It happens every summer, off and running at Del Mar

Every summer there comes a morning when Del Mar ceases to be merely a racetrack and resumes its older occupation as a temporary capital of optimism. Horses arrive with spotless records and impossible ambitions.

Trainers speak with measured confidence. Bettors discover systems that have somehow eluded them for years. Before the first gate opens, everybody is undefeated.

That annual migration begins again Friday when Del Mar launches its 89th summer meeting, an eight-week season that will once more transform the quiet seaside town north of San Diego into the center of West Coast Thoroughbred racing. Founded in 1937 by Bing Crosby and a circle of Hollywood dreamers who believed great racing belonged beside the Pacific, Del Mar remains the rare sporting venue whose setting competes successfully with the event itself.

For 32 racing days through Labor Day, the track where the turf meets the surf will welcome horseplayers, vacationers, families, socialites, and those who simply enjoy watching beautiful animals perform difficult work with astonishing grace. Some will come for the wagering. Others will come for the hats, the people-watching, or the excuse to spend an afternoon within sight of the ocean. Del Mar has always accommodated all of them without insisting they explain themselves.

Opening Day retains its peculiar place on the Southern California calendar. It is equal parts sporting event, reunion, fashion show, and civic celebration. The celebrated Hats Contest has become almost as recognizable as the races themselves, providing annual evidence that imagination flourishes whenever there is a suitable grandstand.

The racing, however, quickly demands center stage

DMTC grandstand/File

Saturday’s feature is the 85th running of the Grade 2, $300,000 San Diego Handicap, traditionally the first serious measuring stick for horses with ambitions toward the $1 million Pacific Classic later this summer. Heading the field is Journalism, already one of the country’s accomplished older runners with earnings exceeding $4.5 million.

The imposing son of Curlin, trained by Michael McCarthy for Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, Bridlewood Farm, Don Alberto Stable and partners, reunites with jockey Umberto Rispoli after finishing third in June’s Metropolitan Handicap at Saratoga. Journalism seeks his first victory since capturing the Haskell Invitational last season, though his résumé already includes four major stakes wins as a 3-year-old, highlighted by the Preakness Stakes. Saturday’s mile-and-a-sixteenth test should reveal whether he remains on course for an August showdown in the Pacific Classic.

The companion feature is the Grade 2, $200,000 San Clemente Handicap, where eleven 3-year-old fillies meet over the Jimmy Durante Turf Course. Eastern invader Ground Support, with Adam Beschizza aboard, is expected to command considerable attention in the one-mile contest.

The Pacific Classic, scheduled for Aug. 22, again serves as the centerpiece of the meeting. The Grade 1 event anchors one of the strongest racing programs of the summer, sharing the afternoon with the Del Mar Oaks, Del Mar Mile, and Green Flash Handicap. Altogether, the meet offers six Grade 1 stakes, including the Bing Crosby Stakes on July 24 and the Clement L. Hirsch Stakes on Aug. 1.

Even more significant for championship aspirations, six Del Mar stakes carry Breeders’ Cup “Win and You’re In” status, awarding automatic berths to the season-ending World Championships. For owners and trainers, that transforms an already prestigious summer victory into a direct passage toward racing’s biggest stage.

November 05, 2021: The field breaks from the starting gate at the start of the Qatar Golden Stakes on Breeders’ Cup Championship Friday at the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club on November 5, 2021. Matt Wooley/Eclipse Sportswire/Breeders Cup

Yet Del Mar has never depended solely upon graded stakes to define itself. The track has always understood that a successful day at the races extends beyond the finish line.

This summer’s calendar again mixes Thoroughbred competition with festivals and community gatherings that have become traditions in their own right. Family Fun Days return July 26 and Sept. 6, while Tacos & Tequila, the Del Mar Wine Fest, Turf & Surf Food Fest, Taste of New Orleans, and the BBQ & Beer Fest provide enough culinary distractions to challenge even disciplined horseplayers.

There are handicapping contests for the ambitious, morning workouts accompanied by breakfast for early risers, weekend seminars for those convinced tomorrow’s winner can be found in today’s discussion, Friday happy hours, Sunday Turf Club gatherings, free-admission Thursdays, and the daily tradition of “Sing With Bing” in the winner’s circle—a reminder that Del Mar still enjoys tipping its cap to the entertainer whose enthusiasm helped bring the place into existence nearly nine decades ago.

First post throughout most of the meeting is 2 p.m., shifting to 1:30 p.m. during closing weekend.

By Labor Day, fortunes will have risen and fallen, reputations strengthened or bruised, and countless opinions revised. Some horses will justify their promise; others will leave their admirers explaining what might have been. That, too, is part of racing’s enduring bargain.

The Pacific will still be there beyond the stretch run, the grandstand will gradually empty, and Del Mar will once again have spent another summer reminding its visitors that few sporting traditions wear the years as comfortably as a good racetrack beside the sea.