Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron has been named the 2016 recipient of the Laffit Pincay, Jr. Award and will be honored in ceremonies held at Del Mar Sunday, Aug. 21. McCarron, 61, becomes the 13th winner of the Pincay Award, given to those who have served the sport, “with integrity, extraordinary dedication, determination and distinction.”
The honor will be presented to McCarron by his fellow Hall of Fame rider Pincay, who rode against him for more than two decades in California and called him, “as tough a competitor as there was.”
“Chris was a warrior on the racetrack,” Pincay said. “He was so smart and so competitive and when you rode against him you knew you had to be at your very best. He made me and all the other jockeys he rode against better riders. But away from the track he was–and still is–a special friend; someone you could count on every day of the week.”
For the first time, the Pincay Award will be part of a special relationship with one of racing's most important charities–the Winners Foundation, which for more than 30 years has aided those in racing adversely affected by substance abuse and/or mental health issues.
Though he has been retired since 2002, his career marks of 7,141 victories and $263,985,905 in purses still rank in the Top 10 all-time among riders. Among his many honors are a pair of Eclipse Awards (as an apprentice in 1974 and as the nation's outstanding rider in 1980); two Kentucky Derby wins and four other Triple Crown tallies; nine Breeders' Cup triumphs, including five in the Breeders' Cup Classic; top jockey nationally by earnings four different years and by wins three times; the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award and the Mike Venezia Memorial Award.
McCarron, who was inducted into racing's Hall of Fame in 1989, was co-founder of the Don MacBeth Memorial Jockey Fund, served as vice president and general manager of Santa Anita Park for two years and founded the United States' only formal jockey school–the North American Racing Academy in Kentucky in 2005, a program in which he continues to teach and serve as a mentor.
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