Del Mar to increase purses at fall meeting

DEL MAR, Calif. - Overnight purses will increase across the board at the 13-day autumn meeting at Del Mar from Nov. 6 to Nov. 29.

There are varying levels of higher purses.

An $8,000 claimer will be worth $20,000 compared to $17,000 last fall, an increase of 17.6 percent. The purse of a maiden race has been increased 8 percent, from $60,000 in 2025 to $65,000. A $25,000 claiming race has been hiked $1,000, to $35,000, an increase of 2.9 percent.

The increases are part of a circuit-wide improvement in overnight prize money. Santa Anita announced earlier this year that it will offer increased purses at its fall meeting, which runs from Sept. 25 to Nov. 1.

Last week, Del Mar announced its stakes schedule for the fall meeting but did not increase purses for those races.

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Racing and track executives told the California Horse Racing Board last month that the state’s racetracks are close to eliminating a purse overpayment that reached $8 million at the end of 2024. Santa Anita officials had a purse deficit of $6 million at one point, a debt that is expected to be eliminated by the end of the year, officials said.

According to documents submitted to the racing board in May, Del Mar had a surplus of more than $629,000 in its purse account after its 2025 fall meeting.

A significant amount of the deficit has been erased from revenue derived through handle from account wagering and simulcast locations throughout the state that have been consolidated and directed to Southern California tracks and purse accounts.

Previously, part of that money was devoted to Northern California tracks and purses. There has been no racing in Northern California since the end of 2024. During that fall, a meeting at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton failed to meet business expectations. Golden Gate Fields in Albany, the circuit’s leading track, closed permanently in June 2024.

Several proposals to resume racing in that part of the state have been rejected by the California Horse Racing Board in the last 15 months in an effort to preserve prize money levels at Del Mar, Los Alamitos, and Santa Anita, the only Thoroughbred tracks operating in the state.

Santa Anita raised purses in the spring of 2025 as a result of the rearranged division of revenue from simulcasting.

California derives money for purses strictly from handle. Tracks in a majority of states have an ancillary form of revenue for purses, such as casinos, slot machines, or sports betting. Some of those tracks offer higher prize money than California tracks.

Santa Anita introduced 26 slot machine-styled parimutuel gaming machines in a pavilion in its grandstand in January, but the machines were seized by government officials two days later.

Santa Anita filed a writ of mandate against the state attorney general later that month in an effort to have the machines returned to the track. The case has yet to be heard in court.

Earlier this summer, California received a financial boost with an $8 million cash infusion for the racing board’s budget from the state’s general budget for the next two fiscal years.

The racing board has a budget of more than $17.1 million for the fiscal year that began on July 1, according to testimony at a racing board meeting in July. The budget is largely funded by monies received from racetracks and horsemen’s organizations through revenue generated by handle.

The $8 million in savings over the next two fiscal years will be split between the tracks and horsemen’s organizations, with some of the money going toward purses.

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