Del Mar overnight purses take a trim

Overnight purses for the summer meeting at Del Mar will start lower than at last year’s summer meet because of a seven-figure debt carried forward from the purse pool last year.

Del Mar released its first condition book this week, listing races to be offered in the first weeks of the summer meeting. The across-the-board cuts reflect a reduction of approximately 8 percent for all overnight races during the meet, which runs from July 16 to Sept. 7.

“Everybody got a little bit taken off,” said Del Mar executive vice president of racing Tom Robbins.

Maiden special weight races with purses of $75,000 in 2014 will be worth $70,000 this year. A $20,000 claimer at six furlongs worth $39,500 in 2014 has a purse of $36,000. A $10,000 claimer around two turns was reduced from $24,000 to $22,000.

At the 2014 summer meeting, all-sources handle fell 7.3 percent, while ontrack handle was down 11.3 percent. The track was plagued by a series of injuries on a newly installed turf course that led to the suspension of turf racing twice early in the season.

“We started out strong last year, and we tailed off with some of the issues we faced,” Robbins said. “We took a pretty big hit last year, slightly over $1 million.”

Robbins said that even with a successful meeting this year, the track might not be able to recover the entire overpayment from 2014. He said the purse schedule for the upcoming meeting was agreed upon with the Thoroughbred Owners of California, which approves purse levels for Thoroughbred meetings at California tracks.

“We don’t do anything without the TOC’s approval,” Robbins said. “This has been in the plans for a number of months.”

Earlier this year, Del Mar released a stakes schedule for the summer meeting worth $7,950,000, a decline of $100,000 from 2014.

The summer meeting at Los Alamitos, which runs July 2-12, will have overnight purses largely the same as in 2014, but with fewer stakes. Last summer, Los Alamitos ran seven stakes worth $1,150,000 in total. This year, the track is offering four stakes worth $750,000. The richest race, the Los Alamitos Derby, has been reduced from $500,000 in 2014 to $350,000 this year.

Los Alamitos did raise purses in one category. Maiden special weight races will be worth $50,000, an increase of $8,000 from 2014.