Bing Crosby's 1937 seaside track, where employees report cold spots, disembodied laughter, and a tall shadow in the Turf Club that moves like longtime trainer Charlie Whittingham.
2260 Jimmy Durante Boulevard, Del Mar, CA 92014
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
General admission for racing days; Turf Club access requires separate ticketing. Check website for current season schedule and pricing.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat fairgrounds campus with paved walkways; elevator access to Turf Club grandstand levels.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1937 · Historic California Racetrack · Bing Crosby Founding Venue · Charlie Whittingham Training Legacy · Mission Revival Architecture
William Quigley pitched the idea to Bing Crosby after Santa Anita Park opened in 1934, and by May 1936 they had formed Del Mar Turf Club. The founding partnership included Crosby, actor Pat O'Brien, Gary Cooper, Joe E. Brown, Oliver Hardy, and Charles S. Howard — the owner of Seabiscuit. The track opened July 3, 1937, with Crosby personally greeting fans at the gate. Its Mission Revival grandstand, set less than a mile from the Pacific Ocean, gave Del Mar a climate and setting unlike any other major California track.
For decades the facility ran under the original structure. By the 1980s the grandstand had been declared structurally unsafe, and after years of interim measures it was demolished and replaced in 1991 with the current stucco grandstand. The renovation fundamentally changed the building's bones. Some employees later pointed to that demolition as the event that disturbed whatever presence they believed had settled into the upper floors.
The upper grandstand's Turf Club and the private suites above it on the fifth floor became the focal point for staff accounts after the new building opened. The sports bar on that level was named for Charlie Whittingham, the trainer widely considered one of the greatest in American thoroughbred history, who was a fixture at the facility across five decades. Whittingham died in 1999.
Sources
The employee accounts from Del Mar circulated quietly for years before anyone documented them publicly. Staff described the fifth floor of the grandstand — the private suites above the Turf Club — as an area where elevators behaved oddly, where cold spots moved through corridors, and where they heard hoofbeats echoing on the track long after the horses were stabled for the night.
In 2015, Del Mar permitted the paranormal investigation group South Coast Paranormal to conduct an after-hours session in the Turf Club and grandstand. The investigators reported hearing disembodied voices in the bar including what they described as a word that sounded like 'martini.' On video they captured a tall, dark figure moving across the barroom. Charlie Whittingham was famously tall, a regular in the Turf Club for decades, and known to favor martinis. His memorabilia and photographs cover the walls of the bar named for him. The investigators found those details suggestive. Suggestive is what they are.
Other accounts from employees over the years have included the sound of dinnerware clattering in empty rooms, doors locking from inside spaces confirmed to be unoccupied, and ball lightning reported moving slowly down a hallway. These come from people who work in the building regularly, not from visiting paranormal enthusiasts, which gives them a different register even if none of them constitute evidence.
Notable Entities
Attend a racing day at the oceanside track Bing Crosby helped found in 1937. The Turf Club — named in part for legendary trainer Charlie Whittingham — occupies the upper grandstand where racetrack employees have quietly described cold spots, unexplained voices, and doors that lock on their own after the crowd clears out.
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