San Diego Magazine / July 2003 / Still on Track

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Still on Track

Joe Harper is up at 5:30 a.m. most days—especially during racing season at the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club. The track’s director, president and general manager helps exercise the ponies. All the while, he assesses his workplace and listens to the gripes and ideas of track horsemen.

“I’m sort of a broken-down cowboy,” says Harper, 60, who’s overseen track operations since 1978. “I’ve played polo, done rodeos—and broken every bone you can break.” Harper recalls telling veteran jockey Laffit Pinkay Jr. about breaking a clavicle. “Laffit had broken that bone 14 times,” says Harper. “So he beat me. But I think people here respect a track president who’s broken some bones and knows the horse business.”

Born in Hollywood, Harper is the grandson of legendary producer Cecil B. De Mille. Charlton Heston and Gary Cooper used to come ’round the house to talk about scripts. Anthony Quinn is Harper’s uncle. As a kid, Harper had eyeblink roles in The Greatest Show on Earth and The Ten Commandments. “I was in two Oscar-winning movies, and then I retired,” he says.

This year’s racing season (July 23–September 10) starts two days before the release of Seabiscuit, a new movie about one of the most famous racehorses of all time. Seabiscuit actually ran at Del Mar in 1939—two years after Bing Crosby and Pat O’Brien opened the place. Harper hopes the movie will help draw even bigger crowds to the track, which generates $12 million in daily wagers.

Is the track president allowed to bet? “Unfortunately, yes,” he sighs. But Harper says his wife of four decades, Barbara, is the better handicapper. “In 40 years, I’m about the only loser she’s picked.”

Under Harper, Del Mar has become the U.S. track with the highest annual attendance and second-largest handle (money wagered). A loser? Hardly.