And they're off ... in pursuit of larger crowds, betting handle: with season set to start July 18, Del Mar Race Track banks on new $9m track for a brighter future.

If Lava Man, a horse who has gone from claiming to reigning, wins the Pacific Classic at the Del Mar Race Track next month, he will write another page in racing history.

Could Seattle Slew's grandson, who was bought for $50,000 after a claiming race at Del Mar in 2004, be another Seabiscuit?

It's hard to say.

But odds are that a sell-out crowd will come to the track to see whether the 6-year-old gelding can best himself and become the first horse to win the three premier Southern California races, including the Santa Anita Handicap and the Hollywood Gold Cup, two years in a row. Last year, he was the first to win all three races. The Pacific Classic is scheduled for Aug. 19.

That's one of the moments the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club is counting on to create excitement with casual fans and hard-core bettors as it strives to push both the handle--the amount of money bet--above the all-time high of $608.9 million, achieved in 2005, and on-track attendance closer to the days before the effects of satellite wagering were fully felt. An attendance record of 846,495 was established in 1990, Last year's total handle from all sources, including satellite wagering, stood at $582.5 million. Attendance was 716,293 in 2006, down 2.1 percent from 2005.

This year's 43-day Del Mar racing season is scheduled for Wednesdays through Mondays from July 18 through Sept. 5.

Opening day at Del Mar also marks the first time in racing history that Thoroughbreds will go from one synthetic track to another in a single racing circuit. Hollywood Park was first out of the gate when it laid a Cushion Track surface in September, following the state Horse Racing Board's directive that all major tracks resurface with synthetic materials.

The Thoroughbred Club, which operates the track, completed installation of a $9 million Polytrack surface comprised of sand, rubber, fiber and wax in late April. Officials say the horses that trained and raced most recently at Hollywood Park are coming south in good physical condition.

The club's president and general manager, Joe Harper, said that in past years some horses that ran first at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, then at Hollywood Park Racetrack in Inglewood "should have been left at the farm" rather than being brought to Del Mar.

This year, it's a different story, according to Thoroughbred Club spokesman Mac McBride.

"They're coming from one engineered track to another engineered track," he said. "We have anecdotal evidence that these horses are a lot sounder."

The expectation is they won't bring with them "the niggling injuries," which McBride said can go unnoticed but worsen through continued training and racing on dirt tracks that become beaten down and uneven during a season.

Last year, the number of horses that had to be euthanized because of racing and training injuries at the Del Mar track was 18, one more than the average of 17 during five previous years. But the story of Barbaro, the Kentucky Derby winner put down in late January after breaking a leg during the Preakness Stakes, brought more media attention to track conditions and was a factor--along with unseasonably hot weather--for a slight decline in attendance at last year's meet, McBride said.

Del Mar's handle of on-track receipts for the 43-day meet in 2006 was $103.6 million, and the daily average from all sources was $13.5 million.

McBride said that most tracks nationwide don't publish their attendance figures anymore. "I don't have an actual yardstick to give, but I can tell you that we ran second to Saratoga in New York."

Del Mar is considered one of the top tracks in the country, along with Saratoga and Keeneland in Lexington, Ky.

While the new racing surface at Del Mar is expected to help the horses, the way Thoroughbreds are bred is also a reason for the injuries, and is not likely to change.

"Horses are bred more for speed than stamina these days," Harper said, adding that he thinks that's the reason there hasn't been any Triple Crown winners in nearly three decades.

"Those are three of the toughest races in the country and in a five-week span," he said.

But the entire industry is taking notice of California's move to synthetic tracks as a kinder, gentler running surface. Therefore, if fewer injuries and deaths result, then the future of the industry might be more secure. According to a 2005 study by the American Horse Council Foundation, the economic impact of the horse racing industry was pegged at $2.5 billion annually statewide.

Racing Against Racinos

There's also the issue of competition from "racinos," tracks that incorporate casino-style electronic slot machines to bring in more revenue to fatten purses and lure more horses. The state's voters shot down a 2004 proposition that would have allowed slots at the state's tracks, and no similar proposition is likely to surface.

Meanwhile, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed bills last week ratifying revised gambling agreements that will allow five of the state's tribes, including the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation and the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, to add a total of 17,099 slots. The move was strongly opposed by the state racing industry as a factor that could further erode interest in the ponies. The compacts are subject to review by the U.S. Department of Interior.

However, Harper said he's not so sure that local tribal casinos--San Diego County has more than any other region in the country--bring as much competition to bear as many think. Those who frequent casinos are a different breed than racing fans. Betting on horses involves more understanding and study than "merely pulling a lever," he added.

Nevertheless, marketing support from local tribes, including signage advertising, which brings additional revenue to the track, has increased.

Harper wouldn't cite numbers, but he said that sponsorship revenue from the Barona and Viejas tribes, as well as Toyota, has doubled in the last five years to the "low- to mid-six figures."

Widening The Field

While some hard-core fans complained that fields--the number of horses in an individual race--were thin and discouraged wagering during midweek races last year, Harper is confident that won't be the case this year.

"Our stables are very full," he said. "We'll have 2,200 head of horses back there. That's probably more than any track in the country. Everybody wants to be at Del Mar."

Though some owners and trainers were in the habit of bringing their horses simply to train and not race, Harper said the Thoroughbred Club is being more selective this year. "We're telling them, 'We'd love to have you, but don't bring your horses just to sit out races in the stalls.'"

Among the mix are some newcomers, including Dallas-based trainer Cody Autrey. "I'm going to bring 15 to 18 horses," he said. "At this point in the year, the choice was to go to Saratoga or Del Mar. The Polytrack is supposed to be the safest track going, but time will tell."

Dale Romans, a Louisville, Ky.-based trainer who said he's bringing 15 horses to Del Mar, including a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old who have won allowance races and are "ready to step up to stakes," agrees. If you compare thoroughbred racing to baseball, stakes races are for the major leaguers, the best of the best, while allowance races are for the minor leaguers, horses with less experience.

"I hope the synthetic tracks cut down on catastrophes," Romans said. "That's the purpose, but only time will tell."

Not everyone's enthusiastic about synthetic tracks, particularly handicappers who make a living evaluating the idiosyncrasies or biases of dirt tracks as well as horses' talents, predilections and win-loss records.

"They've figured out all the angles and biases, so they're thinking, 'Oh my God, the synthetic tracks are cookie cutter and there go my biases all at once,'" Harper said.

Not so. As it turns out, all synthetic tracks aren't alike, and they have variables just like dirt and grass tracks do.

That's the way it is in England, where synthetic tracks were first developed, "and that's the way it will play out in California," he added.

A Hollywood Sunset

Meanwhile, there's the expectation that Hollywood Park's owner, a developer that acquired the facility in 2005, will eventually raze it in favor of other commercial uses.

Harper disagrees with sources who think such a move would weaken the appeal of the Southern California circuit and send horse owners and trainers packing in search of greener pastures in the East. The state sets a certain number of days for horse racing, which are divided among the tracks, and others might opt to pick up those leftover.

"I think that if Hollywood Park closed, we'd discuss with Santa Anita and Los Alamitos and the Pomona fairgrounds as to what the calendar would look like," he said. "So if 100 days at Hollywood Park are up for grabs, we'd take some of those days, and what we'd want is probably a five day a week season, not six as now, and we'd spread it out a bit more."