Pegram wins Pincay Award for his service to horse racing
Mike Pegram, a highly successful, fully colorful and notably popular horse owner and racing executive on the national scene for more than three decades, has been named the 21st recipient of the Laffit Pincay Jr. Award.
He’ll be honored in that role at Del Mar on Sunday, Aug. 10, the afternoon the track runs the 57th edition of the Sorrento Stakes, the race that in 1998 launched the Hall of Fame career of his exceptional filly Silverbulletday.
The Pincay Award, named for and presented by the Hall of Fame rider, goes to those who have served the sport of racing “with integrity, extraordinary dedication, determination and distinction.”
Pegram, 73, is a Kentucky native who first got into horses in the 1970s when he and his father raced Thoroughbreds. They had some luck with it and in 1985 Pegram struck up a friendship with a Bob Baffert, then a quarter-horse trainer, and raced some horses with him. In 1988, Pegram convinced Baffert that they could do better and have more fun with Thoroughbreds, and they made the switch.
The trainer’s first purchase for his new owner was a horse named Thirty Slews, whom he bought for Pegram and several partners, and in 1992 the speedster captured the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. Thus, a partnership and a friendship was sealed, one that would go on to do extraordinary things over the next several decades and continues to make splashes to this day.
Pegram bought a yearling in 1996 for $17,000 and he and Baffert came within a nose of winning the 1998 Triple Crown with Real Quiet, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner who missed by a whisker in the Belmont.
He partnered with a pair of Arizona buddies, Karl Watson and Paul Weitman, and the trio has had huge success on the racing landscape. Among their stars were Lookin at Lucky, Midnight Lute and Secret Circle. They also sent out Coil, Hoppertunity, Drill, Gaming and McKinzie for major stakes scores.
Pegram was elected chairman of the Thoroughbred Owners of California in 2011 and was part of that group’s executive body through 2019. He was named Turf Publicists of America’s “Big Sport of Turfdom” in 1998.
Outside of racing, he had success in the fast-food business with ownership of 25 McDonald’s franchises and he partnered in a five casinos in the Reno and Carson City, Nev., area. He is on the board of Caesars Entertainment. His brother Jim and nephews Brad and J.R. have been successful jockey agents in Southern California.
Pegram is married to Mary Ellen with a son and two daughters. They have homes in Minden, Nev.; Paradise Valley, Ariz., and Del Mar, Calif.
Pincay rode for 39 seasons, including 27 summers at Del Mar, earning five Eclipse Awards as the nation’s foremost rider. He is still Del Mar’s top rider for victories with 1,013. He led the country in earnings on seven occasions. He retired in 2003 as racing’s winningest jockey with 9,530 firsts. Now 78 years old, he lives in Arcadia near Santa Anita.