The Old Del Mar, California Race Grounds

I had never been to the race track before. Last time that I had an opportunity to go was when on the way to the Santa Anita Race Grounds. However, that day we went too late and the races were all but over. So instead, we went to watch Sea Biscuit, the movie with Tobey Maguire. That squelched my desire to see horses for a while. But now, a few years later and with the Del Mar Horse Racing season at its peak, I wanted to go see those horses. I went with my brothers and sisters on a Sunday afternoon. Coincidentally, I had given blood to the San Diego Blood Bank a few days before and had recieved a free Clubhouse admission which is valued at $8. This allowed me to budget $8 to my betting funds.

The trip there was about 30 minutes from almost mid city San Diego. When we arrived, as I had expected, we saw numerous "money-ed" folks and the $20 valet parking was full of Bentleys, Rolls and you name it. It was quite a sight. We walked the length of the parking lot from the "Overflow Parking" which is a field of dirt. The cost of parking was $5. The walk didn't rain on my excitement to see the horses though.

We walked into the race grounds and found our seats. When they say club house admission, they don't really mean an indoor viewing area. It's more like the plaza level of a football stadium. It is the area under the general admission seats, so there is shade. It is also closer to the horses but not as close as you can get with the reserved seating. It was still good enough to see the horses and plus there was a big screen to see the horses from.

We made it in time to see the 3rd race of 9 total races that day. We had missed the betting for the 3rd race but it allowed us time to figure out the betting methods.

Betting Breakdown

Basically, you go up to a counter, tell them the race track and the race number. Then you tell them what you want to bet and what amount. You can bet on races occuring at other racegrounds. Upon admission, they give you a program of all the day's races.

There are many ways to bet and it may get confusing but the most basic ones are:

Win-You are basically betting on which horse will win the race. The minimum bet is $2. The returns are based on the odds. If you bet on a horse that is heavily favored to win (ex. 2:1) then you will get $2 for every $1 you bet. If you bet on a longshot horse to win with very high odds, then if the horse does win, your returns are higher.

Place-You are betting on a horse to finish 2nd or 1st.

Show-You are betting on a horse to finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd. The rates of return on this decreases.

Quinella-Pick the horses that come in first and second in any order.

Exacta-Pick the horses that come in first and second in exact order.

Trifecta-Pick the first 3 finishers in exact order. The returns on this are pretty high and usually go up to the hundreds for every dollar.

However, the big money maker is the Superfecta, where you pick the first four finishers in exact order. This can get you thousands of dollars for every dollar.

My experience in Betting
In my first bet, I put down $4 for the longshot horse to win or place. That is a total of two bets. In hindsight, this was not a good choice a bet for him to place or show would have been good enough. The longshot horse was actually leading the entire race but couldn't finish. You could imagine the excitement and the sudden dropoff in that situation. It was no big deal though because it was just the first race and it sure was exciting.
As the races went on, I tried different betting methods and eventually, I had spent $13 which is way over my $8 budget. I did not win any bets. The closest I had come was on a Quinella in which one of my horses finished first but my 2nd pick didn't even show. However, it was still an exciting experience in watching the horses. $13 was about the price of a movie ticket and it was almost just as entertaining as Sea Biscuit.

More about Del Mar

The horse racing at Del Mar starts on July 20 and ends September 7. The first race of the day begins at 2pm and the last race usually ends by about 6 or 7 pm. For $50/day you can be in the middle of the track on the grass to get a very close view of everything from the saddling of the horses to them crossing the finish line.
Del Mar Race Grounds, where the turf meets the surf, is a very interesting place that I have not been able to fully explore yet because of all the excitement of the day.

Some History

It opened in 1937 and in 1938, Sea Biscuit beat Ligaroti by a nose at the Del Mar Track. During World War II, Del Mar Race Track was used as a training ground for Marines. Since then, Del Mar consistently tops attendance records among the nation's race grounds and in 2003, the total bets was $570,903,890.

All in all, it was a fun experience in seeing the horses race and having little bets made me more invested in the whole experience. It was a bummer that I didn't win any races but it also served as another nudge to keep me away from the dangers of gambling and other vice.