DEL MAR DIRT TRACK

Monday after the San Diego County Fair ends is moving day, with the carnival and rides moving out and the Del Mar horse racing crew moving in, and in this case, this year, to start a new era of racing at the seaside oval.

Dirt is back at Del Mar on its main track for the first time since 2006. Del Mar took out the old troublesome Polytrack and replaced it with El Segundo sand, excavated from the grounds around Los Angeles Airport. For the first time since 2006 all three tracks racing in Southern California – Del Mar, Santa Anita and Los Alamitos – will have dirt main tracks. And Del Mar and Santa Anita will have the exact same reddish-brown material.

Track superintendent Richard Tedesco said he’ll use Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to unseal and prepare the dirt track for what will be an expanded summer racing season of 40 days, starting Thursday, July 16. Horses will begin training Thursday morning. There will be another 20 days of racing in the fall.

Joe Harper, president and CEO of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, said the project cost “in the $5 million range.” It marks two straight years that Del Mar will open with a new running surface. It was the turf course last year, and Harper doesn’t want a repeat of that when the course had to be closed due to breakdowns. That would be unacceptable on the dirt track, but Harper and Tedesco expect no such problems.

“Last summer the breakdowns we had the breakdowns on the turf course and everybody was saying the turf course was bad,” Harper said earlier in the spring. “But nobody on the turf course was saying that. The jockeys weren’t saying it, the trainers weren’t saying it. We didn’t think it was bad. We don’t anticipate any issues at all. The dirt really has a different look, and the grass course is a year older. The longer the roots are, the more stable the footing will be.”

In 2007, the California Horse Racing Board mandated that all California race tracks go to synthetic surfaces due to an increase in horse breakdowns. But Harper believes Del Mar had the right surface, just the wrong dirt.

“Fact is, statistically, if you look at the raw data, there are less catastrophic breakdowns on synthetics than dirt,” Harper said. “Certainly less here than there was on our old dirt. But our old dirt wasn’t good. Hopefully this will be a different type of dirt track.”

Harper said Del Mar will continue the same procedures it went to last July when it began scrutinizing horses more closely. It led to more on-track scratches just prior to races, but Harper and his crew feel that is a small cost to pay for racing safety. It all led to a flawless fall without one breakdown.


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