Del Mar/Solana Beach/Encinitas/Carlsbad

Del Mar’s sprint to the Breeders Cup begins in earnest

If you’re the type who likes the smell of hay, the sound of hooves, and the faint taste of risk on the ocean breeze, you’ll find Del Mar’s gates wide open for the next 30 days. The sunshine is plentiful, the odds are long, and the stories are worth retelling. Because, as one old tout by the paddock rail tells me between drags on his…

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Dance of the orcas: Awe and etiquette on the open seas

In the surging foam of the Pacific swells, where the boundless blue mirrors heaven’s depths, there came again to Southern California’s shores a band of oceanic hunters, their presence rare as an albatross amid the doldrums. These orcas, sovereigns of the sea, whose brief sojourns here once stirred both awe and marvel, now returned, their black-and-white heraldry glistening like banners of some ancient, aquatic knightly…