Del Mar’s opening week shows gains

Del Mar broke strongly from the gate, with across-the-board increases in ontrack handle, overall handle, and ontrack attendance through the first week of the meet, which ended Sunday.

The overall handle averaged $13,044,595 daily, a solid 5-percent jump from 2012. The ontrack handle averaged $2,736,147, an increase of 3.3 percent.

The handle increase likely was propelled by an increase in field size, an average of 8.8 runners per race compared with 8.2 during opening week last year.

Attendance was down slightly opening day – yet still was a robust 43,030 – but up the remainder of the week, resulting in an ontrack average of 21,633, a fractional increase of 0.8 percent from a year ago.

Del Mar had a particularly strong day to finish the week on Sunday, with an ontrack crowd of 21,430, and handle of $14,664,392.