Del Mar 2023: Full fields, sellout crowd are set for opening day

With 113 horses in the main draw plus 11 also-eligibles, bigfields in all 10 races will greet a sellout crowd Friday to open the 84thsummer season at Del Mar.

Five stakes winners, including two trained by Phil D’Amato, wereamong the 14 horses entered for the featured $100,000 Oceanside, a listed testfor 3-year-olds going a mile on the turf at 8:30 p.m. EDT.

Classical Cat, who has not raced since he won the EddieLogan at Santa Anita in December, is 2-for-2 in grass miles. His front-running stablemateConclude, who won the Desert Code on May 21 at Santa Anita, stretches past sprintdistances for the first time. D’Amato has won the Oceanside twice, including lastyear with Balnikhov.

The Del Mar betting menu will be the same as it has been inrecent years, with the addition of Friday’s $1 million guarantee for asingle-ticket, 20-cent, Pick 6 winner.

Multi-race exotics will include early and late Pick 4s andPick 5s and a Pick 6 through the finale on each day’s card. A Del Marspokesperson said mandatory-payout days would be scheduled once the meet “is upand running.”

The Super High 5 for each day’s finale, the Pick 4s and Pick5s are priced at 50 cents for the third year in a row. A $2 win-place-showparlay will be on offer for multiple races each day.

Running mostly on a Thursday-Sunday schedule with a Mondaycard on Labor Day, the eight-week meet will include 31 racing days throughSept. 10. Each card will have at least eight races and as many as 11. The posttime most days including Friday will be 5 p.m. EDT.

The $1 million Pacific Classic (G1), the biggest race of theDel Mar summer, will be run Sept. 2.