As Usual, a Day at the Races : Regulars at Turf Club Wouldn’t Miss the Season

Carolyn Meredith can thank her lucky stars that Amo didn’t do it.

On Wednesday at the Del Mar Race Track, she and her husband, Shelly, were sitting at their table in the Turf Club, carefully examining a copy of the Racing Form.

Shortly before the start of the first race, Shelly Meredith asked his wife to place a $100 bet on the No. 1 horse, Amo Did It. “In a minute,” she said. “I’m still not sure which horse I want to bet on myself.”

Five minutes later, Carolyn Meredith finally got up from her seat and sped to the betting window. But by the time she got there, the starting bell had already sounded. Glumly, she marched back to her seat and returned the $100 bill to her disappointed husband.

When the race was in its final leg, however, and it became clear that Amo Did It wasn’t going to win, Shelly Meredith turned to his wife and gave her a hug.

“I want to thank you for getting there late,” he said, flashing a broad smile. “You saved me $100. Of course, if my horse would have won, I’d probably be asking for a divorce.”

Shelly Meredith was only joking, of course. But from the expression on his face early in the race--when it appeared that Amo Did It might, indeed, live up to his name--one could see that he considers horse-racing a serious business.

Why else would he have plunked down $650 a year for the last three years for a family membership in the prestigious Turf Club, the summer playground for the rich and famous? Why else would he and his wife show up at their reserved table every single day during racing season?

This year, the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club’s 49th annual summer season began July 27 and it will end Wednesday. The track is open daily except Tuesdays; there are nine races a day, beginning at 2 p.m.

Forty-three afternoons, 387 races. And Shelly and Carolyn Meredith, who live in Del Mar, have yet to miss a single afternoon--or a single race.

To most of the 2,028 Turf Club members, a day at the races is the spice of life. They visit the track maybe once or twice a week, at the most. But to a handful of others--the Merediths included--a day at the races is a way of life.

“Ever since we shuffled our kids off to college, off into the world, this is how we’ve been spending our summer vacations,” said Shelly Meredith, president of LTI Biomedical, a medical electronics company in Sorrento Valley. “It’s a relaxing hobby, and one that pits your mind, your information processing, against everybody else’s.

“You also get instant action, instant excitement. Unlike most sporting events, the results are right there, moments after the race gets off, and people like fast action like that.

“And if you can bet on it at the same time, it’s all the more fun.”

Meredith, 54, attended his first horse race at a track near his native New York City when he was 13, and recalls feeling “an immediate attraction.”

“Later, I went to college in Kentucky, and since Kentucky is the home of the Derby, you’re around horses all the time,” he said. “I had a lot of friends who owned horses and they taught me how to handicap, and the better I got, the more interested I became.”

Eventually, Meredith passed on this interest to his wife, Carolyn, who he admits is now “a much better handicapper than I am.” So today, the couple spends at least two hours each morning poring over the daily Racing Form before setting out for yet another day at the races.

“We never go home broke,” Carolyn Meredith said. “If I’m not having a good day, I stop. And for us, betting $100 on a single horse is a lot. That way, if we lose, we don’t lose big.”

“You don’t have to spend a lot of money to have a lot of fun,” added Shelly Meredith. “The $2 bettor has as much fun as the $100 bettor.

“As a matter of fact, he probably has more fun. He yells harder, and he has more money left over for beer and hot dogs.”

Or for buying horses. The Merediths currently own 16 thoroughbreds, some of which race regularly at Del Mar.

The 20-minute break between the second and third races found Shirlee Bronson chatting away with a couple at the next table.

Like the Merediths, Bronson is a Turf Club regular; she hasn’t missed a day at the races, she boasts, since she and her husband joined the Turf Club 15 years ago. The Bronsons, who live in Los Angeles, maintain a summer home in Fairbanks Ranch.

Unlike the Merediths, however, Shirlee Bronson would just as soon socialize with people as bet on horses.

“I know everybody ,” she said in a slow, satisfied drawl. “A lot of us come down every year from L.A., and we get together almost every night after the races. There’s always something to do, like a cocktail party or a dinner.

“I had a huge party about two years ago at my ranch, and more than 250 people showed up--all the trainers, all the jockeys, and a lot of Hollywood celebrities. It was simply fabulous.”

Despite all the socializing and the partying, however, Bronson has dedicated her life to horses. She and her husband own 18 thoroughbreds, which they keep on their Fairbanks Ranch estate. Most summer mornings, she takes a brisk ride through the North County hills before heading out to the track.

Bronson is also a turf club member at the Hollywood, Santa Anita, and El Paso, Tex., race tracks.

“I’ve loved horses ever since the 1940s, before I met my husband, when I used to go out with a sportswriter for the New York Times,” Bronson said. “He used to take me to all the horse shows and races at Tuxedo Park, just outside New York City, and he taught me what to look for in a horse, and how to bet.

“The social part, I learned myself.”

Harold and Dee Lasher decided to sit out the fourth race.

“We don’t usually bet on the fourth or the sixth race, because they’re maiden races and it’s really hard to hone in on one horse,” Dee Lasher said. “It’s very disconcerting to put your money on the favorite and then have a 30-1 long shot emerge as the winner.”

Credit experience with this discovery. The Lashers have been Turf Club members for 18 years. Every racing day since 1970, they’ve been leaving their Point Loma home around 1 p.m. and arriving at the track in time for the first race.

And never, ever, have they managed to pick a winner in races four and six. Even in the other races, they lose more often than they win.

“At the end of each season, we rarely come out ahead,” Dee Lasher said. “But we don’t come here to make money; we come here to vacation.

“When our daughter, Lynn, was younger, we would spend a month each summer in places like Hawaii or Colorado. But when she got older, she didn’t care about going away anymore, so we decided what could be better than to vacation up here in the Turf Club.

“It’s breezy and it’s cool, and besides, it’s a lot of fun. For six weeks, all we do is party--we sleep at home, but every afternoon we’re at the track and every night, we eat out at different restaurants.”

The Lashers’ annual “vacation” in the Turf Club is as exciting as it is relaxing.

“It’s exciting because as you go along, you see many of the same horses,” Dee Lasher said. “So you get to where you’re following a certain horse that keeps improving and if you’re smart, you’ll keep betting on it and eventually, it will win.

“But many more times, you give up too soon and the moment you don’t bet that horse, it wins.”

Win or lose, however, the real fun is just being there, she added.

“I start getting ready for the races at least three months before the season begins,” she said. “I buy all new clothes, because you can’t come every day and wear the same thing, you know.

“Then, during the racing season, I do nothing but go to the track, go out to dinner, come home, go to bed, and then in the morning get ready for another day at the races.

“Tuesdays, when the track is closed, I do everything else. I take care of all my errands--I get fresh produce from the store, I go to the cleaners, I go to the bank--that I normally do all week long.”

Tuesdays are also when Harold Lasher, 75, makes his weekly appearances at his office. He’s semi-retired from his maritime law practice, and his first visit to the Del Mar Race Track was in 1944--shortly after he began his legal career as an attorney with the Navy.

“Playing the horses is just as challenging as being in court,” he said. “I really enjoy watching them run, seeing how well they compete, looking them up in the Racing Form, and then evaluating how they’ll fare in a future race.

“Figuring out how to pick a winning horse can be as taxing on the mind as figuring out how to win a court case.”