Del Mar to Switch to Five-Day Weeks
Del Mar To Switch To Five-Day Race Week
During 2009 Season
Del Mar will run on a five-day per week schedule in 2009, dropping most Monday cards and shifting some of the races from that day to other programs.
The lone exception to the new Wednesday-through-Sunday routine will be racing on Monday, September 7, which is the Labor Day holiday.
For the past several months, Del Mar officials had been exploring the idea of a five-day race week with organizations and involved parties, including its landlord -- the state of California through the 22nd District Agricultural Association -- as well as horsemen's groups and the track's various labor unions. All agreed that the date adjustment made practical and economic sense.
The final hurdle was cleared Friday when the California Horse Racing Board gave its approval to the plan that reduced the track's meet from its usual 43 days down to 37.
"We're adapting to circumstances," said Del Mar Thoroughbred Club president and general manager Joe Harper. "There's a pinch on everyone due to the economy; there’s a pinch on the number of racehorses available in the state. Racing folks have been talking about racing less and presenting a better product because of it for some time now. We're not going to talk about it anymore at Del Mar. We're going to do it."
The track's tentative plans call for one additional race to be added to its cards on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. For the most part then the five-day schedule would be Wednesdays (9 races), Thursdays (8 races), Fridays (9 races), Saturdays (10 races) and Sundays (10 races). The track's first post will remain at 2 p.m. on all days except Fridays, when it will shift to 3 p.m. and the track will adjust its popular Friday late-card theme from "Four O'Clock Fridays" to "Three O'Clock Fridays." The track also is investigating special promotions around the Wednesday "welcome back" card following the two-day break with the possibilities of a free gate and reductions in food and beverage prices under consideration.
In total, Del Mar will run 28 fewer races over the course of the season, which this year opens on Wednesday, July 22 and closes on Wednesday, September 9. It also will shift 18 races to other days.
"Shifting those races to better days will be a real positive for us," said Del Mar's vice-president for racing and racing secretary Tom Robbins. "Our Monday cards had become the least-attractive of the week and it was harder and harder for us to fill six days worth of quality programs. As a result of this change, I think our fans will see larger fields and better cards across the board."
Robbins noted that the horse population in California has declined of late, putting even more pressure on his office to fill cards. The number of mares bred in the state and the live-foal crop are both down over the past decade. Further, the discretionary spending involved with the claiming and buying of racing stock also has tightened, reflective of current economic circumstances.
Del Mar officials additionally have monitored situations across the country at several different racetracks where there have been experiments with fewer racing days, most recently at the winter meeting at Gulfstream Park in Florida. There a five-day weekly racing schedule was installed in place of the normal six-day routine, with a resultant rise in field size and pari-mutuel handle.
The track's new Wednesday through Sunday schedule will be the first time it hasn't run six-days-per-week since the 1945 season at the close of World War II. It started racing under the Wednesday through Monday schedule when Sunday racing was green-lighted in the state in 1973. Prior to that it has raced Mondays through Saturdays.
The 2009 season will be Del Mar's 70th summer of Thoroughbred sport. The track was founded by Bing Crosby and a collection of his Hollywood pals back in 1937, but did not race for three years (1942-'43-'44) during World War II.
4/27/09
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