DelMar's 2006 Race Meet Opens

Pleasure and pageantry once again are set to reign at Del Mar racetrack as the popular seaside oval is ready to open the gates for its 67th summer season of Thoroughbred racing – “where the turf meets the surf down at old Del Mar.”

This year’s 43-day meet operated by the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club begins Wednesday, July 19 and runs through Wednesday, September 9. The track will race six days a week, Tuesday being the dark day.

Post time for the first race each day will be 2 p.m. for the most part, except for the track’s special twilight racing on its Four O’Clock Friday schedule, and a 1 p.m. start Pacific Classic Day, Sunday, August 20.

The track’s signature event will be the Pacific Classic, the $1-million, Grade I test for 3-year-olds and up going the classic American distance of 10 furlongs.

This year’s edition of the “Classic” offers added significance because for the first time since its inception in 1991, one horse – in this case, Lava Man – has a chance to win Southern California’s richest and most prestigious trifecta of the Santa Anita Handicap, Hollywood Gold Cup and the Pacific Classic in the same year. Del Mar’s top event will be toasted on a one-hour television show coast-to-coast by ESPN.

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