Del Mar meet averages slide

DEL MAR, Calif. – Del Mar’s summer meeting ended on Monday showing a gain in overall handle, owing to four more racing days than a year ago, but the year-to-year daily averages for both attendance and handle, especially ontrack, slipped.

That is the second straight year that has happened, so while Joe Harper, the track’s president and chief executive, on Monday said he was “not disappointed” and that the “numbers are almost what we predicted,” he did concede that he and upper-level executives are going to examine all of aspects of the track’s operation.

“We need to look at our overall marketing strategy, parking, admission, concessions, mutuels,” Harper said in the press box during his annual end-of-the-meeting briefing.

Del Mar was seemingly poised for a rebound after a tumultuous 2014 summer season, which had a rash of equine fatalities during the middle part of the meet. Overall handle in 2014 was down 7.3 percent from 2013, ontrack handle was down 11.3 percent, and attendance was down 6.3 percent.

But the slide continued this year. Overall handle averaged $12,295,175 per day, a robust number but still a dip of 1.2 percent from year ago. Those numbers were bolstered by increases in off-track betting in California, plus handle through advance deposit wagering sites. Ontrack, though, the decline was more pronounced. Average attendance was off by 12 percent to 14,558 per day, while ontrack handle was down 14.6 percent. Purses are funded by handle, the biggest slice coming from money bet on-\track. Del Mar’s daily purse distribution was $655,600; it was $723,000 last summer.

While most tracks would kill for those handle and attendance numbers, compared to the lofty levels of 2013, that’s a significant drop. By comparison, Saratoga had a blockbuster summer.

Harper attributed part of Del Mar’s summer decline to the track now having a fall meeting, the first of which was held in 2014 owing to the closing of Hollywood Park. “We’ve lost the immediacy of the seven-week meeting,” he said. “Having 40 days this summer plus the fall meeting is going to cannibalize us.

“Those of us who were around in 1967, when Santa Anita went from 55 days to 75 days,and later from 75 days to 100 days, saw how every time that happened, daily averages went down,” Harper said. “It’s not a major concern that the averages are down. It’s a different game. We knew it was going to happen when Hollywood shut down. And when you look at other tracks, our averages look good.”

But perhaps this year’s numbers were the inevitable result of a marketing campaign, now into its second decade, that has emphasized Del Mar being, as the track puts it, “cool as ever,” which puts the focus on it being a place to party over a place to gamble on horses. Two of the three biggest crowds of the meet were for opening day – which is the biggest outdoor summer party in the area – and a beer festival. The other crowd that made it into the attendance trifecta was for when American Pharoah paraded on Sunday, and that day included a post-race concert by the popular band Weezer, which attracted thousands.

Del Mar played up the American Pharoah appearance, but going into the meet’s biggest race, the Pacific Classic, there was little done, by comparison, to promote the compelling bid of Beholder taking on males.

Prior to 2014, Del Mar management had 45 weeks between meetings. No more. This year’s fall meeting is less than two months away, from Oct. 29 to Nov. 29. Harper said he and his staff were going to take the next few weeks to “find out what people like and don’t like and have us creatively react.”

“If you stand still, you lose,” Harper said.

Del Mar did not stand still when it came to spending money and resources for both its dirt and turf surfaces, and the results of those efforts showed this summer, with relatively safe racing. There were eight equine fatalities this year compared to 16 a year ago, even though this was a longer meeting.

The new dirt surface, made up of El Segundo sand and installed this year after seven years of having the synthetic surface Polytrack, performed sensationally under the supervision of Richard Tedesco, even after a freak storm the first weekend of the meet.

“It’s nice we were able to put down a product that’s all organic – the silt, clay, and sand all being in there naturally, instead of having to mix it together,” Harper said.

The turf course was installed before last summer’s season, and with an extra year of growth it held up extremely well under the supervision of Leif Dickinson despite its aggressive use. While a few brown spots in the chute were covered with green paint before the final week to make it look aesthetically pleasing, the fact remains the root structure was terrific, for there was little if any kickback even through the final days of the meet.