Del Mar Fairgrounds

The Del Mar Fairgrounds is an event venue in Del Mar, California. It hosts the annual San Diego County Fair. The venue sits on a 370-acre (1.5 km²) property along the Pacific Ocean coastline. It includes the Del Mar Racetrack, built in 1936 by the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, with founding member Bing Crosby providing leadership.

The Del Mar Fairgrounds and Del Mar Thoroughbred Club share one address for the complex. The site is owned by the State of California and is managed by the 22nd District Agricultural Association, a state agency that hosts more than 300 annual events. Its staff organizes major annual events and runs Surfside Race Place, the year-round satellite horse racing facility. The Del Mar Thoroughbred Club leases the facilities for their live meets each year.

After opening of the Santa Anita Park racetrack in Arcadia, California, on Christmas Day 1934, William A. Quigley, a resident of La Jolla, formed the idea of starting a racetrack on the Del Mar Fairgrounds. He pitched this to Bing Crosby, and they founded the Del Mar Turf Club on May 6, 1936. Quigley was General Manager of the racetrack until his death at the age of 49 in 1942. When Del Mar opened in 1937, Bing Crosby was at the gate to personally greet the fans. On August 12, 1938, the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club hosted a $25,000 winner-take-all match race between Charles S. Howard's Seabiscuit and the Binglin Stable's colt, Ligaroti. In an era when horse racing ranked second in popularity with Americans to Major League Baseball, the match race was the first nationwide broadcast of a thoroughbred race by NBC radio. In the race, Seabiscuit was ridden by jockey George Woolf and Ligaroti by Noel Richardson. In front of a record crowd that helped make Del Mar race track a success, Seabiscuit won by a nose.

By 1940, Del Mar became a summer playground for many Hollywood stars. Between 1942 and 1944, the facility was closed due to the Second World War. Initially, the grounds were used for training by the United States Marine Corps, then as a manufacturing site for parts to B-17 bombers.

The first Bing Crosby Stakes was held at Del Mar in 1946 and that same year the Santa Fe Railroad began offering a racetrack special bringing spectators, bettors, and horses to Del Mar from Los Angeles. Throughout the late 1940s and 1950s, the track became the Saratoga of the West for summer racing. The track had large purses for many stakes, many of which were won by the famous jockey Bill Shoemaker.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Del Mar was one of the premier racetracks in the country. The track attempted to run a fall meet in the 1960s but later canceled it after lackluster results. This allowed for the creation of the Oak Tree Racing Association at the Santa Anita race track.

In the 1980s, the infield was opened to spectators and in 1984 Trevor Denman became the voice of Del Mar and in the 1990s, the track underwent a major renovation. The grandstand of the Del Mar Fairgrounds was demolished and replaced. In 1991, the track ran its richest race to date, the $1,000,000 Grade I Pacific Classic Stakes. The first Classic was won by a top three-year-old named Best Pal.

Beginning in 2000, the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club's marketing team realized they had to attract a more youthful audience as well as a female audience. They focused Del Mar as a fashionable destination, using social media and other avenues to market the racetrack. They adopted the slogan "Cool as Ever" and created a new brand around "Del Mar Scene". They also hired jockey and model Chantal Sutherland to be the new face of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club.