Charlie Whittingham on the beach at Del Mar

By Mac McBride

From its beginning in 1937 and all the way through the 1970s, Del Mar offered horsemen and their horses something that no other racetrack in North America could provide – a chance to go swimming in the blue Pacific.

A regular occurrence during those days was for trainers and their staff to walk their horses west out of the barn area, then through a pathway that went under Highway 101 and directly onto the beach. Horses, who are surprisingly good swimmers, mostly loved dipping or dashing or just standing in the cold, salty waters, bringing something fresh to their racetrack routine as well as therapeutic to their legs and bodies.

There's little doubt that Del Mar's founder, Bing Crosby, had to be inspired by the sight of horses in the ocean when he penned and sang his track theme song “Where the Turf Meets the Surf” in 1938.

Those sunny equine days by the sea have passed now, but there are more than a few racetrackers still around who can remember what fun it used to be:

Dr. Jack Robbins, the veterinarian to some of the finest racehorses to ever look through a bridle (e.g., Citation, Native Diver, John Henry), as well as the sire of Del Mar's executive vice president for racing and racing secretary, Tom Robbins, was a big believer in horses going to the ocean.

“Wonderful for them,” the 92-year-old Robbins says. “That cold water on their legs was the best thing going; so much better than hosing (watering the legs with a hose). Good for their minds, too. Get them out of the stalls and break up their routine. I'm a big believer in getting them out of their stalls in the afternoons.”

What about a beach tale or two, Robbins was asked.

“I recall that Charlie (Whittingham, the Hall of Fame trainer) had a good young stallion prospect one time. And (trainer) Joe Dunn had a nice mare. They'd seemed to often wind up at the beach together and we'd kid that if we could get them together in the surf, that that would be some fine foal. Never happened, but it was a nice idea.”

****

Bill Scherlis, Del Mar's longtime photographer (1945 to 1975), took many photos of horses on the beach and in the surf. The shot of conditioner Charlie Whittingham (known as “The Bald Eagle”) on his horse in the water that illustrates this piece was a Scherlis production.

Now 89 and living in retirement in San Diego, Scherlis has good memories of turf and surf and sand and lots of splashing seen through his camera's eye.

He remembers Whittingham being a regular with his horses at the beach. He remembers Farrell Jones, Del Mar's 11-time training champ, being there, too. He's even got a picture of Jones on a horse in the ocean with a baby in his lap. That baby was his son Gary, who followed in his dad's training footsteps and won Del Mar's first running of the Pacific Classic with champion Best Pal.

“The horses used to love to come down to the beach,” Scherlis remembered “And next to going in the water, they liked rolling in the sand best. It was like scratching their backs for them. The joke was that if you had one who just went on his back and wiggled in the sand, then he was just OK. But if he'd go on his back and roll all the way over to the other side and get up, then you had a stakes horse on your hands.”

****

Trainer Bruce Headley, who has been in the game since his exercise riding days from the late '40s through the 1950s, remembers many a morning galloping horses on the beach and then swimming them in the surf.

He says he and his horses were matchmakers, too.

“Back in those days there weren't that many people around and we used to gallop the horses on the sand well up into Solana Beach (the town just north of Del Mar),” he said. “Sometimes we'd see a couple up ahead walking along the beach. Whenever we did, we'd speed up behind them and go whipping by, yelling and shouting. Would scare the heck out of them and more times than not the girl would jump into the arms of her fella. We made those guys instant heroes and big, strong lovers all at once.”

****

Ben Glass, the former trainer – and now racing manager – for owners Gary and Mary West, is in town this week from his Omaha headquarters and he recalled days “back when” that he spent at Del Mar with horses on the beach.

He remembers several summers around 1960 when the family, headed by his dad O.J. Glass, made their trip out from the Midwest to meet up with Ben's uncle, George Glass, who was a trainer and an assistant on Southern California's backstretches. Del Mar was their favorite summer spot, of course, and for a pre-teen like Ben it was a pure delight.

“Oh, we loved coming to the beach,” Ben Glass recalled. “I used to get to ride Charlie Whittingham's pony, a palomino I think, down on that trail under the (Highway) 101 to the beach. Charlie said he wanted me to stand him in the water; that the salt water was good for him. Thinking about it now, he was probably just being nice and giving a kid a thrill.”

Glass remembers riders in black wet suits taking the horses into the surf. He remembers afternoons when he went swimming in that surf, too. It was a simpler time — for both people and horses.

****

Dan Smith, Del Mar's senior media coordinator and its resident historian (he first worked at the track in 1964), remembers one horse in particular who loved swimming at Del Mar.

W.R. Hawn, who was part owner of the Dallas Cowboys for a while and a longtime Thoroughbred owner and breeder – as well as a member of Del Mar's board of directors – purchased a high-class horse out of South Africa named Colorado King in the early 1960s and brought him to California to race.

“The South Africans were very upset to lose him,” Smith recalled. “He was a really good horse. (Among his victories were the Hollywood Gold Cup and a world-record tying performance of 1:46 2/5 for nine furlongs in the American Handicap.) They never raced him at Del Mar, but they'd summer him here and he just loved to go down to the beach. He'd get in the water and he wouldn't want to come out. They'd have to fight with him and all but drag him out. He loved the water.”

****

Trainer Mel Stute, 85 and still laughing and scratching, tells a horse-in-the water story and says every word of it is true.

Seems around 1940 or so – back when he and his brother Warren used to take horses down to the beach all the time — there was a very fast horse named Smokie Saunders, owned by the mayor of National City, the town just south of San Diego. He was trained by a gentleman named Yorkie McLeod. Let Mel take it from there:

“So Yorkie took Smokie Saunders down to the beach one day and the horse is out there and he's swimming. And then he's swimming farther and farther out. Next thing you know he's headed south. They couldn't get him back and he swam away. Found him down in Mexico. Swam all the way to Mexico! And you know I wouldn't make one like that up.”

****

Ron McAnally, the Hall of Fame trainer whose masterpiece was the multiple champion John Henry, can harken back to days when the horses and the beach went nicely together at Del Mar.

“We used to take them down there and the first thing they'd do is drop down and roll in that sand. Oh, they loved that,” the 81-year-old conditioner remembered. “They'd usually go stand in the water then. Some of them, though, they'd get in that water and they'd drop and roll again. It just had to feel good to them. It was really relaxing for them. Part of being at Del Mar. This place as a whole is relaxing, especially for the horses.”

Alas, the end for horses on the beach came in the winter of 1980. Del Mar's boss man, Joe Harper, remembers it well. It was a case of a long spell of rains, a very high tide, a full moon and, most of all, the Lake Hodges Dam, inland and north from Del Mar, overflowing and sending its waters rushing back down the San Dieguito River that flows alongside the track. The 350-acre Fairgrounds that the racetrack sits on took on several feet of water and Harper and his staff had to deal with major water and facility issues – not to mention having to corral loose steers running down the Avenue of the Flags — throughout a long, dark night.

In the morning it was revealed that one of the casualties of the storm was the pathway that used to lead to the beach. The sand, both coming up off the beach as well as flowing out of the river, had all but sealed that route and its access for horses.

“Around that time, we had starting becoming concerned with the horses going down there and all the people that wanted to come watch them,” Harper recalled. “The area population had grown and crowds mixing with the horses were causing liability issues. When the path was sealed, most people took it as a sign. We told the trainers that if they wanted to van their horses down there they could, but it was really too much trouble. Not many did and horses on the beach all but ended there.”

And with it an era at Del Mar – and in California racing – quietly faded away, though the pictures — and the memories — of horses in the surf remain.

New to the Paulick Report? Click here to sign up for our daily email newsletter to keep up on this and other stories happening in the Thoroughbred industry.

Copyright © 2020 Paulick Report.