DEL MAR RACETRACK TURNS 75

On the sunny afternoon of July 3, 1937, the original laid-back Californian himself, Bing Crosby, stood at a turnstile collecting tickets for his new seaside racetrack, Del Mar. Having been bitten by the racing bug, Crosby and a bunch of his Hollywood buddies (among them Pat O’Brien, Oliver Hardy and Gary Cooper) hatched the idea for a horse palace by the ocean where you could play all day, party all night and leave the cares of the world behind.

The group’s first meeting took place at Warner Brothers studios in Burbank where the Del Mar Turf Club was formed. From the start, Hollywood fingerprints were all over this racetrack.

That first day, more than 15,000 came for a look. Word got around fast because there were more than 18,000 on hand by the second afternoon. The Hollywood connection continued for decades at Del Mar (halted only by a three-year shutdown of racing during World War II) with a parade of show biz personalities including Mickey Rooney, Ava Gardner, Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, Edward G. Robinson, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz and Jimmy Durante.

The Santa Fe Railroad launched a special racetrack train from Los Angeles to Del Mar that carried Hollywood stars and, at times, late-running horses. The party started on the train. If the train was late, the races were delayed. It became a Del Mar tradition for the fans in the grandstand to start cheering when they saw the train turn the bend just before the station.

Bing’s relaxed attitude about life carried over to the racetrack. The track’s longtime publicist Eddie Read was quoted as saying: “This is where nobody’s in a hurry but the horses.”

Out on the track itself, Del Mar had its share of magic moments. Drawing on its Hollywood contacts, the plant was the first to make use of the photo-finish camera at its inaugural meet in 1937. The camera, an invention of Lorenzo del Riccio, an optical engineer who headed Paramount Pictures’ technical research laboratories, was designed to produce a strip photograph of the passage of time at a fixed point – in this case the finish line. Today, just about every racetrack in the world uses the technology.

In 1938, Del Mar hosted the historic match race between the American handicap champion Seabiscuit and the South American import Ligaroti. The race pitted Bing Crosby and Lin Howard against Lin’s father, Charles S. Howard, famous owner of Seabiscuit and a director of the Del Mar Turf Club. It was a $25,000 winner-take-all contest that drew 20,000 to the track and was heard coast-to-coast on the NBC radio network. At the end of a ferocious battle that saw the horses trading head bobs and the riders trading whip slashes, “The Biscuit” won by a nose in 1:49, breaking the nine-furlong track record by an amazing four seconds.

In recent times the track has become a fertile proving ground for many of the nation’s best horses and horsemen. Champions race at Del Mar each summer and they are trained by Hall of Fame conditioners with famous names like Ron McAnally, Richard Mandella, Neil Drysdale and Bob Baffert and their world-class jockey colony is led by stars like Hall of Famer Mike Smith, Garrett Gomez, Alex Solis and Rafael Bejarano.

SOURCE

RECORD OPENING AT DEL MAR

They took planes, they took trains, they took cars -- especially limousines, lots of limos. Some of them probably came on rollerblades and skateboards. They heard Bing Crosby croon about where the turf meets the surf, and I'm sure they downed plenty of cold refreshments.

Del Mar's opening day crowd on Wednesday totalled 46,588, an all-time record that topped last year's previous high of 45,309. They bet, too, contributing toward total handle of $13,234,590, a 6.2% increase from the $12,461,600 bet in 2010.

The 72nd season of summer racing at Del Mar got started without me this year, my first opening-day pass in several years. There were some other regulars not attending opening day. No boycott or anything like that; more a matter of "been there, done that." Seen the funny, sometimes elegant hats, the beautiful women, the sports celebrities, the people more interested in being seen than seeing the races. But it's all part of what makes opening day at Del Mar so special.

It's not quite the place that's so crowded no one goes there anymore, but it's not a place for grumpy old men like me. That's why the Paulick Report sent out reinforcements to take my place this year in the form of my partner Brad Cummings and contributor John Scheinman, neither of whom has attended Del Mar previously. I'm looking forward to the video diary of their experiences at the seaside track and will be interested to see if their eyeballs popped out because of the attractive scenery.

As for me, I'll be there for the second week, when the form is a bit more established and the atmosphere is not quite so intense...

SOURCE

BING AND DEL MAR

The best seat in the house at Del Mar racetrack, 20 miles north of San Diego, is a wooden bench inside the clubhouse gate, under a shade tree and beside a gurgling fountain. That's where I found the former jockey Larry Gilligan one Thursday afternoon. His hands folded across a well-tailored sport jacket, he'd settled in to watch a parade of women, young and old, glide past in their summer finest. Equally resplendent (though less meaningful to Gilligan) were the gentlemen in suit jackets and colorful ties walking beside them, for the track's Turf Club is perhaps the only restaurant in all of Southern California where semiformal attire is required to get lunch.

Del Mar's seven-week meeting each July to September won't usually feature the nation's tip-top horses or jockeys; those are camped out across the country in Saratoga Springs, New York, where the milling crowds are postmillennium sloppy in T-shirts and shorts. It doesn't attract the most fervent gamblers, who favor Hollywood Park up the freeway, if not the glow of a computer screen in their basement. But Del Mar is one of the few tracks left where horse racing still feels glamorous.

Del Mar's grandstand was rebuilt in the early 1990s and amenities have been updated since, but the track has the same enticing languor—a sense that, as the late racing publicist Eddie Read put it, "nobody is in a hurry but the horses"—as it did when cofounder Bing Crosby, wearing a yachtsman's cap and smoking his trademark pipe, opened its gates in 1937. "I find the experience incomparable," says Andrew Beyer, the Washington Post's turf writer, who can't resist the occasional cross-country jaunt for a week beneath the palm trees. "I love the weather, the beautiful women, the comfort of the grandstand. There's just nowhere more fun to spend a day at the races."

Plenty of racing fans seem to share Beyer's sentiments. Despite the sport's drooping ticket sales, Del Mar's attendance has grown by 25 percent over the past decade. Last summer's Opening Day crowd of 45,309 was its largest in history, and throngs of more than 30,000 are not uncommon on weekends. Even then, it still manages to feel more like someone's fabulous outdoor wedding reception than a typical sports event. "It's an aura that these people bring with them," says Trevor Denman, who has served as the track announcer at Del Mar for more than a quarter-century. "The majority are on vacation, and they have this happy atmosphere about them. It's totally different from any other racetrack."

Del Mar's executives believe they've engineered this miraculous popularity with modern marketing, a Friday concert series that attracts a younger demographic, signature drinks, all of that. I'm not so sure. Plenty of storied tracks haven taken a similar approach of promoting everything but the actual racing, yet apart from events such as the Triple Crown races and the Breeders' Cup, attendance at many of them remains in a death spiral. One problem is that wagering, which once required actually showing up at the betting window, has become too accessible. Notes Beyer: "When you can watch the races live from your living room and bang in your bets on the computer, the convenience is much more desirable than the hassle and expense of going out to the track."

It takes a special ambience to overcome that. Standing by the immaculate grass oval of Del Mar's paddock on a perfect summer afternoon, I couldn't help but think that nothing sells horse racing so much as the horses. Every one that strutted past seemed ready to step on the track and challenge Seabiscuit (who nosed out Ligaroti in a 1938 winner-take-all race here that captivated a live national radio audience). "The good ones know they're good," says Denman. "They seem to say, 'Let me loose, I'll show you what I can do.' When you see that in an athlete, whether an animal or a man, it's an amazing thing." And when you don't have to worry about whether they're secretly on steroids, or cringe when they fumble their way through a Gatorade ad, it's that much better.

In fact, much about my two-day visit reminded me of the way sports used to be, before excessive packaging and special effects made the experience of attending an event feel very much like watching it on television, only in less comfortable chairs. Part of that is the nature of horse racing, but a lot is the nature of Del Mar. Ad signage is kept to a discreet minimum. And it doesn't hurt that people dress up. It reminded me of black-and-white photos of baseball crowds from the '40s, or the scene in Billy Bathgate when the surpassingly elegant Nicole Kidman visits Saratoga.

Instead of the pounding beat of Megadeth, or whatever it is that blasts from the sound systems in stadiums and arenas these days, I almost felt like I could hear Crosby crooning off in the distance. Wait, it actually was Crosby. The track begins each racing day with his reedy rendition of its iconic theme. "There's a smile on every face, and a winner in each race," he sings, "where the turf meets the surf at Del Mar."

SOURCE

A DAY AT DEL MAR

Del Mar Racetrack is an American Thoroughbred horse racing track at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in the seaside city of Del Mar, California, 20 miles north of San Diego. Operated by the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, it is known for the slogan: "Where The Surf Meets The Turf." It was built by a partnership including Bing Crosby, the actor Pat O'Brien, Jimmy Durante, Charles S. Howard and Oliver Hardy. This video is an interesting video. We get a first hand look at Del Mar. It is kind of like experiencing what Bing did when he went to Del Mar all those years ago...

DEL MAR TO BE SOLD

Del Mar racetrack, the famed California landmark that Bing Crosby founded in 1937 will be sold... The city of Del Mar has reportedly reached a preliminary agreement to buy Del Mar Race Track and the surrounding fairgrounds from the state of California. According to the San Diego Union Tribune, legislation was introduced late Wednesday in the state legislature that would authorize the sale of the track and 400 acres for about $120 million. Other details and the actual purchase price are still to be determined. "The activities we know and love at the fairgrounds will undoubtedly continue," State Senator Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, was quoted by the paper. "For all intents and purposes it will look and feel the same." Kehoe expects the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club to continue conducting horse racing at the facility, which concluded its 71st season last month. However, fair board member Barry Nussbaum told the newspaper he was stunned by the developments. "Why this would have to happen in the middle of the night without consulting experts who run this facility is flabbergasting," Nussbaum told the paper. Del Mar opened for racing in 1937 with Bing Crosby collecting tickets.