Final Blog….for ‘09

What?  The meet is over?  What ever shall I do now?  How about Count de Monet?  This was one of the good ones business wise.  Up in a bunch of stuff.  Daily average attendance, handle, purses, field size, profit.

Amazing what a hat contest, cougar contest and Ziggy Marley will do for a race meet. Five day weeks were a hit for all as well. Whatever did it, I’m grateful for all of you who came out to the track. It is always nice to see that many fans show up at any track these days.

Congrats to Bob Baffert on his big Del Mar comeback. Richard’s Kid in the Pacific Classic, Zensational in the Crosby and O’Brian and Lookin At Lucky in the Futurity, to name a few. Looks like that Hall of Fame plaque jarred him back from the “dead man walking” moniker that some gave him. And John Sadler gets another Trainer of the Meet award. Good work John. When you’re in the money 50% of the time, you know what you’re doing.

Arnold Zetcher gets the” Owner With The Most $ Won” award. This could not happen to a nicer guy. He’s put a lot of that $ right back into this business, and we’re all better off because he’s a major part of our industry. Great job, Arnold. Now, go buy Santa Anita and save us all!

And lastly, I want to thank my friend Arlene Smith. Arlene has worked here as long as I have, and she’s done a whole lot better job. She keeps all the season box holders happy. And that ain’t easy. Arlene has been the best of a great crew, and she deserves the Employee of the Meet award.

We all love you.

Whodunit?

Miss me? Blog block? Too busy? Yes to all.  Just two more weeks to go.  Wow, where did the summer go? Got a lotta cool stuff coming up. Super Diamond, free donuts on Saturday morning and a beach bag cooler give away on Saturday afternoon.  What a deal.  Of course Labor Day weekend should be big.  Eleven stakes including four Grade I’s. Sunday the 6th is the $1,000,000 Pacific Classic plus Ziggy Marley in concert after the races. I gotta get one of those Rastafarian hats.

 

Here’s a little inside scoop the press missed. A while back some of our Turf Club members’ wives came to me with a complaint. It seems that there were two “ladies of the evening” working the Turf Club bar and that that was totally unacceptable to the membership. Of course I agreed and said I would get right on it. I called our Director of Security and told him there were a couple of hookers hustling guys in the Turf Club and that he should toss them out (gently, of course). I also asked him to find out the name of the member whose tickets they were using. There are rare times when I enjoy embarrassing people and this was going to one of them. The next day our security guy came to my office and said he had ejected the prostitutes. Okay, so who was the guy giving them tickets? With a strange smile on his face he said, “Well, boss, they were using your tickets”. What! Impossible! I would never in a million years! Well, it seems that the ladies were going to the Turf Club Will Call window and convinced the attendant that I was going to arrange for them to get in but that I didn’t want my secretary to know about it. Fully convinced that – despite my self-serving press releases – I was undoubtedly the degenerate she always suspected, she let them in.

A Whole Lotta Zenyatta!

How about Zenyatta! All the marketing gimmicks in the world can’t hold a candle to a great horse. She was going 40 MPH at the wire. Her top speed, and at the finish no less. Don’t see that every day. Great owners and a super trainer. We are all so lucky she stayed in California. . . .Business is still looking good at the end of three weeks. Average daily on-track attendance is up 15%. Must have been the Cougar Competition. Speaking of which, did you see Jeff Nahill’s column in the North County Times today? He gave our crack Marketing Department a big “thumbs down” for the Miss Cougar thing. Said it was “tasteless”. Yeah, so what? They’re still doing radio and T.V. interviews with her. Isn’t that what a Marketing Department does?

Oh well, I am getting a few calls asking what we are planning for the male version of a cougar. How about “Who’s Your Daddy Day at Del Mar”? Is there no end to our tastlessness? . . . Hope you all saw the story on the new whip rule. All the horses are smiling. The jockeys have been great with this and have agreed to use the “no pain, just a lotta of noise” whip. In fact my wife tried it out on me the other day and I hardly felt a thing. It’s kind of like “dominatrix lite”. More to come . . .

Cougar Mania

 

 

 

Rosie Goldstein, Miss Del Mar Cougar & me

Yeah, I know, Miss Cougar Contest might have been pushing the edge a bit but, hey, I woke up to the front page on the San Diego Union with the whole promotion right under the “Clinton Got The Girls Out of North Korea” story.  I mean, come on,  I gotta take the entire Marketing Team out to dinner on this one.  Rosie Goldstein was a very nice lady.  Smart, lots of self-confidence and a great personality. She and her friends had a blast and so did we.

 

 Here’s one from the past.  A few years ago I was hiding out in the Operations office when a Vietnamese family came in and asked for their money back.  We’re always glad to do that but we wanted to know why they were unhappy.  Well, their English wasn’t very good and my Vietnamese was non-existent.  The father wanted to show me where we had gone wrong so he led me out to the apron in front of the track.  There he pointed to the infield lake and said, “No Shamu“.  Apparently they thought they were at Sea World and had been patiently waiting for Shamu to appear out of the lake.  We found some Sea World passes and a map and sent they on their way.  And yes, we did refund their money.

Jockeys & Jocks

What is it about jockeys and basketball players?  I found L.A. Laker Luke Walton and San Antonio Spur Richard Jefferson in the jocks room last week.  No Luke, no matter how hard you try, that boot just ain’t gonna fit.

Speaking of jockeys, the series “Jockeys” got picked up for another season on Animal Planet.  Just got off the phone with Liz Bronstein, the producer.  Del Mar is going to give the show a little publicity.  Don’t miss this the premier on August 21.  It’s a great show and the second season will be better than the first.  There’s a sneak preview at Yogi’s on the beach in Cardiff on Sunday the 16^th, which should be a blast.  Go on-line at cantercalifornia.org. for tax deductible tickets.or call 408-313-1965.

Speaking of good times, have any of you noticed the attendance and handle at the track lately?  I mean, it’s a little early to start bragging but the numbers look pretty good.  Up in people by 16% on track and up in on track handle by 14%.   Free and Easy Wednesday was up 45% in attendance and 46% in handle over the same day last year.

Speaking of not so good news, the number of fatal injuries to horses this first few days has us very concerned.  We’re all here because we love horses and when these things happen it really hurts.  We’re doing everything we can to ensure that the racing surface is as safe as possible and I am convinced it is.

Don’t forget this Friday is The Wailers.  First post is at 3:00.  And if you still have the munchies, we start giving away free donuts at eight the next morning.  See ya at the track.

Joe

Direct from the Jockey Room…and you’re gonna love this one!

Twas the night before Opening Day, and over at L ‘Auberge in downtown Del Mar, Mike Smith and Alex Solis were enjoying themselves over a few glasses of wine and a little dinner (very little dinner, you know, that weight thing). As they were leaving the restaurant Alex suggested to Mike that he looked pretty tired and he should take a taxi home. Good idea, he thought, and popped into a cab for the short ride up the hill to his Del Mar pad. Mike gave the cabbie his address and promptly fell asleep.

Two hours later he woke up to find himself sitting in the driveway of his house in Sierra Madre, a couple of miles from Santa Anita. “What the hell am I doing here?”, asked Mike. “Well,” said the driver, “this is the address you gave me”. Oops. Mike, always the one to make lemonade out of lemons, told the driver to wait a minute while he watered his plants. And then, for the price of a third place jock’s fee in a minor allowance race, Mike and the cab driver drove all the way back to Del Mar to the proper bed ready to hit the saddle on Opening Day.

Opening Day Recap

God I love Opening Day!  Horses, hats, silicone and spandex.  It was all here and hanging out. I guarantee you the average age of the Director’s Room dropped by twenty years. Sports stars, politicians, celebrities and wannabes.  They showed up in record numbers and stayed ’til the bitter end — or at least until someone pulled the fire alarm on the fifth floor.  Please don’t do that again, it hurts my ears.

 

From an Operations standpoint, we had a pretty smooth day.  I know, all you guys stuck in traffic didn’t think so, but, hey, we told you to come early.  Oh yeah, the press elevator broke down for a while. I don’t know why I find that amusing.  In my 32 years running this joint there has never been an Opening Day in which an elevator didn’t break down.  At least now we have a bunch of them. In the old grandstand there was only one.  

 

The press coverage of our opening always amazes me. I did over 15 television and radio interviews. The first one started at 4:45am.  But the neat thing was that our whole crew was out there talking to the press as well.  I have the best employees any manager could ever have.  Man do they make us look good.  Thanks to all of you who came out and helped set the new all-time Del Mar attendance record of 44,907.  This is a tough economy, and I can’t tell you how much we appreciate your business.

 

Chat with you soon.

 

Joe