Opening day beckons

Del Mar

The horses. The hats. The fans on their feet, fists punching the air, roaring and focused on the finish line. Little has changed at the Del Mar racetrack since the legendary Seabiscuit nosed out a win against Bing Crosby’s horse, Ligaroti, 65 years ago and vaulted this sleepy San Diego County beach town into the place to be during the summer racing season.

Unlike other cities that host horse racing, Del Mar holds this distinction: Visitors don’t want to leave. Many stay for the entire seven-week season. Some buy a place and call it home.

Opening day has had serious social cachet since the track debuted on July 3, 1937, with Crosby wearing a straw skimmer and luring Depression-era crowds with a catchy jingle: “Take a plane, take a train, take a car” to “where the turf meets the surf at Del Mar.”

On Wednesday’s record-breaking opening, 40,682 people passed through the gates. They huddled into tight knots in the ultra-clubby Turf Club and spilled over standing-room-only balconies in the grandstands. And they contributed to the $14-million wagering pot.

“Opening day is every bit as exciting as the Academy Awards,” said track President Joe Harper, grandson of pioneer film director Cecil B. DeMille. “At our hat contest, we have seen everything from ‘My Fair Lady’ flair to a guy dressed as a jockey with a life-size papier-mache horse on his head, which was a great testament to neck muscles.” Competition was fierce; the winner was awarded a trip to the Kentucky Derby.

For sharply dressed horse owners such as Betty Mabee of the Golden Eagle Farm, who has attended every opening day here since Eisenhower was in office, it was a time to hold court in the paddock as million-dollar babies were paraded around the walking ring before post time. Mabee had fallen in love with an old spotted pony named Dutch when she was growing up in Iowa, and with her late husband, John, she went on to win 18 races worth $1 million each and three Eclipse Awards, horse racing’s highest honor.

Other long-timers were clustered in grand boxes with direct views of the final stretch, ordering champagne from stair-bounding waiters. “You have to have longevity to be granted these spaces,” said Mary Bradley, who has raised a Kentucky Derby winner. “My first table more than 30 years ago was in goodness knows where, but over time and good horses, I’ve made it here. You can’t plot it. You can’t buy it. You have to earn it.”

Before there were Indian casinos, quick trips to Vegas and satellite wagering, Del Mar was the only betting show in Southern California during the summer. It depended so much on day-trippers from Los Angeles that if the train was late, the horses waited. Cheering for the “racetrack special” as it crested through a gap in the hills became one of many quaint customs.

There were few places in town for post-race partying, so Turf Club members danced on the terrace of the old clubhouse before it was replaced 10 years ago. (Now there are concerts Fridays and Saturdays in the Grandstand Plaza.) Back then, Jimmy Durante played a trick piano, then smashed it, all in good fun. Desi and Lucy wandered in from their summer home, and glamorous Greer Garson bet on the horse with the longest tail.

She wasn’t the only one with odd wagering methods. Superstition is still super-charged at the track. Some people wear amulets or don’t change their socks. Jockey Alex Solis crossed himself before he rode off and won in the seventh race on Mabee’s Grand Appointment, a 24-to-1 longshot.

For a few, opening day was a chance to remember what it was like to be at Del Mar on Day One.

Don Terwilliger was 7 when he and everyone else in his hometown -- all 350 Del Mar residents -- entered the Spanish Mission-style grandstand for the first time. He wore short pants, a tie and suspenders. The tradition of putting on a show of clothes continues here, fending off to some degree the California kickback gear of flip-flops and tank tops.

That day, Terwilliger was hoisted onto the railing, inhaled the smell of the horses, liniment and sweat, and found his passion. He has never missed a season. He could easily rent out his beach home for the seven weeks of races and pocket almost enough cash to buy two new Mustang coupes, but he couldn’t imagine it.

His heart was pounding during the fifth race Wednesday as he banged his table with both palms and told his horse to “Come on, come on!” Requite crept from the back to third, but that wasn’t enough to put Terwilliger in the money. “I’m a super fan,” he said, “but not a super better.” He tossed down his program and left his clubhouse box seat to place another bet.

Nick Giovinazzo arrived in the passenger seat of his father’s 1935 Packard on the first opening day. The two left Los Angeles that morning, taking Pacific Coast Highway south to visit a relative. His dad saw the brand new track and put on the brakes. “Dad never saw a racetrack he’d pass up,” he said.

Giovinazzo remembers feeling restless that day. He was a 9-year-old with legs ready to run, and sitting while horses flew by him didn’t mean a thing. His dad got hooked, though, and he moved his family into summer rentals in nearby Oceanside so he could play the ponies.

It wasn’t until Giovinazzo’s 16th birthday that he made the connection between his own track-and-field competitions and horse racing. The day before, he broke the records for the 100, the 220 and the broad jump, and his accomplishments were written up in the newspaper. Sharing the same page were the racing results. “I could see they kinda related to each other,” he said, “and my whole life changed.”

He became a teacher at Los Angeles Valley College and spent his summers in Del Mar. In 1976, he and his wife, Lois, bought a condo on a bluff near the track for $71,000. It’s now worth $650,000. A windfall similar to what he’s earned on the horses? “Just about,” he said with a wink and a slap of his folded Daily Racing Form against his knee.

Noble Threewitt, now 92, is a trainer who has attended the inaugurals of Bay Meadows Race Course (1934), Santa Anita Park (1934), Hollywood Park (1938), Golden Gate Fields (1941) and Del Mar, which filled in Southern California’s racing circuit.

“I used to make $2 bets, but I’m a bad loser, so I stopped betting long ago,” he said from a barn at Del Mar that he works out of every day during the season. He and his wife, Beryl, 91, left their home in Arcadia and rented a condo nearby.

Threewitt once had another roommate. He shared a tack room with “Silent Tom” Smith, Seabiscuit’s trainer, and gives a thumbs up to the new movie about the iron horse, its trainer, jockey and owner. “I joked that when I was watching the scene in which they show a match race, I thought I was watching the real rerun of the race I witnessed,” he said. “But I bet they didn’t do it just once, as they did in real life.”

The opening day throngs wore down many of the regulars. William Murray, a captivating storyteller who has spent 30 summers here and has written nine mystery novels set at different tracks, was weary after the 6 p.m. post.

Hiding out in the press room, he said he won’t miss the chaos and the beautiful people who show up only to party on the first day. He looks forward to quieter weekdays, when Del Mar attracts serious players -- those he lovingly called “degenerate bettors and hard knockers,” as he threw a wry glance at his old friend Giovinazzo.

After the last of the owners had left the winner’s circle, Murray folded up his Racing Forms and headed home. Luckily, it’s just a few miles away.