As I prepared for my visit this weekend to the Del Mar Race Track, I came across this in the L.A. Times’s coverage of last week’s Opening Day:

“Track officials say the secret to attracting fans is to make it a day for fun. ‘You’ve got to make believe you’re in the entertainment business,’ Chief Executive Joe Harper said. ‘What better spot than Del Mar. There’s the Pacific Ocean, palm trees are blowing in the breeze. You have a lot of crazy things going on – hat contests, concerts. It’s become a fun place to be.’”

Ahem…say, ahh Joe? There are some horses running around as well. Some people seem to like that sort of thing.

Listen, I know where Mr. Harper is coming from. Having worked in the sports business for some time, it has become ingrained in me that “Sports” is a sub-category of “Entertainment”. But from what I saw in my weekend visit to Del Mar, Sports there has become a sub-category of “Cocktail Party”, which up until now has occupied an entirely different branch of the Entertainment family tree.

But it seems to be working for them, for while the entire thoroughbred racing business is reeling badly, Del Mar drew over 45,000 people to its Opening Day. And as I navigated my way around the historic venue I had to think they were close to matching that number on this first Saturday of the racing season.

The crowd trended markedly young for a race track. Evidently this Junior Varsity rendition of Opening Day is a must-do for the 25 to 35 year-old demographic, for they came in droves. And while I don’t know the intimate financial details of the clothing business, I now know definitively that only a moron could manage NOT to make a killing selling shoes and hats to the women of San Diego County.

For there they were en masse, looking stunning in shoes bearing heels that no doubt brought a fear of heights into play, and floppy hats that you could lose a small child in. Small women were now tall women. And tall women…let’s just say that if a random tribe of Amazon warriors were passing through and decided to attack, I liked our chances.

As chronicled in my previous post, there are still some kinks to be worked out of the early-season system though. For example, there were clearly some typographical errors made when the price list signs were created for the concession stands. In what was probably an honest mistake, somebody had confused “Margarita” with “16-Room Mansion Overlooking The Pacific” and posted the cost of the latter for the price of the former. I’m sure they’ll clear that up in time.

For time is one thing that I found to be in great supply at Del Mar.

Following the completion of each race, the scoreboard displays a post time for the start of the next one. Always more than 30 minutes, even that long of a lag time was often merely a suggestion. For example, the amount of time that elapsed between the end of the fourth race and the start of the fifth was almost 45 minutes. This was way more time than was needed for everyone to decide on a sure winner and put their money down. I chose to put the time to good use, completing a doctoral dissertation between the third and seventh races.

Maybe it’s just me, but that amount of planned down time, combined with 4,126 concession stands smells an awful lot like “demand creation” to me. After placing your bet and staring into space for what seems like an eternity, a $9 draft beer gradually starts to make some semblance of economic sense.

Having completed the trimming of the full beard I grew between races – and with time still on my hands – I got to talking with a friendly track employee in his first season with the venue. During the conversation I asked innocuously about the disjointed ticketing practices and the piling on of fees and other costs.

His responses were obviously well-coached – he hadn’t just drunk the Del Mar Kool-Aid, he was doing a backstroke in it. He pointed out the cost advantages of buying season passes or similar multi-session packages. He happily volunteered that instead of paying to park, patrons could take advantage of the free shuttle from the nearby train station. He explained that…well, he was completely stuck for an answer about the food and beverage gouging.

One of my favorite ways to pass the time was heading over to the paddock where I found it relatively easy to secure a spot along the rail. This was very cool. While I’ve never had an insider’s perspective on the world of thoroughbred horses, I’ve read enough to gain an understanding of the passion for the sport that is shared among those that train, groom and ride the horses. Being in the paddock and watching the handlers and jockeys prepare for a race offered a small glimpse of that tight-knit society. And then there are the horses, which at close range are simply awe-inspiring animals.

I used this profound experience to educate myself on the proper handicapping of a race, in order to prepare for the day’s featured race – the 37th running of the Eddie Read Stakes. And after much observation and consideration, I placed my bet on Crowded House to win. My rock solid logic was that Crowded House is the name of a band from Australia that I like. Hey, some people’s reasoning isn’t even that good.

I staked out a good vantage point for the finish – or at least as good as a member of the unwashed masses can get – and waited the obligatory eon for the race to begin.

Because so much of the race takes place beyond the view of the grandstand, every horse track has a large screen that provides a close-up video feed of the entire race. At Del Mar, there are actually three visual experiences to choose from, displayed side by side.

One is the live video just mentioned. The second is a graphic recreation of the race, the benefit of which is that all of the visual “noise” of the live feed is taken out and you get a much sharper picture of the relative positions of the horses throughout the race. The third option is also a real-time graphic representation, but it simply displays the numbers of the horses in rectangular boxes that bob along the screen. Horse-racing for dummies. Naturally I chose this option to follow horse #1 – Crowded House.

This is all you need to know about my skills as a gambler: There were only seven horses in the race, and for the first half of the race, my bobbing red #1 box didn’t even appear on the screen. Then, after spending the majority of the race meandering aimlessly around the track, Crowded House made a spirited run down the home stretch to finish fourth – just out of the money, or in racing parlance, the top of the list of “Also Ran’s”.

Coming that close to a spot on the Win, Place & Show board might typically be enough of a motivation to take a shot at the next race…and the next one…and the next one. But for me, my day was done after that 8th race. I still had to walk the half-mile to go get my car out of hock and give my lending officer a ride home.