse for a no-name trainer like I was then.

"But he rode the first good horse I had, Bad N Big (who won several stakes in 1977), and I never forgot that. It's still an honor to have him."

In the 1993 Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita, Pincay and Mandella combined to win the Juvenile Fillies with Phone Chatter, the most recent of Pincay's 13 victories in races worth $1 million or more.

The day after Christmas, on opening day of Santa Anita's 1996-97 meet, Sea Crest scored a rollicking 7-length victory in a 1 1/16-mile maiden race for 2-year-olds.

It's still early, but the colt trained by Mandella won with the authority of an animal who could have a Kentucky Derby in his future.

"I've won all the big races, but I wouldn't mind going to the Kentucky Derby again with a horse that had a chance to win," Pincay said.

Said Mandella: "Wouldn't that be something?"