Del Mar Thoroughbred Club: Summer Season 2026

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Del Mar Thoroughbred Club: Summer Season 2026

Name: Del Mar Thoroughbred Club: Summer Season 2026
Start: 2026-07-18T12:00:00-07:00
End: 2026-07-18T16:00:00-07:00
Location: Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd, Del Mar, CA 92014

Going? You can check in after it ends.

Tomorrow · Saturday, July 18, 2026

12:00 PM PDT – 4:00 PM PDT

Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd, Del Mar, CA 92014

From $25

“Forty-plus days of thoroughbred racing with the Pacific Ocean as…”

— @falkorcommunity

Tickets & More Info

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About

The bay sits just beyond the finish line, palms line the infield, and West Coast stakes horses come down the stretch under a San Diego sun that exists nowhere else - Del Mar in summer turns people who've never been into fans on their first afternoon. The summer meet is the season, the full stretch of Thoroughbred racing across multiple weekends, each card worth attending on its own. This is a genuine racing destination: the setting was built for exactly this use, the grandstands framing the finish, the Turf Club and the infield giving you two entirely different ways to spend the day. The weekday cards have shorter lines and better views; the Saturday stakes days have the better horses. Either way, Jimmy Durante Blvd leads you in, the infield is the social move, and the afternoon race earns its reputation every single year. Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd, Del Mar. Summer season running July through early September 2026. From $25. See dmtc.com for the full meet calendar and ticket options.

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Happening Now

Del Mar Summer Racing Season 2026

Today · Jul 17 – Sep 7 Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, 2260 Ji…

The fog burns off by the second race, the hats come out for Opening Day, and for a stretch of summer the turf really does meet the surf an hour from Murrieta. That is Del Mar, and the 87th summer season is the reason to finally make the drive. Thirty-two days of thoroughbred racing, from the Opening Day hat tradition to the infield lawn to the Pacific Classic in late August, which draws the best horses on the West Coast. If you have never been, this is the season to go — the atmosphere is half the sport, and Del Mar has more of it than anywhere else in California racing. Text this to the friend who keeps saying they want to try the track. The season opens July 17 and runs through Labor Day weekend, September 7. One hour from Murrieta. Dates and tickets at dmtc.com.

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Del Mar Summer Meet — Opening Day 2026

Today · Jul 17 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd, Del Mar, …

There is nothing in Southern California sports quite like standing in the upper grandstand with the Pacific Ocean two miles to the west and understanding, finally, why they built a racetrack right here. July 17, 2026 is Opening Day at Del Mar - the summer meet of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, opening on the third Friday of July with a tradition running since Bing Crosby and Pat O'Brien threw the gates open in 1937. Opening Day is as much fashion show as horse race, the day San Diego County dresses up more completely than any other on the sports calendar. The stretch run comes toward you from the far turn in a way no other racetrack geometry quite replicates. First post is 2pm and the feature races run through late afternoon - bring cash for the mutuel windows, find a spot in the infield or claim a picnic table on the apron, and let the day become its own thing. 'Where the surf meets the turf' is not a marketing line. This is a community event as much as a racing event: groups coordinate outfits, book Turf Club tables months in advance, and treat the whole day as a summer ritual, the crowd running from serious horseplayers in the clubhouse to fashion-forward groups in the infield to families making their annual pilgrimage. 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd in Del Mar. No Coaster service on this date - drive and park on-site or use the shuttle from nearby lots. Arrive early for Opening Day ceremony programming. General admission available; reserved seating and Turf Club access require advance booking.

LACMA Free Summer Fridays — Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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LACMA Free Summer Fridays — Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Every Friday · Next Jul 17 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, …

There is a Friday-night version of LACMA that the tourism itineraries never mention - younger, more local, the kind of crowd that showed up because someone texted the group chat, gathered under the lamp forest of Urban Light as live music plays. LACMA is free to LA County residents every Friday after 3pm through the summer, and on those same nights the museum runs live music beneath the Urban Light installation, rotating programming in the outdoor plazas, and full access to a collection that runs from ancient Egyptian artifacts to Basquiat to Hito Steyerl. The outdoor spaces and the lamp forest make it as much a social event as a cultural one. Every Friday, 3pm to 9pm, June through September 2026. Free with valid LA County ID. Parking available in the museum garage on 6th Street.

Irvine Nights: Night Market Summer Series at Great Park

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7h away

Irvine Nights: Night Market Summer Series at Great Park

Every Friday · Next Jul 17 8000 Great Park Blvd, Irvine, CA 9…

Every Thursday evening, the same field that was an airstrip becomes something else entirely. String lights go up. Smoke rises from a dozen grills. A DJ nobody planned to hear starts playing something that makes a stranger’s toddler dance. And you realize you’re not going home yet. Irvine Nights transforms Great Park into a weekly open-air night market running every Thursday from 5pm to 9pm through summer. The format is simple: food vendors from across Orange County’s restaurant scene, local artisans and craftspeople, live entertainment, and enough space to wander without a plan. Free admission. Free parking. The only cost is whatever your nose convinces you to buy. Great Park is the 1,300-acre former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro — converted into the kind of public space that makes other cities jealous. The night market occupies the Great Park Live area, the same venue that hosts concerts and movie nights, now reconfigured into a marketplace that sprawls across the lawn. This is not a single-night event. It’s a weekly ritual — the kind that starts as “let’s check it out” and becomes “see you Thursday.” The regulars already have their route. The vendors know which corner gets the foot traffic. You’ll figure it out by week three.

Retro Gaming Night — SD (Summer Edition)

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Retro Gaming Night — SD (Summer Edition)

Every Friday · Next Jul 17 $5 GameSync San Diego, 2860 Main St, …

The controller feels wrong in your hands for about ten seconds - and then your thumbs remember, and it's exactly right. Retro Gaming Night's Summer Edition opens the library, puts the classics on the screens, and gives the long-evening crowd the easiest five-dollar decision of the week. The summer version has its own energy: it pulls people who haven't been in a while, the schedule is loose, the nights run long. The library covers the full retro range - NES through the late 2000s, cartridges and CDs, controllers that feel foreign until your hands catch up. The Summer Edition tends to run later than the regular monthly; the evenings are long and nobody's in a hurry. Bring someone who played these games with you growing up, or show up alone and find the person at the next machine who did. GameSync San Diego, 2860 Main St. July 18th. $5. See gamesync.us for the full game list and event details.

Hammer Summer Concert 2026 — Dummy (July 17)

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Hammer Summer Concert 2026 — Dummy (July 17)

Today · Jul 17 Free Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd…

The most underused space on the Westside might be a museum courtyard on a summer evening — an institution built on free admission, sitting quiet when it could be where the city's most interesting music converges. On July 17, the Hammer Summer Concerts series opens its 2026 season with Dummy, the Los Angeles rock band whose catalog crosses dream pop and guitar noise in a way that sounds exactly like it was made for a museum courtyard at dusk. The evening begins with a happy hour from 6:30 to 7:30 PM, with cocktails available and discounted drinks before the concert. The main set begins at 7:30 PM. After-hours gallery access runs through the evening — the Hammer's current exhibitions stay open, which means you can move between the music outside and the art inside. This is what free admission actually enables when the programming is committed. Free. First-come, first-served. RSVP encouraged but not required. Arrive by 7 PM to secure a good spot in the courtyard. July 17, 2026 — 6:30 PM. Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90024.

Bates Nut Farm Summer Food Festival 2026 — Valley Center

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Tomorrow

Bates Nut Farm Summer Food Festival 2026 — Valley Center

Tomorrow · Jul 18 15954 Woods Valley Road, Valley Ce…

Forty minutes north of downtown San Diego, where the roads get quieter and the oaks get wider, a farm that has been growing things since 1921 opens its gates on a Saturday evening and lets the food trucks take over. Bates Nut Farm’s Summer Food Festival is the kind of event that only works because the setting does half the talking — a working farm with animals you can pet, trails you can walk, and enough shade that a July evening actually feels like one. The Smokin Guns play from 4:30 to 7:30 while Ye Olde Grilled Cheese, Meches Fish Tacos, Badas Burgers, Little Thai Cottage, and Mariposa Ice Cream set up along the path. The kids zone opens at 4 with pony rides, tractor hayrides, a bounce house, face painting, and crafts. It runs four hours, from 4 PM to 8 PM on July 18. This is the drive that people in Escondido, Fallbrook, and Rancho Bernardo already know — the one that takes you to a place that smells like warm earth and tastes like someone’s best recipe. Free admission. Food for purchase. 15954 Woods Valley Road, Valley Center.

Rooftop Cinema Club DTLA — Los Angeles (Summer 2026)

Weekly

Tomorrow

Rooftop Cinema Club DTLA — Los Angeles (Summer 2026)

Every Saturday · Next Jul 18 Level Hotel, 888 S Olive St, Downt…

There is a particular kind of night you cannot get inside a multiplex - a film playing four floors up with the downtown skyline standing right there behind the screen, the sound piped straight into your own headphones so the city stays quiet around you. The Rooftop Cinema Club runs this Los Angeles location separately from its San Diego venue, on the fourth-floor terrace of the Level Hotel at 888 S Olive Street, with the DTLA towers overhead instead of the bay. Programming here leans toward cult classics and themed nights the Hollywood Hills crowd would fight to get into - retro double features, sing-alongs, and films the rooftop format simply makes better than a theater would. You sink into an Adirondack chair or a loveseat, hit the craft bar, and watch a movie exist in the same physical space as the skyline. Summer 2026 programming runs through the season. Tickets from around $22 at rooftopcinemaclub.com. The DTLA location sells out faster than San Diego, so if you see a date you want, book it.

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Del Mar Thoroughbred Club: Summer Season 2026

Del Mar Summer Racing Season 2026

Del Mar Summer Meet — Opening Day 2026

LACMA Free Summer Fridays — Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Irvine Nights: Night Market Summer Series at Great Park

Retro Gaming Night — SD (Summer Edition)

Hammer Summer Concert 2026 — Dummy (July 17)

Bates Nut Farm Summer Food Festival 2026 — Valley Center

Rooftop Cinema Club DTLA — Los Angeles (Summer 2026)

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