Del Mar Summer

“I don’t know what I would do without these horses.” Andie Biancone wasn’t kidding when she made that confession to a visitor who stopped by Barn LL in the Del Mar stable area earlier this week. Biancone, 26, is the daughter of Patrick Biancone, a native of France who was training in Hong Kong when […]

Saturday’s 11-race program at Del Mar is as good as it gets for the racing fan and horseplayer, with full fields top to bottom and concluding with five graded stakes, three of them part of the Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In Challenge Series. The big one, of course, is the 33rd running of the […]

Second generation jockey agent Craig O’Bryan called it a career a few years back after representing some of the game’s top riders for nearly a half century, including four Hall of Famers: Eddie Delahoussaye, Gary Stevens, Alex Solis, and Corey Nakatani. He grew up in the game as the son of the late George O’Bryan, […]

In 1979, shortly after I moved to Southern California from Chicago, a friend from the Midwest came to visit and said she wanted to see Hollywood celebrities. “I hear you can buy maps showing where all the stars live,” she said. It was true. You couldn’t drive along Sunset Boulevard without seeing someone on the […]

One of the joys of Del Mar, especially for dog lovers, is Dog Beach, located a few furlongs west of the racetrack grandstand beneath the iconic bluff that juts out toward the Pacific Ocean inlet to the San Dieguito River. It’s a happy place where dogs of all colors, shapes and sizes bring their humans […]

At the start of the 2022 summer meet at Del Mar, few people in Southern California had ever heard of jockey Hector I. Berrios. But his brilliant winning ride in the Wickerr Stakes aboard Argentine-bred Irideo for trainer Marcelo Polanco caught the attention of horseplayers and horsemen alike. Going a mile on turf, Berrios allowed […]

As a kid growing up in the Midwest, I’d entertain myself during the long winter months memorizing pitching and batting statistics for Major League Baseball players. Trainer Leonard Powell had a similar hobby during his childhood in France. Except, instead of baseball players, Powell and his brother memorized pedigrees of important horses, or commit to […]

It’s crazy how one horse can change lives. But it’s one horse winning one race that I can credit for giving me the opportunity to spend summers in Del Mar. I’ll be in the stands for Friday’s opening of the 84th summer season at the track Bing Crosby made famous, all because of a gigantic […]

Josh Rubinstein, president and chief operating officer for the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, admits the autumn Bing Crosby Season is a “different dynamic” from the summer meet that runs from mid-July until early September. “It’s more of a challenge than summer,” said Rubinstein, 53, who has been at Del Mar since 1997. “People are back […]

Tezzaray winning last year’s Grade 3 Jimmy Durante Stakes by a nose was a headline writer’s dream – but somehow we all missed it. Durante may be best known to racing fans as the namesake for this race and the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club’s grass course (the street that fronts the racetrack is also named […]