Del Mar Thoroughbred Club will present its seventh fall race meeting – officially titled the Bing Crosby Season in a salute to the seaside track’s founder – with 16 stakes worth $2,250,000 scheduled during a 15-day session starting on Saturday, October 31.

Despite the concerns and obvious issues around the ongoing pandemic, the track was able to maintain the same purse amounts for its stakes as presented in 2019, including $300,000 incentives for its pair of Grade Is and $200,000 for its two Grade IIs.

Additionally, because Del Mar serves as California host for the Breeders’ Cup races this year, it also will run two California-bred sprint stakes for juveniles that were not on its agenda the past two seasons.

Nine of the 16 fall stakes are graded; nine of the 16 stakes will be run on turf; seven of the stakes – all of them on grass – will be presented over the track’s extended closing weekend which begins on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 26, and goes until closing day on Sunday, November 29.

“Given the current climate of things, we are very pleased to keep our fall stakes purse levels intact,” said David Jerkens, Del Mar’s racing secretary. “The response to our summer racing program was exceptional. We are expecting similar results this fall. I am especially excited about our Thanksgiving stakes weekend, which has taken on national prominence.”

The track’s two premier stakes will be presented on its closing weekend – the Grade I, $300,000 Hollywood Derby for 3-year-olds at nine furlongs on Saturday, November 28 and the Grade I, $300,000 Matriarch Stakes for fillies and mares at a mile on Sunday, November 29.  Both are run on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course.

Additionally, closing weekend also will offer the Grade II, $200,000 Hollywood Turf Cup for 3-year-olds and up at a mile and one-half on Thanksgiving Friday, November 27 and the Grade II, $200,000 Seabiscuit Handicap for 3-year-olds and up and a mile and one-sixteenth on November 28.

Racing will be conducted Saturday and Sunday for opening weekend, then Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the next three weeks, finishing finally with a four-day week around Thanksgiving. 

First post daily will be 12:30 p.m. on all racing days with the exception of the track’s special holiday card on Thanksgiving Thursday when racing begins at 11 a.m.

There will be six stakes offered for juveniles, led off by the two Cal-bred dashes – the $150,000 Golden State Juvenile Fillies on Friday, November 6 and the $150,000 Golden State Juvenile on Saturday, November 7, both at seven furlongs.

Three of the juvenile tests are Grade IIIs – the $100,000 Bob Hope Stakes at seven furlongs on Sunday, November 15; the $100,000 Jimmy Durante Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at a mile on the grass on Saturday, November 28, and the $100,000 Cecil B. DeMille Stakes on Sunday, November 29, also at a mile on the lawn.

The Bing Crosby Season once again will kick off with a pair of $75,000 overnight stakes -- the Kathryn Crosby Stakes for fillies and mares at a mile on turf October 31 and the Let It Ride Stakes for 3-year-olds at the same distance and surface on November 1.

As in past years, Del Mar’s racing office plans to card eight races during its weekday cards and nine for the weekend programs.

The complete list of stakes follows: