Del Mar Racing Concludes 2011 Season - Slight Drop In Attendance And Handle In Overall Successful Ra

By Author: Lee Lane-Edgar
Total Articles: 365
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Del Mar's 72nd season of racing concluded Wednesday which ended after 37 days of racing. The meet ended with a 4.2 per cent decline in handle. Attendance took a slight dip as well compared to 2010.

The average daily handle from all sources was $11,628,660. The on track attendance was down less than a per cent from a year ago, with average daily on track attendance at 17,844.

The opening day attendance for 2011 broke the record with 46, 588 in attendance and packing every corner of the track. This is the third consecutive year in which the opening day record for attendance has been broken. In 2009 the opening day crowd was 44,907, and in 2010 the opening day crowd was 45,309.

The chief executive officer of Del Mar Joe Harper was pleased despite the mild decline when comparing it to other meets, and said the handle was basically what they expected. Harper attributes the solid numbers to ship in money with bonuses which helped get more first time starters in the fields and added incentive for them to stick around longer.
2011 was the first year that a “Ship and Win” program was instituted, in ...
... which incentives of $1,000 were paid to 90 horses that qualified for the shipping bonus, and a total of $107,000 was paid in incentives along with $61,516 paid out in bonuses.

In fact, the average number of starters increased to 8.4 starters, up from 8.2 starters the previous year.

Due to the success of the program, they are strongly considering bringing back the program next year, with possibly $2,000 offered in bonuses per eligible horse.

12 horses died during the Del Mar meet, including eight on the polytrack and four on the grass. Harper said that most horsemen believed it was bad luck and not anything wrong with the track. Sometimes there are as few as three deaths, and other years as many as 20.

There were also a lot more claims made this year. Last year there were 141 claims compared to 246 during this year’s meet.

Harper hopes to widen the turf course for next year to help increase field size. There were a lot of also eligible horses for turf races that could have run had the turf course been wider.

The closing day feature was the seven furlong Grade 1 $250,000 Del Mar Futurity won by Bob Baffert’s Drill, who completed the race in 1:22.16. The victory was Baffert’s tenth win in this race.

As betting handle and attendance continue to drop at most major racetracks, the horse racing industry must find new ways to compete with all the different types of gambling now offered along with other sports venues. One company, Horse Racing Simulation out of Las Vegas, NV, is aggressively working with racetrack operators and other horse racing-related entities utilizing social media and online and mobile race game applications to entertain and educate the next generation of horse racing enthusiasts. Their horse racing games are built with state-of-the-art, cutting-edge, 3D virtual technologies. Online horse racing is not only a great form of entertainment, but it is one of the best tools out there for attracting a new racing fan base.