Sometime last spring, Junior Boothe, while sitting at the weekly Burger King coffee pow-wow with the Pali Boys in La Crescenta, came up with a ball buster of an idea, “Hey isn’t it about time for a Del Mar junket reunion?”

Thus was born the idea to go back to the beach and schedule a junket after a decade long hiatus. Most of us last went in 2004, while Waz, Bruce, Dave, Roger and Tim A all made the 2005 affair, but that was the end for the Del Mar motel as their nightly rate jumped to $325.

Meanwhile, simultaneously, 475 miles to the north the Commish was reading the Paulick Report and found out the Del Mar racetrack was going to fire up a brand new Fall meeting to replace the shuttered Hollywood Park. The thought then struck, “Gee I wonder what the rooms go for at the Del Mar motel in November?

A lucky thirteen reserved and paid with a cameo by Jimmy making it fourteen.

A call down there found them at a $175 a night, tax included. With our usual triple occupancy, we could do 2 nights for $117 each. Certainly in the affordability range of damn near everybody. Then we had to figure out who wanted to go. Surprisingly to some, (but not surprisingly to others) Neil found no interest from either Ronnie Combs or Bif , both of whom made 24 of these back-in-the-day. Then Norm, with 30 junkets under his belt, initially jumped aboard, but inexplicably change his mind later on.

So up it went on the NSAA website where 13 signed up immediately. We had Joey, Jimmy Bond, Boomer, Commish, Dave, Tim A, Bruce, Waz, Roger, Billy D, Mason, Chuck and Neil. Later Jimmy had to bail due to his wife’s medical condition, but Johnny Cox jumped in to take his place. In addition, Doo and Rocket both signed up for a cameo appearance, but as it turned out, neither one made it.

The motel was virtually unchanged from 10 years ago......and this is not a bad thing.

LETS CUT TO THE ACTION. The weekend of November 14- 16 was picked to avoid opening weekend crowds. Luckily for us, we caught blue skies, with 70 degree highs and 60 degree lows on all 3 days. Neil led the assault by arriving on Thursday afternoon after which, 24 hours later, the rest of the goons rolled in to the motel, then hopped directly to the track for the early 12:30 post.

THE MOTEL. Virtually nothing had changed at the old DM motel other than the staff, some shifting around of the patio furniture, and some Plexiglas panels that were installed out on the front end to keep unpleasant wind out of the beautiful people’s hair. In addition, they now require guests to initial a page at check-in agreeing to the motel rules. After scanning said same I realized that “yes” the last time we were here, we did, in fact, break every one of ‘em.

THE TRACK. Conversely, the racetrack was virtually unrecognizable. Gone are the bleachers and the old tote board. In their place is a giant tent where the non-gambling crowd (I'm only here for the concerts) can go to eat Falafels and Gyros while sipping sauvignon blanc. The tote is now some sort of plastic matrix board that looks like it should be in a Vegas casino. Plus, when they have a full field of 12 it’s virtually impossible to read.

Another new wrinkle: In order to divert attention from horses getting pounded in the tote as the race is being run, they turn off the board as soon as Trevor utters “all set” and do not turn it back on until they can post up the “Final Odds”. Apparently this mollifies the mostly clueless horse players out there when their winning horse leaves the gate at 4-1 and then finishes at 5-2.

The new monstrosity tote board. Between races they featured a race between a skunk and seagull.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the contentious and otherwise difficult cards they presented on all 3 days. There were a lot of baby races, a lot of short races and a lot of races with winners that left most of our seasoned handicappers scratching their heads. Matter of fact, after one day of racing, Tom Waz, purveyor of West Handicapping, threw up his hands and refused to partake the rest of the weekend. We have never seen this move before. Furthermore, in the end, all 12 punters ended up in the red. It was brutal out there.

On seating, we found nothing as good as the old bleachers were. On Friday we tried Level 3, Section 12 but that was crowded with the betting difficult. On the weekend, we went up to Level 4. Saturday was nuts in the section with all sorts of movement going on and the raggae blasting. Sunday, however, the crowd of 5,587 and no band left us pretty much undisturbed up there.

THE GAVONERY. Age DOES matter apparently. We saw none of the following activities, all of which were staples a decade ago. No Belly Up bar, no dog races in Mexico, no restaurants for dinner, no bowling, no Oceanside card rooms, no Indian casinos and no beach bunnies in any of the rooms.

King of the Gavones Award easily went to Bruce who, with Johnny Cox, went up to Bully’s Friday night after the poker game for a quick popper or two. Then, staggering home shitfaced, the boy took a header near the railroad station, putting a profusely bleeding gash in the corner of his eye. Then, in order to staunch the bleeding and clean the wound out (I guess), jumped into the surf in front of the motel. Luckily for him, Cox was around to pull him outta there and lug him back to the room. Once there, Waz tried to coax him to the emergency room but Bruce was having none of it, “I'm ok, I'm ok.” We can only wonder the next morning how "OK" the maid was with the blood stains all over the sheets and towels?

Junket vets will notice that if saner heads prevailed, our bleachers could be restored to their original location. The bushes behind are still intact and the old head is still out there.

THE BBQs. For the first time ever, we decided to go with hamburgers, chips, dips and salads purchased by Bruce and the Commish earlier on. This because no one would have time to hit the market for steaks until after the races on Friday. Both Qs worked out great, with Saturdays maybe being slightly better than Fridays…mainly because Chuck ran out and bought a rack of hot dogs and buns (on his own dime) and we broke out some russet potatos which Bruce baked up to perfection. There was a great vibe at both parties with sterling jib all around.

The BBQ on Friday-- shown at a temporary lull in the jib-fest.

THE POKER. Yeah, it came off as predicted on both nights. On Friday Dave and Tim hosted a spirited, 9-man game which lasted til about 10:30 but Saturday’s attempt fizzled when only 4 guys showed up. As I went to bed, Bruce was out on the patio hustling women motel guests for a few more players. “There’s poker in room 123.” Bwa-ha-ha, good luck with that one.

*********already in****** The poker game on Friday was the last time Bruce had his NSAA hat. The hat and 3 priceless pins were probably lost when he went ass over teacup.

THE FEEDBACK. Everybody I heard from had a great time and wondered if this might be more than just a one-time reunion. “I forgot how much fun this is.” and “It doesn’t get much better than this.” were typical comments. But the greatest enthusiasm of all came from Tom Waz when he uttered upon departure on Sunday, “Com-mish-na, for the most part, this worked.” High praise indeed.

HATS OFF TO NON-PARTICIPANTS. We cant wrap this up without a note of “thanks” to 3 folks who contributed mightily to the trip’s success. First was Strings, even though long since retired and living in Oregon, who called down to the track for some grandstand passes on our behalf. Second, was Del Mar media director, Mac McBride, who answered that phone call and then mailed me in Sebastopol, (in a 9x12 Priority envelope) a full set of Del Mar pamphlets and 14 or 15 passes. And finally, to Janet Boothe who virtually set-up this whole trip up by calling down to the motel numerous times during the 6 month run-up, to find out stuff like: “How many BBQs are available?”, “How much are the roll-aways?” “Are the reservations transferred to the correct credit cards?”, “What are the check-in, check-out times?” , etc., etc. And then, for the capper, ordered all our plastic cups and plates off of Amazon.com. We couldn’t have possibly pulled this junket off without her.

The sun in November sets considerably further south on the horizon than it does in August. The beauty is pretty much the same however.