Del Mar Races: 9 Ways to Do a Day at the Track

For an afternoon at the Del Mar races, the easiest yes of the summer was a Thursday. Free & Easy Thursday gave every member of the Diamond Club, the track's free membership program, three things at no charge: admission, the day's program and a seat. That's a full card of thoroughbred racing at the seaside oval on Jimmy Durante Boulevard, with the program in your hands to follow every race, and it's why Free & Easy sits at number one.

The deal came with a snack-bar bonus. Select concession stands ran $5 "Across the Board" pricing on Michelob ULTRA draft, Brandt Beef hot dogs and refillable sodas, so lunch and a drink stayed simple too. For context, regular general admission at Del Mar is $10, and Diamond Club members pay $5 at the gate on other summer race days.

Joining is free and happens on your phone. Download the Del Mar mobile app and sign up with a valid email address, and you're a member. One rule matters more than the rest: the Diamond Club card has to be scanned at a designated admission gate, and the concession pricing needs the card shown at the stand. It's one admission per member per race day, discounts are never added after the fact, and they don't apply once admission sells out, so every adult in your group should sign up before you're standing in line.

Free & Easy ran every Thursday of the 2026 summer meet, which stretched from July 17 to Labor Day, September 7, mostly Thursday through Sunday. The November calendar leaves it off, since fall racing runs Fridays through Sundays plus Thanksgiving. The same free card still earns a spot on your phone for fall. Friday, November 6, is Opening Day of the Bing Crosby Season and also Diamond Club Day, with free general admission at the gate for members. After that, fall admission is $4 for members and $8 for everyone else.

For anyone who's never been to the races and wants to find out whether it's their kind of day, this was the easiest way in. It covered the whole afternoon, program and seat included, and during the summer meet it came around every single week.

Every summer meet at Del Mar builds toward one Saturday, and in 2026 it was August 22. That's Pacific Classic day, when the $1,000,000 Grade I Pacific Classic headlines the card as a "Win And You're In" race for the Breeders' Cup Classic, so the winner earns a spot in the Breeders' Cup Classic. If you only make one summer race day a year, this is the big one.

What makes the day is the depth of the card. The 2026 program also carried the Del Mar Oaks (Grade I), the Del Mar Mile (Grade II) and the Green Flash Handicap (Grade III), four graded stakes in a single afternoon. The whole summer meet had six Grade I races, and two of them landed on this one Saturday.

The race has a great origin story. John C. Mabee, chairman of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club's board, championed it, and the first Pacific Classic ran on August 10, 1991, with a $1 million purse, by far the richest prize the track had ever offered. The winner was Best Pal, a 3-year-old that Mabee had bred and owned himself. With Pat Valenzuela aboard, Best Pal beat Twilight Agenda by a length and ran the 1¼ miles in 1:59.86, a track record for the distance.

In 2026, parking opened at 10:30 a.m., the gates at noon, and first post was at 2 p.m. It's the busiest ticketed day of the meet, and tickets sell through SeatGeek, so buy early once next year's date is announced. The 2026 running has passed. For a big card this fall, Turf Festival weekend is the closest match: the Hollywood Derby (Grade I) runs Saturday, November 28, and the Matriarch (Grade I) headlines Closing Day on Sunday, November 29.

Here's a race-day plan with no parking lot in it. Ride the COASTER to Solana Beach station, hop the free shuttle, and let it drop you at the Del Mar racetrack. NCTD's Pony Express ticket bundles the whole trip: general admission to the races, round-trip fare on the COASTER, SPRINTER, BREEZE, MTS Trolley and buses, and the shuttle ride, for $15 for adults and $12 for youth and reduced-fare riders during the 2026 summer meet.

You buy it on the day of travel only, through the PRONTO app or at the ticket machines on every COASTER, SPRINTER and Trolley platform, so there's nothing to order ahead or print. It wasn't valid on summer Opening Day, July 17, which is worth remembering when next year's dates come out.

Solana Beach station is a fun place to start. It sits at 105 North Cedros Avenue and opened in 1995, and architect Rob Wellington Quigley gave it a semicircular shape inspired by the Quonset huts that lined North Cedros in the 1940s, plus a tower like an old train depot's. Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner stops here too. The Cedros Design District, with more than 85 shops and galleries, is a short walk away if you want a browse before the ride home.

The shuttle is where this plan shines. It runs continuously from the moment the gates open, meets every train and comes around about every 30 minutes, dropping riders just west of Mission Towers. Heading home, shuttles leave 15 minutes after each race and 30 minutes after the last one, so you choose your exit race by race and nobody has to be the designated driver.

For fall, Del Mar has listed the Pony Express for November 6 to 29 as well, and the shuttle starts at 10 a.m. on Thanksgiving. The fall fare hadn't been posted as of late September, so check with NCTD before you ride.

Del Mar racing picks back up in November with a season named for the man who started it all. Bing Crosby founded the track with businessman William Quigley and greeted the very first crowd at the gate in 1937, and the Bing Crosby Season carries his name. In 2026 it runs November 6 to 29, and for anyone who missed the summer, it's the next chance to spend an afternoon at the track.

The rhythm is different from summer. Racing runs Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, plus Thanksgiving Thursday, with eight or nine races on each card. First post is 12:30 p.m., and the gates open 90 minutes earlier, at 11 a.m. Thanksgiving moves everything up, with gates at 9:30 a.m. and first post at 11. Admission is $8, or $4 with a Diamond Club card, and Opening Day on Friday, November 6, is Diamond Club Day, when members get in free.

The fall meet dates to 2014, when Del Mar picked up more racing after Hollywood Park closed, and the stakes schedule reads like a Hollywood guest list. There's the Betty Grable Stakes on November 8, the Desi Arnaz Stakes on November 14 and the Bob Hope Stakes (Grade III) on November 15. Bob Hope and Jimmy Durante were on the program the night the track opened in 1937, and Grable and Arnaz are among the stars who came to the track.

The season saves its best for the finish. The FanDuel Racing Turf Festival fills November 26 to 29 with six graded stakes on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course, as East Coast horses ship in to take on West Coast rivals. Saturday, November 28, stacks the Hollywood Derby (Grade I), the Seabiscuit Handicap (Grade II) and the Jimmy Durante Stakes (Grade III), and the Matriarch (Grade I) headlines Closing Day. Weekend Wagering Seminars run on Saturdays and Sundays all month, a friendly assist if you'd like help reading the card.

The quietest way onto the property was also the earliest. Daybreak at Del Mar opened the Clubhouse Terrace every Saturday and Sunday of the summer from 7:30 to 9 a.m., with breakfast service and open-air seats looking out on the horses during their morning training. Jeff Reichert added commentary and insider insights while the horses worked, so you knew what you were watching.

Two details made it special. No race admission was required, and parking was free for anyone coming for Daybreak. That makes it the pick for early risers, for the friend who loves horses and has no interest in betting, and for anyone curious what a racetrack looks like hours before the first race goes off.

Plan it as its own outing. Daybreak wrapped at 9 a.m., three hours before summer gates opened at noon, so it makes a relaxed weekend morning with your whole afternoon still open. On the July calendar it shared weekends with the Weekend Wagering Seminar, Jockey Photo Day, Taste of the Turf Club, POP-Up Sundays and Jockey Karaoke, which gives a sense of how much the track packs into a summer weekend.

Daybreak was a summer program, and the November calendar leaves it off. Fall has its own early start, though. On Thanksgiving morning, the Family Fun Run sends families on a one-mile lap around the main track at 8 a.m. Registration opens at 7 with games, face painting and crafts, the entry includes racetrack admission and a tipsheet, and a portion goes to Helen Woodward Animal Center's equestrian therapy program. It's open to all ages, and kids 3 and under run free. Prices hadn't been posted as of late September.

Del Mar makes the family math easy. Everyone 17 and under gets free racetrack admission on racing days of both meets, and kids get discounted grandstand seating when you buy race-day tickets. Buy the grown-ups' admission and the whole crew is covered at the gate.

The rules are short. Kids stay with a parent or legal guardian at all times, and you must be 18 to wager, so the betting window belongs to the adults while the kids handle the cheering. Military families get a break too: active duty and retired military personnel and their dependents are admitted free every racing day with a valid military ID.

Summer's Family Fun Day on September 6 turned the Seaside Cabana into a playground, with bungee trampolines, rock climbing walls, an inflatable game zone, face painters, food trucks, a miniature horse meet and greet and a visit from Pony Boy, the track's mascot. That day has passed, and fall has a version of its own.

Circle Friday, November 27, the day after Thanksgiving. Family Fun Day returns to the Seaside Cabana from noon to 4 p.m. with rock climbing walls, San Diego Mini Golf, face painters, an inflatable game zone, Rad Hatter hat making, the miniature horses and Pony Boy. Two more November dates suit families: the Thanksgiving morning Family Fun Run around the main track, and Toys for Tots on Sunday, November 15, when you can bring a new unwrapped toy to donate.

Good news for anyone wondering what to wear to the Del Mar races: only one room has a dress code, and it's the Turf Club. Del Mar publishes no dress code for the grandstand, the stretch run or anywhere else on the property, so outside the Turf Club, wear whatever makes a long afternoon comfortable.

Inside the Turf Club, the rules are specific enough to pack for. Men wear a suit or sport jacket at all times; sport shirts and tailored denim are fine under the jacket, and ties are optional. For women, suits or daytime dresses are preferred, and slacks or tailored denim work with a tailored jacket. Shorts, T-shirts, athletic wear, windbreakers, flip-flops, abbreviated clothing and ripped, torn or oversized denim are all out.

Two more details are worth knowing. Kids in the room follow the same code, and management can turn away anyone it considers inappropriately dressed, so when in doubt, bring the jacket.

The best reason to dress up is brunch. Taste of the Turf Club runs every Sunday of the fall meet with creative cuisine and bottomless mimosas. On Thanksgiving, the Turf Club serves a three-course holiday brunch at 11 a.m. with a reserved table, and mimosas or Bloody Marys poured until Race 6. Tables seat up to four, and the ticket office at (858) 792-4242 has pricing.

Summer at Del Mar had three Saturdays where the food got top billing. First came Turf & Surf on August 8, built around Maine lobster steamed in the "World's Largest Cooker" and paired with steak. The $40 early-bird ticket covered racetrack admission, event entry, five drink tickets with a souvenir cup, and a program and tipsheet. The $49 Lobster Feast add-on brought a 1.25-pound steamed lobster with watermelon, coleslaw, a dinner roll, lemons and butter sauce.

A week later, Taste of New Orleans took over the Seaside Cabana on August 15, with a portion of every ticket going to LSU Alumni of San Diego. The BBQ & Beer Festival closed the run on September 5. Both were priced in tiers of $39 early bird, $42 standard and $47 late, with $13 tickets for ages 11 to 20.

The fine print shaped the day. Adult tickets came with five drink tickets for tasters, a souvenir cup and a program and tipsheet, and food was sold separately. Kids 10 and under got free event entry, anyone under 18 needed a parent or guardian, and tickets were non-refundable. Turf & Surf was the one where Del Mar spelled out racetrack admission inside the ticket.

All three have passed. For fall, the food-and-drink Saturday is Uncorked Derby Days Wine Festival on November 14, with more than 100 wines, gourmet food vendors and music. Thanksgiving brunch in the Turf Club is the other big meal on the November calendar.

Del Mar lets you bring your own lunch, and for a group that's a big deal. The house rules welcome personal food and non-alcoholic drinks through the gate, so a cooler of sandwiches and sodas from home can carry everyone through a full card. The exceptions are trackside restaurant table seating, suites and skyrooms.

A few rules come with it. Outside alcohol and glass containers are banned everywhere on the property, the parking areas included. Everyone and every bag goes through weapons screening, and there's no re-entry, so pack the car-to-gate haul in one trip. Leave the speakers, drones, frisbees, balls, balloons, tents, skateboards, scooters and any camera lens over 6 inches at home too.

Parking is charged per vehicle when you pull in. During the 2026 summer meet, general parking was $15, preferred $25 and valet $35, with higher rates on Opening Day. The track sits west of the 5 at the Via de la Valle exit, at 2260 Jimmy Durante Boulevard, and rideshare has its own lot on Jimmy Durante too.

Timing helps too. Gates opened two hours before first post in summer and open 90 minutes ahead in fall, which means 11 a.m. on most November race days. Get in early, claim your spot, spread out the lunch, and settle in for the afternoon.