Del Mar Summer Racing Season 2026

Going? You can check in after it ends.

The fog does not lift until the second race, which means the first one happens inside a cloud, and people who have been coming for years still stop talking when it does.

Then it is summer. Hats on Opening Day, the infield lawn filling with people who brought a blanket and no plan, and the honest surprise of how loud a grandstand gets in the last furlong. Thirty-two days of thoroughbred racing an hour up the coast, building toward the Pacific Classic in late August, which pulls the best horses on the West Coast into a single afternoon.

If you have never been, this is the season to fix that. The racing is the reason it exists, but the atmosphere is why people plan a summer around it, and there is more of it here than anywhere else in California racing.

The season runs from July into Labor Day weekend, with dates and tickets at dmtc.com.

Text this to the friend who keeps saying they want to try the track. Tell them to wear the hat.