Del Mar Horse Racing — Opening Weekend Saturday

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Del Mar Horse Racing — Opening Weekend Saturday

Name: Del Mar Horse Racing — Opening Weekend Saturday
Start: 2026-07-18T14:00:00-07:00
End: 2026-07-18T19:00:00-07:00
Location: 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd, Del Mar, CA 92014

Saturday, July 18, 2026

2:00 PM PDT – 7:00 PM PDT

2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd, Del Mar, CA 92014

Tickets & More Info

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About

Opening Weekend Saturday at Del Mar on July 18 carries a different energy from Opening Day — the crowds have sorted themselves from the spectacle-seekers into the more serious racing audience, and the Saturday card tends to be sharper. Del Mar's summer meet runs Wednesdays through Sundays from mid-July through Labor Day, and the Saturday cards consistently draw the meet's best fields. The Thoroughbred Club has attracted the West Coast's top horses since 1937, and a Saturday afternoon in mid-July under the San Diego sun with Grade-quality horses going five and a half furlongs on the turf course is as good as racing gets anywhere in North America. First post at 2pm. The grandstand has seating or you can stand along the rail for free and watch the horses warm up before the crowd fully assembles.

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Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, July 17th. Opening Day at Del Mar is the day the racing season begins and the track reminds everyone why they've been waiting since last September. The hats come out. The paddock fills with horses that have been training all spring for exactly this track, this turf, this stretch. The summer meet opens and Del Mar is itself again. Opening Day is a cultural event before it is a racing event. The fashion, the tradition, the specific San Diego energy of a day at the track when the sun is full and the bay is visible beyond the finish line — this is the Friday afternoon the summer calendar builds toward. The racing is serious — Del Mar attracts the West Coast's best horses — but Opening Day's atmosphere runs above the card. People come for the occasion. Gates open at 12:30 PM. Jimmy Durante Blvd entrance. Grandstand, turf club, and infield options — the infield is the social core, the turf club is the view. dmtc.com for tickets and the Opening Day program. The first race of the summer meet goes off mid-afternoon. Be there for it. Opening Day at Del Mar is one of the few days in Southern California that is simultaneously everything it promises.

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Del Mar, August 1st, 2026. The Clement L. Hirsch Stakes — a Grade I race for older fillies and mares with a $400,000 purse — anchors a Saturday card at the track where the Pacific Coast meets thoroughbred racing at its finest. The race has been run at Del Mar since 1950. The names on its past performers list are names that matter in racing. Grade I day at Del Mar has a different register than the regular Saturday card. The crowd dresses differently. The paddock has a different atmosphere when the horses that walk through it have traveled specifically for this field, selected by connections who believe they have a legitimate shot at a graded stakes on one of the best tracks in the country. The race itself — a mile and a sixteenth on dirt, fit mares going into the stretch — is the resolution of a summer-long argument about which horse is the best of this division. Gates open at 12:30 PM via Jimmy Durante Blvd. The Hirsch runs mid-afternoon. Grandstand, turf club, and infield options — pick your vantage point before the day of. dmtc.com for tickets and the full card. Del Mar on Grade I day is Del Mar performing at its best. The rest of the summer meet builds toward this kind of day. Be there for it.

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