Mirroring its successful 2017 summer stakes pattern, Del Mar will present\u00a041 stakes races\u00a0worth $7.3 million over the course of the 36-day session scheduled for this year. Racing alongside the blue Pacific this year will begin on July 18 and carry forward to Labor Day on Sep. 3 for what will be the track\u2019s 79th season.
\nThe seaside oval\u2019s richest and most prestigious afternoon will come on Saturday, August 18 when the $1 million TVG Pacific Classic will be served up for the 28th time as the highlight of a stakes-filled card.
\nLast year the seaside oval also presented 41 stakes worth $7.3 million during a 36-day run, underpinning one of its most accomplished seasons ever. The robust stakes schedule on both occasions offered\/offers 33 “advertised” stakes carrying purses from $100,000 to $1,000,000 and eight “overnight” stakes worth $75,000 each.\u00a0\u00a0
\nThe advertised stakes include 21 graded events, six of them Grade I, 11 at Grade II and four at Grade III.
\nThe Classic, which is the West’s only $1 million race for older horses, is run at a mile and one quarter for 3-year-olds and up. It tops a stakes tripleheader afternoon that also will offer the Grade I, $300,000 Del Mar Oaks and the Grade II, $250,000 Del Mar Handicap. The Oaks, for 3-year-old fillies, is run at nine furlongs, while the Handicap, an 11-furlong marathon, is for 3-year-olds and up. Both of those races will be contested over the Jimmy Durante Turf Course.
\nNineteen of the stakes will be run on the grass with the other 22 on the main track. Del Mar\u2019s turf course was expanded and totally replaced prior to the 2014 season, while the main track was returned to dirt in 2015.
\n“We\u2019re very pleased to be able to offer the same stakes schedule as last year,” said Del Mar\u2019s racing secretary, David Jerkens. “Some stakes programs across the country are declining a bit, but we are holding the line at Del Mar. We saw a lot of new owners and trainers here last fall because of the Breeders\u2019 Cup and we heard a lot of positive reviews. We\u2019re hopeful some of those outfits will be back for stakes races this summer.”
\nThough the schedule stays the same for value and timing, there are a few minor tweaks put in place for this year. One of them is with the distances of the track\u2019s two main juvenile prep races for their premier 2-year-old offerings \u2013 the Del Mar Debutante and the Del Mar Futurity. The Deb prep, the $200,000 Sorrento Stakes on Aug. 5, and the Futurity warm-up [a $200,000 Best Pal Stakes on Aug. 11] both have been shortened in distance to six furlongs from their previous standard of six and one-half furlongs. Additionally, two California-bred races, the $100,000 Generous Portion Stakes for 2-year-old fillies and the $100,000 I\u2019m Smokin Stakes for 2-year-olds, have both been restricted to non-winners of a stakes race of $50,000.
\nAs in previous summer seasons, five of Del Mar\u2019s key stakes have been scheduled as Breeders\u2019 Cup “Win and You\u2019re In” races, meaning a victory in any of them will guarantee the winning horse an entry, with all fees paid, in the corresponding Breeders\u2019 Cup divisional race, along with a travel bonus if the horse is based outside Kentucky. One of the “Win and You\u2019re In” races is the TVG Pacific Classic, which guarantees admission to the $6 million Breeders\u2019 Cup Classic. Besides the $600,000 winner\u2019s share of the purse, the victorious TVG Pacific Classic horse also has his or her pre-entry and entry fees to the BC Classic covered as well as a travel bonus \u2013 either $10,000 [national] or $40,000 [international] granted to a Breeders\u2019 Cup horse for the capstone event of the Breeders\u2019 Cup programs held at Churchill Downs this year on Nov. 2 and 3.
\nBesides the TVG Pacific Classic, Del Mar\u2019s other stakes with direct Breeders\u2019 Cup ties are the $300,000, Grade I Bing Crosby Stakes on Saturday, July 28; $300,000, Grade I Clement L. Hirsch Stakes on Sunday, July 29; the Del Mar Handicap and the Grade II, $200,000 Pat O\u2019Brien Stakes for 3-year-olds and up at seven furlongs on Aug. 25.
\nThe track once more will race five-days-per-week [Wednesday through Sunday] for the entire summer, finishing with a six-day week concluding on the Labor Day holiday. Post time throughout the session will be the normal 2 p.m. with the exception of Fridays when the first race goes off at 4 p.m. for the first five of those days, then at 3:30 p.m. for the last two.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mirroring its successful 2017 summer stakes pattern, Del Mar will present\u00a041 stakes races\u00a0worth $7.3 million over the course of the 36-day session scheduled for this year. Racing alongside the blue Pacific this year will begin on July 18 and carry forward to Labor Day on Sep. 3 for what will be the track\u2019s 79th season. […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":265277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Del Mar Racetrack offers 41 stakes at $7.3 Million for this summer","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}