Success by the Sea : Other Race Tracks Might Be Having Problems, but Del Mar Is Running Against the Tide

It’s been a long day, says Les Kepics, the race track bugler. The sun’s been hot and hard, and with this tight-fitting mariachi outfit on, there’s no relief in sight.

For seven weeks, eight races every day except Tuesday, he will do this. And because Del Mar is only a summer track, his union can’t get him the benefits that his counterparts at Hollywood Park and Santa Anita are afforded.

“They’ve got sick pay and substitutes,” he says. “Me, I’ve got to stick it out for the whole meet.”

But, it’s a gig, he says.

“I don’t think I’d want to do it for a whole year, but it’s all right for a couple of months during the summer.”

For Joe Harper, general manager at Del Mar, that couple of months during the summer has been just great in recent years.

While the bigger Los Angeles area tracks have struggled with declining attendance and handles, Del Mar continues to breeze along, seemingly immune to the lottery, rapid change and even a government raid on illegal alien workers last year that shut down racing for a day.

This summer’s meeting is holding steady with last year, when track records were set in attendance with an average of 19,776, and handle with an average of $3,574,173. Through 12 dates, Del Mar has averaged 20,090 and $3,444,406.

Meanwhile, at Hollywood Park, daily attendance slipped more than 12% at the recent meeting to an average of 22,595, the track’s lowest since 1941. As recently as 1980, Hollywood Park led the country at 31,000. The money wagered has also dropped, having fallen almost 9% from last year.

At Santa Anita, which precedes Hollywood Park on the racing circuit, attendance was down about 11% and betting was off nearly 4%.

Harper said that he is asked often why Del Mar hasn’t followed the trend.

“I wish I had an answer to give them,” Harper said. “I wish I could break it down and figure out what we’re doing right, but I can’t. We’re just Del Mar, I guess. There’s no magic to it.”

There are theories, and the most common one is that Del Mar hasn’t been affected by the state lottery, which Hollywood Park, Santa Anita and Los Alamitos have all pointed to as a poison.

Del Mar is no longer the sleepy, seaside track that it once was, but the crowd it attracts is still of the vacation sort, which generally is more unlikely to consider the lottery a betting option. According to a track survey, most of Del Mar’s patrons go fewer than three times a season, with less than 12% attending more than half of the track’s 43-day meeting.

“I’ve always felt that we might be affected less by the lottery than the other tracks have, and so far that seems to be the case,” Harper said. “We have a certain degree of draw here that isn’t going to fall victim to the lottery. It’s a fun kind of track. It’s just a little different type of crowd than you’d see at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park.”

Since the infield was opened last year, the college students, especially from nearby UC San Diego, have found the race track as more of an option of how to spend a weekend day. Families frequent the track more now also, lying out blankets or using the picnic tables.

“They did a great thing when they opened up the infield,” said Jessica Loza, her two little girls running around her blanket. “It’s not crowded like it is up in the stands, and people don’t have to wait so long in the (betting) lines. It’s just more friendly.”

The younger crowd is assumed to bet smaller amounts, but track officials say that they also promote the lively atmosphere that Del Mar covets so dearly.

“I walk around and talk to the fans,” said Benjamin Felton, chairman of the California Horse Racing Board. “I feel the pulse of the people. People are happy down there.”

Once reliant on business from Los Angeles County, only one-quarter the track’s attendance now comes from there. But escapism has always been the appeal of Del Mar.

The idea is to drive south on the 405 freeway, through the smog and past the billboards, odor, Carson refineries with 50-foot flames, and car dealership signs that flash, “6.5 APR FINANCING,” to the three-exit town just north of San Diego.

Lunch at the Posiedon, head to the track and get some sun, dinner at the fish market, and perhaps a walk on the beach.

As many as 350 people a day take the train from the Los Angeles area, getting off next to the beach. Double-deck buses shuttle them to the track and back.

The facility was built in the 1930s, the wind comes off the beach, the track’s Bing Crosby theme song “Where the Turf Meets the Surf” is played before the first race and after the ninth, and the track announcer (Trevor Denman) has an accent. The imagery is something Del Mar officials try to perpetuate.

It works. Said one local racing writer: “It’s got to upset the folks in Inglewood to know that the same people who won’t drive 30 minutes to Hollywood Park think nothing of spending 2 1/2 hours in the car to go to Del Mar.”

Although obviously there are serious bettors who follow the seasonal circuit, from Santa Anita to Hollywood Park to Del Mar, casual fans from San Diego seem less likely to make the trip north.

“Any place in Los Angeles is miserable to get to, whether it’s a play or the race track,” said John Brannon, who lives in San Diego and trained horses 25 years ago.

Besides traffic and smog, the Los Angeles-area tracks have to contend with a greater array of sporting attractions. Del Mar, though, is the only track in the San Diego area and because of its short meeting is not subject to the year-round racing doldrums.

“It’s hard to use Del Mar as a benchmark as to what’s happening in racing,” Felton said. “There’s the seven-week meet, the beach, and it’s in a less-crowded area. Most everybody is 15-20 minutes from the track, and there’s a lot more dining opportunities.”

Keeping the track in its small-time britches is the small town. Since 1970, $30 million in improvements has been spent on the facility, and Harper is pushing for a new and larger grandstand. But with only two or three main access roads leading into the track, traffic is already thick. Parking also is a shortcoming, with only 10,000 spaces available.

Despite the success, Harper is also wary of extending the season. In 1980 and ‘81, for instance, the meeting was extended by two weeks. Midway through the extra part of the second year, the meeting was suddenly ended.

“We put an end to it because we were losing so much money,” Harper said. “Obviously, after Labor Day, we’re in trouble. The crowds just aren’t there, the enthusiasm isn’t there. The two years we tried it the weather was good, the horses were perfect. We had everything going for us, but the people weren’t here.”

They’re here now, though, and no one is eager to change a good thing. “It’s the place to be,” said Felton, who attends almost every weekend. “People want to be at Del Mar.”