10th “Bing Crosby Season” Breaks from the Gate this Friday
At 0h01, on November 8, 2023 • By DEL MAR
For the 10th straight time, Del Mar will present its fall race meeting – called the “Bing Crosby Season” in honor of the track’s iconic founder – starting this coming Friday and going forward to a Sunday, December 3 finish.
Racing will be conducted over 13 days on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday basis each week with the lone exception to the routine being a Thanksgiving Thursday card on November 23. First post daily will be 15:30 p.m., though that will shift to 2 p.m. for the Turkey Day program.
Opening weekend will feature a trio of stakes, starting Friday with the $75,000 Let It Ride overnight stakes for 3-year-olds at a mile on the turf.
The fall session’s full stakes schedule – 13 major stakes and two overnights over the course of the four-week stand – will offer more than $2-million in purses highlighted by a pair of $300,000 Grade I headliners on closing weekend, the Hollywood Derby for 3-year-olds at nine furlongs on turf (Saturday, Dec. 2) and the Matriarch Stakes for older fillies and mares at a mile on the lawn (Sunday, Dec. 3).
The final two weeks of the session will feature eight stakes on grass worth $1.4 million, a “turf meet” inside the regular meet that has proven to be a substantial lure to good grass runners from across the country in previous seasons.