Del Mar officials hope focus is on racing

DEL MAR, Calif. – Thursday’s opening day of the highly anticipated Del Mar summer meeting marks the completion of a hectic 10-day span when the racetrack property is transformed from the home of the San Diego County Fair to the venue of the most popular race meeting in the West.

Track officials hope the hectic moments will be over when racing starts with a raucous roar from a crowd of more than 40,000 at 2 p.m. Pacific. Last summer, there were few quiet times in a meeting plagued by a troubled turf course, horse injuries, and a downturn in business.

“It was one thing after another,” track president Joe Harper said last weekend.

The track’s brief November meeting was rated a success – including fewer safety issues – and officials are desperate for a similar run in coming weeks to put the woes of the 2014 summer meet behind them.

This year, the most significant change is a newly installed dirt course that replaces a Polytrack synthetic surface used from 2007 through last year.

From a business point of view, the calendar favors a strong meeting. The 40-day season continues through Sept. 7 and includes eight weekends, or one more than last year. Instead of a closing on the Wednesday after Labor Day, when schools are in session and family vacations are over, the meeting ends on Labor Day.

“I think closing on Labor Day is a good idea,” Harper said. “It’s something we’ve talked about for years. With the extra weekend, we felt this was the time to make the shift.”

Opening day has drawn at least 40,000 people for 11 straight years. Last year, the attendance on opening day was 42,021, a 2 percent drop from 2013. The track’s all-time record audience of 47,339 was set on opening day in 2012.

This is the second consecutive year the track is opening its summer meeting on Thursday instead of a Wednesday, a move Harper said strengthens the opening week by eliminating a quiet second-day Thursday program. Now, the opening day leads directly into a Friday and then weekend.

“It makes a lot of sense,” Harper said.

Track officials are hoping a strong opening week will set the tone for the meeting. Last year, ontrack attendance fell 6.3 percent, ontrack handle dropped 11.3 percent, and all-sources handle was down 7 percent.

The meeting suffered a rash of negative publicity because of a series of equine fatalities, several of which occurred on a newly installed turf course. Twice during the meeting, the track stopped racing on turf to allow for course maintenance. The second half of the meeting was largely run without incident, but the track’s reputation was dented.

“We started out great last year and the bottom fell out after the first 10 days because the press got a hold of the horse fatalities and ran with it,” Harper said. “We ran afoul of media coverage like that and it hurt. Hopefully, that won’t happen again.”

The racing schedule is nearly identical to past years with seven Grade 1 races, beginning with Saturday’s $400,000 Eddie Read Stakes, the meeting’s richest race on turf. The $1 million Pacific Classic on Aug. 22 is the top race of the season, but it is unlikely to draw three of the best horses based in California.

American Pharoah runs in the $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on Aug. 2, with plans beyond that uncertain. California Chrome, the 2014 Horse of the Year, is out for the year with a leg injury. Shared Belief, winner of the 2014 Pacific Classic, is out of training with a hip injury.

Harper said track officials will work with trainer Bob Baffert for a potential morning promotion tied to a workout by American Pharoah.

“I know this horse is getting a lot of attention,” Harper said. “I get the feeling that Bob wants him to be a horse again and not a rockstar and we certainly respect that.

“If we could get him in the afternoon, we’d love that. If there is a morning, we could have a breakfast at the same time.”

Such an event would certainly draw a crowd. That is the sort of excitement track officials hope will dominate the season.