The name of the village is taken from a poem entitled "The Fight of Paseo del Mar," by the American travel writer and part-time diplomat Bayard Taylor.
The 10 stanzas of the poem, published in 1848, tell the tale of a deadly encounter between a herdsman fleeing a murder scene and a mounted man from San Diego confronting each other along a cliffside trail on a headlands of the Pacific. An argument over the right of way escalates and, at one point, the herdsman pulls his adversary from his mule, after which "they grappled with desperate madness" before plummeting off the edge of the cliff "to the cry of the wildest death-anguish." The whole thing is witnessed by fisherman bobbing in his skiff just off the nearby shore.
The wife of a railroad executive who was building a line from San Diego to Los Angeles read Taylor's poem and thought Del Mar sounded better than Weed. That is what the seaside settlement was called until 1885, thanks to local rancher William Weed. She had a point, and the more melodious name stuck, which is why we are celebrating the opening of the 2026 Del Mar Thoroughbred Club summer season next Friday, July 17, instead of the Weed Meet.
By any other name, rhyming or otherwise, Del Mar represents that break in the West Coast tedium so desperately needed by everyone associated with the game. Hollywood Park is gone, along with the Northern California circuit, as well as Fairplex Park, with its Ferris wheel and raucous midway. The game in the Golden State—population 39.5 million—has boiled down to six long months of competition at Santa Anita Park before taking a breath of sea air.
To suggest that the Del Mar vibe is the same as it ever was will get you laughed out of the room. There is no more six-day race week. No more horses trotting under the trestle to frolic in the surf. No more Fire Pit, no more Bully's Tavern, no more climbing up 15th Street to shop at Big Bear Market.
The train station disappeared years ago, but Fidel's is still in business, and so is Tony's Jacal, a comfort to those who like to soak their racetrack losses in generous Mexican cuisine. In fact, as long as the waves are breaking over there beyond Ocean Front Avenue, Del Mar will remain, as novelist William Murray put it, "... a celebration of the golden California life-style."
As far as origin stories go, my earliest chapters of Del Mar were written by three women.
Hal and Maxine Combs were a retired couple who lived in a duplex perched on a Del Mar hillside, where they had transplanted their classy San Francisco sensibilities, along with Hal's impressive album collection of Dixieland jazz. We'd known them forever—Hal and my father worked for the same finance company—and kept in touch through the years. Before I could drive, I'd hop on the train in Anaheim, Max would pick me up at Del Mar and, after lunch (sandwiches with the crusts removed, no less), we'd be at the track for the 2 p.m. first post. Hal was ailing, so he passed. But, later, in the cool evenings, music would play, and Max and I would hash over the wins and losses of the day.
On other occasions, I was the youngest of a three-generational field trip to Del Mar with my mother and grandmother. They could lay claim to attending the track during its first season, in 1935, when my fangirl mother was so stunned at the sight of Bing Crosby in the flesh that she let her father's field glasses drop to the hard ground.
My grandmother, Faye Erickson, died in April 1966. That summer, with my mother at Del Mar, we turned to a race in which a horse named Faye's Grandson was running. By then, I was becoming a sophisticated handicapper, and I saw that the horse had no chance. My mother, unburdened by such prejudices, bet her money and cashed at a nice price, while Faye's grandson sat there, more the fool.
I am probably among only a handful of racetrack regulars who can claim they actually attended the one-and-done October Del Mar meeting of 1967. It died for lack of interest, and the dates were picked up two years later by the Oak Tree Racing Association. But at least the racing was good, and one of the horses I saw win a division of the Rancho Bernardo Handicap was a white-trimmed chestnut 4-year-old named Quicken Tree, who later that year would win the Display Handicap at Aqueduct and then races such as the Jockey Club Gold Cup and Santa Anita Handicap.
Memory lane is cluttered with Del Mar debris. Dancing with Donna Pineda while Alvaro watched at a Saturday night gathering on the Turf Club Terrace. Expensive cribbage lessons in the press box after the races from Ken Church and Dan Smith. Racing down the freeway in time for John Henry's fabulous mile workout before shipping to Chicago to win the first Arlington Million.
Will the summer of 2026 provide its own peculiar moments? Hope so. The bar is high, set by my wife, Julie Krone, when she won the Pacific Classic (G1) on Candy Ride for Jenny Craig and Ron McAnally. As Bill Murray reminds us in "Groundhog Day": "That was a pretty good day. Why couldn't I get that day, over and over and over?"
More likely, there will be some bitter mixed with the sweet, like the time Peggy and Charlie Whittingham did me the honor of giving a horse my name the year after I wrote his biography. The colt was a son of Greinton, winner of the Santa Anita Handicap (G1) and Hollywood Gold Cup (G1), out of Novel, a daughter of Plum Bold.
Having steered clear of monitoring the colt's progress, it was a pleasant surprise that he'd be making his debut Aug. 6, 1995, at Del Mar in an open maiden event. I entered the track that day through Del Mar's fountain plaza just as Trevor Denman was announcing the program changes and overweights. When Trevor got to the fourth race, I swear that everyone paused in what they were doing to more clearly hear him announce:
"Make Hovdey a gelding."
Hovdey, the ex-colt, was in against a salty bunch that included eventual stakes winners Future Quest, Halo Sunshine, and Northern Afleet. Still, breaking slow and finishing last of 10 was no great achievement, so maybe Whittingham shouldn't have cut them off after all.
