DEL MAR VIBE

Last year during a particularly trying summer meeting at Del Mar, Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert offered an antidote to the run of bad luck.

“Wait and see what that new dirt track will do for Del Mar,” he said. “You’ll see that old Del Mar vibe back.”

A year later, buoyed by having the sport’s first Triple Crown winner in 37 years stabled on the Del Mar backstretch in Baffert’s barn, Del Mar begins its 76th racing season Thursday. There’s hope that the new El Segundo sand will produce exciting and safe racing. Del Mar is known for its party atmosphere, concerts and special events, but the two things that sealed the deal for the storied track to get the 2017 Breeders’ Cup was replacing the controversial Polytrack with a dirt track and the expansion of the turf course last year from a 12-horse maximum to 14 horses. Thus far, the dirt track appears to be settling and firming up. The turf course is lusher and not nearly as hard as it was to open the meeting last summer when it had to be closed for seven days due to breakdowns. Above all, both appear safe.

“I don’t care if it’s synthetic, dirt or broken glass, so long as it’s safe is all that matters to me,” said Peter Miller, who won the training title last summer and fall here and comes here after tying Doug O’Neill for the spring title at Santa Anita. “I’m pleased with the track.”

The 40-day meeting features nearly $8 million in purses for 43 stakes races and nearly $700,000 in daily purses that make Del Mar the richest meeting in the state and one of the more lucrative in the country.

For the 25th year, the stakes schedule includes one of the West’s premier, $1 million races for 3-year-olds and older horses, the Grade I, $1 million TVG Pacific Classic that will celebrate its Silver Anniversary on Aug. 22. Unfortunately, defending champion Shared Belief won’t be here to defend his title. The 4-year-old, gelded son of Candy Ride, owned in part by radio and TV sports personality Jim Rome, is mending from a hip injury that caused jockey Mike Smith to pull him up in the $1.45 million Charlestown Classic in West Virginia back in April. It’s uncertain when he will return.

Joe Harper, president and CEO of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, holds out hope that the Triple Crown winner, Ahmed Zayat’s American Pharoah, somehow runs in that race. He knows it’s a long shot, at best. But even if American Pharoah runs in the Haskell Invitational on Aug. 22 and never races here, his presence on the track this week already has elevated the atmosphere and vibe at a place that markets that better than any track in the land. The media turnout this week rivaled that for the likes of Cigar, Zenyatta and California Chrome. Harper welcomed the attention for opening week.

“We don’t get these Triple Crown horses very often, and when you get one like him, one who did it so effortlessly, it’s really special,” Harper said Tuesday morning after American Pharoah went to the track for a mile jog to test the Del Mar dirt for the first time. “It’s special that he’s back here where he won our Futurity last summer. Right now they’re pointing him for the Haskell in New Jersey at Monmouth. Our million dollar race is 20 days later. It’s a fluid thing with a horse in training. But the important thing is you want to make sure whatever is done is done for the horse, not for friends or a certain racetrack. We’re just glad to have him here to kick off the racing season.”

Opening Day features 10 races, with the first three on the dirt to give the new surface a good test early. The first race is at a mile on the dirt and, as part of the Del Mar tradition, will start in front of what should be a packed Del Mar grandstand.

The card also has the traditional opening-day, $100,000 Oceanside Stakes, 70th edition, run at one mile on the turf course for 3-year-olds. Top horses in the Oceanside include trainer Phil D’Amato’s Papacoolpapacool and trainer Jeff Mullins’ Soul Driver, along with trainer George Papaprodromou’s Peacenluvpeacenluv, who won here at five furlongs on the turf last July.

After the special Thursday opener, racing will go every Wednesday through Sunday through Labor Day, Sept. 7.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE IN THE SAN DIEGO UNION SPORTS WRITTEN BY ED Z.