It’s a Rivalry That Has Become a Partnership

DEL MAR —  An Indian casino and a California racetrack, in cahoots? It has been going on for several years at Del Mar, where on Wednesday, opening day, representatives of the Barona Band of Mission Indians showed up in the winner’s circle to hand out $50,000 in gambling chips that can be bet at their casino, located about a half-hour’s drive away.

The stacks of $100 chips went to the owners of the winning horses -- and their trainers and jockeys -- in Del Mar stakes races, part of a Del Mar-Barona marketing relationship that is in its third year. Before its three-year, $1.5-million deal with Barona, Del Mar had a partnership with the Viejas tribe’s casino in eastern San Diego County.

While Del Mar’s link with the Indians is not new, it seems paradoxical in a year when California’s racetracks are encroaching on the tribes’ casino business with a slot-machine initiative that will be voted on in November. A group called the Californians Against the Deceptive Gambling Proposition, which is identified as a coalition of Indian gaming tribes, is opposing the initiative. “New casinos in Los Angeles would make traffic congestion worse,” says a headline on one of the coalition’s direct-mail broadsides.

Joe Harper, president of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, a non-dividend-paying horsemen’s group that leases the track from the state, regretted in a recent interview with the Thoroughbred Times that Del Mar wasn’t in the loop when California’s five major racetracks drafted the slots proposition. Should the initiative pass, the five tracks, which include Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Los Alamitos, would be able to install 15,000 slot machines, but Del Mar, which doesn’t own its site, would get no slots while sharing -- via added purses for races -- in the revenue from the other tracks’ slots.

Unlike Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Los Alamitos, Del Mar is surrounded by eight Indian casinos in greater San Diego. “Joe and the rest of us could have put our heads in the sand,” said Josh Rubenstein, director of marketing at Del Mar. “But instead we decided to partner up [with the Indians]. There hasn’t been any resentment, that I’ve heard of, from the other tracks. I think they’re jealous. Maybe envy is a better word. Santa Anita and Hollywood Park would love to be able to pick up a $500,000-a-year client.”

Del Mar had never had a deal this lucrative before. The Barona tribe sponsored Wednesday’s best-hat contest, which has taken on a life of its own on a day when the crowds routinely challenge the 40,000 mark. Barona, whose name and logo are prominently displayed on an infield board that faces the crowd, is also sponsoring a handicapping contest later in the meet and will give the winner $25,000 in casino chips. The Indians are involved in other promotions, including a T-shirt giveaway on Aug. 22, when Del Mar runs the $1-million Pacific Classic.

“We feel we’re the No. 1 casino in San Diego, and Del Mar is the No. 1 track in the U.S.,” said Linda Devine, assistant general manager of sales and marketing at the Barona Valley Ranch and Casino. “The synergy between us has been wonderful.”

When Del Mar and the Indians signed their deal, Barona was temporarily without a racebook, but one has been added since the $260-million completion of its 400-room hotel-casino. The property includes an 18-hole golf course. An estimated 190 horseplayers, not far from blackjack tables and hundreds of slot machines, jammed the small racebook on Wednesday, to bet races from Del Mar and other tracks. Del Mar also sends its TV racing signal to other Indian racebooks in the state.

“We encourage our high-end players to go to Barona, and they encourage their high-end gamblers to come to Del Mar and bet the races live,” Rubenstein said. “One of the ideas is to get players going back and forth that way.”

Neither Rubenstein nor Devine would say whether Del Mar and Barona will renew their deal after the current meet ends. “We’ll be re-evaluating,” Devine said.

There’s always the possibility that another Indian casino might jump in. The genesis of the current tie-in came after Barona, impressed by the impact Del Mar made with its Viejas relationship, approached the seaside track.

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The stewards’ hearing for Pat Valenzuela will take two days, next Thursday and Friday at Del Mar.... Ray Sibille, who won 4,264 races, many of them at Southern California tracks, has retired. Sibille rode his final race Wednesday at Arlington Park, where he has been based for 10 years. His biggest victory came at Churchill Downs in the 1988 Breeders’ Cup Turf with Great Communicator, whom he also rode to victories in the Hollywood Derby and the San Juan Capistrano Handicap at Santa Anita. “If anybody told me in 1969, when I started, that I’d still be riding in 2004, I’d have told them they were crazy,” said Sibille, 51. “This isn’t something I want to do. But my doctors told me it was time. I’ve been in too much pain.” Sibille is scheduled to undergo hip-replacement surgery next month.