John Beggin © Benoit Photo

It’s always the first thing you notice when you walk out on the tarmac or through the entrances out into the grandstand at Del Mar…the lush, green Jimmy Durante Turf Course. Ten and a half acres of bermuda grass shaped in a large oval.

Anyone who has maintained a lawn during the scorching days of September and October will appreciate the effort that goes into maintaining such a large swath of grass. It’s a year-round chore that shifts into high gear with closing day of the summer meet.

“We do what is called ‘coring’,” points out John Beggin, turf and landscape superintendent at Del Mar. “We repair any damage that is done in the summer to areas like the finish line or where they switch leads in the last quarter mile. Those areas usually get beat up more than anywhere else. Especially the finish line because a lot of races go through it twice.”

Beggin and his crew meticulously go over every bit of ground on the turf course, searching for damaged areas.

“I take what is called a cup-cutter,” Beggin continues. “In golf, they use it to replace their cups when they change pin locations. We take a piece of grass from the outside rail and we put it in the damaged areas. Then we add a couple of fertilizer applications to promote healing and new growth.” 

They also utilize UV turf blankets that are laid over the turf course.

“They radiate heat and warm up the soil,” Beggin explains. “Our turf is a warm season turf and with the coastal climate the warmer you can make the turf the more it wants to heal and produce new shoots. We kind of had a little heatwave at the end of summer and it got a little too hot. So, we did a little bit of blankets but not much.”

Which was a good thing when the ferocious Santa Ana winds blew through San Diego County last month. 

“If you have blankets, which we didn’t, they tend to blow away,” Beggin says. “The wind tends to dry everything out so it took a little more moisture managing. A couple sections of the outside rail were blown down which we had to fix but we made it through the Santa Ana’s pretty good.”

Beggin’s turf course will get a lot of use…and abuse…during the Bing Crosby Season at Del Mar when turf racing is an emphasis. It comes as no surprise that the hardest part of maintaining Del Mar’s turf course comes during live racing which wreaks havoc on the grass. Beggin says they’ll continue with the weekly coring and rotate the rail position more frequently.

“I’ve been talking to other tracks,” Beggin notes. “We’ve been kind of playing around with the idea after the last Breeders’ Cup that we rotate the rail more often than we have in the past. I’m rotating it every race day. One rail position Friday, a different rail position Saturday and a different rail position Sunday. That means more work for us at night because we move the rail after racing.” 

The results of Beggin and his crew’s diligence are on full display every day at Del Mar. And while the turf course is pleasing to the eye, it’s also a safe track and that, above all else, is what’s important.

“I think about it every day,” he says. “Every time those horses get on the track.”