Laffit Pincay Jr.

Laffit Pincay, Jr. was born on December 29, 1946 in Panama City, Panama. He was the second of four children. His parents divorced when he was a child and his father, a jockey, moved to Venezuela to race.

When Laffit Pincay was 15 he got a job at a racetrack in Panama as a hot walker and mucking out stalls. He worked from six in the morning until eleven-thirty, then went to school from two in e afternoon until six or seven at night. A year later he began exercising horses and another year later was working horses out of the gate.

He won his first race aboard a horse named Huelen at Presidente Remon racetrack in Panama on May 16, 1964. Huelen was only his second career mount. In 1966 Laffit Pincay waas brought to the United States by thoroughbred owner Fred W. Hooper and jockey agent Camilo Marin. Marin was instrumental in Pincay's start in the U.S., as Pincay spoke no English at the time, and Marin translated instructions from trainers for him for almost two years after his arrival in the United States. Pincay won his first race in the U. S. aboard Teacher's Art on July 1, 1966. He won his first U.S. stakes race aboard Olympia Sight for trainer Cotten Tinsley on his second day of riding in the United States.

Pincay begain his U.S. career at Arlington Park in Chicago. He won eight of his first eleven races in the U.S. After riding at Hawthorne Park in Illinois, he moved to New York, and later on, to California. In 1967 Pincay married Linda, the daughter of a horse breeder. In 1970 thir daughter Lisa was born, and in 1975, a son, Laffit III.

Laffit Pinacy battled weight problems throughout his career, trying everything from diet pills, water pills, and the sweatbox to special diets consisting of nothing but fish. In the fall of 1974, while riding at Aqueduct in New York, Pincay collapsed in the jockeys' room. Doctors told Pincay that he would die of a heart attack at a young age if he did not change his lifestyle. Shortly after that, in January of 1975, Pincay's close friend, jockey Alvaro Pineda, was killed in a freak starting gate accident at Santa Anita Park. Not long after, Pincay changed his diet and began eating heath foods and vitamen supplements. Soon his weight was under control and his health improved.

In 1983, Linda Pincay suffered ruptured appendix and was in ill health for months after that. In January of 1985 she committed suicide. Pincay returned to racing two weeks after his wife's death and on his second day back won the Santa Maria Handicap on Adored, one of Linda's favorite horses. Less than a month after Linda's death Pincay passed jockey Johnny Longden on the career wins list, with 6,033. He went on that year to become the first jockey to earn over $13 million in one year and also won his fifth Eclipse Award for the best jockey of 1985.

In 1988 Laffit Pincay met a young lady named Jeanine, then eighteen. They were married in 1992. In October of 1993 their son, Jean Laffit Pincay, was born.

On December 10th, 1999, Laffit Pincay broke Bill Shoemaker's world record of 8,833 wins to become the World's winningest jockey. On October 28th (his grandaughter Madlyn's first birthday) he won five stakes races in a single day, the third of which was his 9,000th win.