Record Attendance for Del Mar Opener

Rick Baedeker may have been on to something. When Hollywood Park’s meet closed on Sunday, its on-track attendance up by more than 9% from the year before, the president of the Inglewood track predicted that the increased interest would carry over to Del Mar.

For a day--Wednesday’s season opener--Baedeker has been as right as the rain that never comes to Del Mar. Only Cigar, on the day he was unable to extend his 16-race winning streak in 1996, has drawn a bigger crowd to the seaside track. Wednesday’s turnout, in 79-degree weather, was 37,284, second highest in track history and breaking the count of 34,697 for the first day in 1994. The overall record is still the 44,181 horseplayers who came the day Dare And Go beat Cigar six years ago.

Del Mar runs only seven weeks a year, from mid-July into early September, and the San Diego area, not jaded by the grind-it-out style of Santa Anita and Hollywood Park to the north, welcomes the game the way the general public was drawn to horse racing decades ago. At Del Mar, less is more.

Joe Harper, the Del Mar president, thought the track would break the 30,000 mark Wednesday, but he was surprised at the record. For the first time, Del Mar was bucking a San Diego Padres’ afternoon home game, where 26,779 showed up at Qualcomm Stadium.

“This was great,” Harper said. “It’s wonderful to do this kind of business. The people were ready for Del Mar, they always are. In particular, we got a lot of advance publicity from the electronic media. It was a very smooth opening.”

For this opener, the fans were treated to some more first-day magic by Laffit Pincay, and the resurgent Pat Valenzuela’s first stakes win here since 1996. Pincay, 55, won three races in the inaugural last year, and another triple Wednesday included a front-running, three-quarter-length win aboard Rock Opera in the first division of the Oceanside Stakes.

About 90 minutes later, Valenzuela, who battled back from one more in a string of substance-abuse suspensions to become the leading rider at Hollywood Park, brought True Phenomenon from out of the pack for a one-length win in the other half of the Oceanside.

Pincay, who finished third in the Hollywood standings, pushed his record total to 9,392 wins in his career. Beginning his 27th season here--which will be one more than Bill Shoemaker when it’s over--Pincay increased his Del Mar win total to 982, which is well ahead of the retired Shoemaker and Chris McCarron, who are second and third on the list, and about 300 more than Eddie Delahoussaye, who’s No. 4.

Pincay’s stakes win, his first in the Oceanside since 1987, was his 95th at Del Mar. McCarron, who won 134 stakes here, is still well ahead on that tally.

“He’s getting better all the time, and he was just about perfect today,” Pincay said of Rock Opera, who is trained by Clifford Sise Jr.

Rock Opera has won three of four starts, all with Pincay on his back, and in his first stakes start he ran a mile on grass in 1:34, breaking by a fifth of a second the Oceanside record that was set by Prince Bobby B. in 1986.

At Hollywood in June, Rock Opera had won despite being only 70%, according to Sise. Blood work after the race showed that the 3-year-old gelding was suffering from a virus.

“He jumped right out of there,” Pincay said of Wednesday’s race. “He took the turns right this time. He was getting out on the turns before. I think that’s because he’s still learning.”

The third choice, Rock Opera paid $7.20 to win. Johar was second and favored Mountain Rage ran third. True Phenomenon, winning his division in 1:34 2/5, paid $13.20. Dream Machine finished second, Diamond Hope was third and favored Mutinyonthebounty ran sixth.

“That felt great,” said the 39-year-old Valenzuela, who hadn’t ridden at Del Mar since 1997. “It’s great to be back at Del Mar. Everybody has welcomed me with open arms. The last time this horse ran [a last-place finish in a six-horse field on the main track in the Affirmed Handicap on June 23], he didn’t handle the dirt too well. Today [trainer Bobby Frankel] had him ready to roll and he handled the grass great. I worked him to the outside and he fired.”