Laffit Pincay

Former jockey Laffit Pincay was awarded a judgment of $2.7 million by a jury in Pasadena on Monday, the culmination of a lawsuit against Huntington Ambulance regarding the spill that ended his career more than four years ago. Pincay, 60, had reached an out-of-court settlement early last year with Santa Anita and the physician's assistant who treated him immediately after the accident on March 1, 2003, during a race on the hillside turf course at the Arcadia track.

Laffit Pincay, the world's winningest rider with 9,530 victories, has settled a lawsuit with Santa Anita regarding the spill that ended his career nearly three years ago. In the suit, Pincay alleged that Santa Anita was negligent in treating injuries he suffered in a race March 1, 2003.

Laffit Pincay Jr. was in the winner's circle at Hollywood Park again last weekend. Lord knows how many times he has been there before. The dress code for him is different these days; it has been since he retired as a jockey in 2003. The coat and tie is still not his uniform of choice in that arena. Pincay is 62. He won 9,530 races and horses he rode won $237.4 million. That he is in the Hall of Fame is a given.

Another true story of a competitor pushed too far. Now I was just trying to be funny, you know, my way of congratulating Laffit Pincay for winning his 9,500th race in the fifth at Santa Anita on Wednesday aboard Saxony. So after everyone had patted him on the back and wished him congratulations, I waited for him to put the whip down and told him if he lost his final races of the day, I'd trash him in the newspaper for going on a two-race losing streak.

The jockeys' room at Santa Anita has lost two Hall of Fame riders -- Chris McCarron and Eddie Delahoussaye -- to retirement in the last eight months, and the riding future of a third Hall of Famer, Laffit Pincay, is being questioned after his painful spill last Saturday.

Injured in a spill on March 1, Laffit Pincay Jr., the world's winningest jockey, said he'll make a decision about his future after he visits the doctor again in three weeks. Fitted with a halo brace after two fractures were discovered in his neck a few days after he was thrown from his mount in a race on Santa Anita's hillside turf course, Pincay, 56, said he doesn't know if he's going to try to resume his career or retire. "I'm doing pretty well," said Pincay, who has 9,530 victories.

Laffit Pincay, who won 9,530 races, more than any other jockey, in a career that started four decades ago in his native Panama, announced his retirement Tuesday, two months after he was seriously injured in a near-fatal spill at Santa Anita.

If Laffit Pincay had been given better news by his doctor this week, the world's winningest jockey would have tried to resume his career. In the immediate aftermath of the spill March 1 in which he broke two bones in his neck, his family had made it clear that they wanted him to retire after some 39 years in the saddle and a record 9,530 victories. "If the doctor had told me I could come back, I probably would have," he said from his Arcadia home Wednesday.