Del Mar Safety Right on Track

A year ago, a series of horse deaths during the opening weeks of Del Mar turned out to be just that: a rash of fatalities that didn’t continue through the rest of the season.

Nevertheless, horsemen were edgy about the safety of Del Mar’s dirt surface--some trainers were also not happy with the condition of the grass course--and since last year the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club has spent $600,000 rebuilding the main track.

The four-month-long project will be tested under racing conditions for the first time today. Nine races, including two divisions of the Oceanside Stakes on grass, will launch Del Mar’s 60th season, a 42-day stand that runs through Sept. 8.

“The new racetrack is going to draw a very positive response,” said Tom Knust, Del Mar’s racing secretary. “We’ve already had some horses on it, and all reports back so far have been very good. The track is going to be kind to our horses, and there’s been a lot of expertise that has gone into getting it just right.”

If Knust’s prediction holds up, one of the happiest trainers at Del Mar will be Richard Mandella, whose bulging barn houses some of the most talented horses on the grounds. Mandella’s Dixie Union, winner last Sunday of the Hollywood Juvenile, has become the early favorite for the Del Mar Futurity, the traditional closing-day feature here. Mandella also trains Malek, who’s being groomed for the $1-million Pacific Classic on Aug. 29, and Virginie, the Beverly Hills Handicap winner at Hollywood, who should be a factor in the track’s filly-mare grass races.

“They’ve had different problems down here,” Mandella said. “Last year, they had a surface that was like trying to step out of a doorway without knowing what that next step would bring. Only you weren’t just stepping out of a doorway. You were a horse running at about 40 miles an hour.”

During the first 20 racing days last year, nine horses suffered fatal injuries, either in races or during training. The rest of the season, three horses died. The average number of deaths at Del Mar for the previous 10 years was 15, three more than last season. But according to statistics compiled by the Jockey Club-Grayson Research Foundation, fatal racing breakdowns at Del Mar were still higher than the national average. The national average for fatalities for the last 10 years is 1.8 per 1,000 horses started; Del Mar’s average last season was 3.8 per 1,000 starters.

Bob Baffert, the leading trainer here the last two years, winning 45 races, saw Prosperous Bid, a half-brother to Best Pal, suffer serious injuries during a morning workout last August, yet Baffert has no harsh words for the Del Mar track.

“I think much of what happened last year was a coincidence,” Baffert said. “Injuries can happen anywhere. I run horses all over the country, and they get hurt everywhere. There’s no perfect track out there.”

To renovate the main track, Del Mar workers went 15 inches beneath the running surface and removed 5,000 tons of materials from the cushion. “What they found down there was a mess,” trainer Ron Ellis said.

The sub-base was lime-treated and compacted. Six inches of manufactured sand was put into the new sub-base and on top of that was added a two-inch layer of clay and sand. Topping it all off, workers added 4,000 tons of an extra-fine sand that should lower the track’s silt and clay content.

Del Mar is open only seven weeks a year, but during that time the track takes more of a pounding than those at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park, which run longer meets but take two days off a week from racing. Only Tuesdays are dark at Del Mar, and there’s no training track to take some of the pressure off the main track during morning training hours.

This season, the Del Mar racing department issued stalls for about 2,100 horses, a couple of hundred fewer than in recent years. “We made a decision to limit [the total] for the benefit of everybody in the barn area,” said Tom Robbins, director of racing.

Working in tandem with the California Horse Racing Board, Del Mar will increase its morning pre-race inspections of horses running that day. Horses dropping in class will be more closely monitored than in the past.

Twenty of trainer Sandy Shulman’s 28-horse string have been left back at Santa Anita--a split that was Shulman’s decision alone.

“I’m only here with the horses I know will be running at the beginning,” said Shulman, who has struggled at Del Mar in recent years. “I’ll train the rest of them at Santa Anita, until I’m sure that this track is safe. I’d rather be cautious than sorry. They’ve had real problems here the last few years, and I’ll wait and see how this new track works.”

Horse Racing Notes

Bob Baffert, who has saddled 30 stakes winners since his debut here in 1990, is already sixth on the Del Mar career list. Ron McAnally, the trainer who’s No. 2 on the list with 61 wins, 13 behind the late Charlie Whittingham, will try to win the first half of today’s Oceanside with Domination. As a 2-year-old, a month after his maiden win at Hollywood Park, Domination ran second to Worldly Manner in Del Mar’s Best Pal Stakes. Then he was sidelined until March, and after beating only one horse in two starts at Santa Anita, McAnally switched him to grass for an allowance win at Hollywood on May 14.

Trainer Julio Canani is taking a shot in both halves of the Oceanside, with Tawazir in the first division and Darrani in the second. Canani has won the Oceanside four times, including a division last year with Ladies Din, who went on to win the La Jolla Handicap and the Del Mar Derby. Canani, starting only 21 horses at last year’s meet, scored nine wins, five of them in stakes.

Two of Del Mar’s premier grass stakes--the Eddie Read Handicap on Aug. 1 and the Ramona Handicap on Sept. 4--got $100,000 boosts and have become $400,000 races. . . . Fiji, last year’s Eclipse Award winner for females on grass, is expected to make her 1999 debut in Saturday’s $100,000 Osunitas Handicap. . . . Del Mar’s overnight purse schedule could increase by 15%. The daily average has been projected to be $450,000, an increase from $416,000 a year ago. The 27 stakes races are worth $5.975 million. . . . The stewards are Dave Samuel, Ingrid Fermin and Dennis Nevin. Samuel will be officiating at Del Mar for the 13th consecutive season.

DEL MAR FACTS

* Dates--Today through Sept. 8. Dark Tuesdays.

* First post--2 p.m., except 4 p.m. on July 23 and 30, Aug. 6 and 13; 3:30 p.m. on Aug. 20 and 27, Sept. 3; 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 29 and Sept. 6.

* Admission: Grandstand, infield, $3; grandstand reserved, clubhouse reserved, $4; clubhouse, $6; Seniors (62 and over), $1 weekdays only.