Del Mar Track Gets Ready for Cry of ‘They’re Off and Running’

DEL MAR — Every summer for the past 40 years, Ann Roper has made the trip to Del Mar Race Track, her truck filled with equipment that is as essential to the racing season as the swift horses and tiny jockeys themselves.

Roper and her husband, Nick Hartley, fashion “colors”--silks and jackets for the jockeys, blankets and blinkers for their mounts. When the racing begins here Wednesday, she will work up to 14 hours a day in the next few months, turning out the nylon and satin garments for some of the jockeys and horses that will pound Del Mar’s dirt and turf tracks, as well as other tracks around the country.

“It’s a place my mother started years ago, and I wouldn’t miss Del Mar for anything,” she said of the spacious shop where she and Hartley cut, press and sew the garments. “Del Mar is a favorite place for a lot of (horse racing) people.”

In the heat, dust and horse odors of the track’s “back side” and across its well-tended grounds, people such as Ann Roper spent Sunday preparing the track and the animals for the thousands of spectators expected for opening day.

In the stable area, where 2,300 horses will soon take up residence, trainer Larry Wiseheart was hoping Del Mar would bring him his first victory. Since striking out on his own as a trainer last year, Wiseheart has had horses place in the money, but none has taken first. Wiseheart needs a win, because his livelihood depends on the 10% of the purse he wins if a horse places fifth or better.

“The results speak for themselves,” said Wiseheart, who trains eight horses here. “If you don’t have results, there are other trainers down the road. The guy next door might be training these horses tomorrow.”

As the workers settled into their cramped quarters for the season, which ends Sept. 10, most of Sunday’s action centered on the security office, where credentials needed to work at the track are issued.

Watching over the workers lined up outside the office were two agents of the U.S. Border Patrol, their big four-wheel-drive vehicle a visible reminder of last summer’s debacle when Immigration and Naturalization Service agents arrested 123 undocumented aliens working at the track and scared off hundreds more.

Parked conspicuously outside the security office, the agents questioned some of the Latinos in line but found no one without proper papers.

Word is out that the Border Patrol is keeping an eye on Del Mar this year, said the stable superintendent, Charlie McIntire. “I imagine they’re just not coming because everybody knows you’ll get nailed trying to get credentials,” he said.

The Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Assn., which represents horse trainers, has been working to get visas and work permits for grooms and “hot-walkers,” one trainer said.

“We’re not trying to surprise ‘em,” said one Border Patrol agent, who insisted that his name not be used. “We’re just trying to circumvent the problem. The owners don’t want us up here . . . when the races are on, taking all their help.”