San Diego Travel Information

Native American Casinos in San Diego

admin — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:48:43 +0000

Indian Casinos all around the country are shattering the notion that Indian Casinos are a less than par alternative when compared to their counterparts on the Las Vegas strip.

However, just like in Sin City itself, the quality of Indian Casinos varies dramatically.

With literally hundreds of Indian Casinos spread out across the United States, to give you an idea of the level of quality gaming emerging on reservations countrywide, let’s focus in on a few of the top Indian Casinos leading the way.

A good place to start is from an area often considered the Indian Casino capital of California and the location of an extremely competitive Indian Casino market, San Diego, California.

Heres a quick snapshot of 6 Top Indian Casinos in San Diego:

1) Barona Valley Ranch Resort and Casino

Barona offers visitors Vegas style gaming action, combined with unique dining experiences, a luxurious hotel, and world-class golf. This spectacular highly acclaimed ranch-themed resort and casino has earned various awards for its casino and games, as well as for its restaurants and golf club.

2) Viejas Casino

Viejas is a well-established and popular Indian casino. Beyond its top notch gaming, Viejas Entertainment puts on high caliber concerts and the Viejas Outlet shopping center is known for its upscale outlet shopping. The casino also caters to the trend setting crowd with their new V Lounge bar.

3) Harrahs Rincon Casino

Harrahs Rincon Casino follows in the footsteps of the Harrahs gaming brand. A new 21-story hotel tower adds to the resort feel and recently was voted as having the Best Rooms, Best Suites, Best Hotel Service and more in 2005 by Casino Player magazine. Amenities include a luxurious spa and a state-of-the-art fitness center. Harrahs Rincon routinely attracts famous acts to its entertainment complex.

4) Pala Casino

Pala Casino offers award winning gaming, has eight restaurants, a 10,000 square foot day spa, a four-diamond resort with 507 deluxe hotel rooms, including 82 suites, four entertainment venues and an Olympic size pool with 12 cabanas. Pala routinely attracts big name entertainment concerts as well.

5) Pechanga Resort and Casino

As one of the countrys newest resort destinations, Pechanga Resort & Casino, an AAA four-diamond property, offers the best of hotel luxury, Vegas style gaming, entertainment, meeting facilities and seven fine dining choices. A-list performers scheduled regularly in the 1,200- seat Pechanga Theater

6) Sycuan Resort and Casino

In addition to great gaming, dining and entertainment, Sycuan Resort offers 54 holes of Southern Californias best golf, championship tennis courts, great overnight accommodations and a relaxing atmosphere to enjoy cocktails and fine dining. The Showcase Theatre features great shows and concerts.

If you are getting the itch to visit Vegas but dont want to make the trek, you might not have to look much further than your local Indian Casino.

You definitely wont be let down by any of the Top 6 San Diego Indian Casinos.

It’s Opening Day at Del Mar!

admin — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:09:00 +0000

Race fans today will hear Bing Crosby croon. They’ll feel an ocean breeze over Highway 101, hear the train roll through and see silly hats. Folks in various stages of undress will belly up to the stretch-run rail and bet on horses based on weird names, a jockey’s silk colors or because it’s a big gray horse with a military or nautical name. You can bet those things will happen at today’s Opening Day at the Del Mar Racetrack.

But as far as horses for courses go, which ones will run on the new Polytrack and and which ones won’t, that figures to challenge serious and casual shooters alike. The learning curve is expected to be steep for bettors, the trips to the ATM machine perhaps earlier in the card.

Early last Sunday morning,Toby Turrell was watching the throroughbreds workout on Del Mar’s new Polytrack. It was his fourth day observing horses on Del Mar’s new Beach Carpet, and Turrell a clocker, handicapper and horse owner noticed an early trend.

The horses either are comfortable and relish it and bounce over it, or they tend to struggle down the stretch, said Turrell, who hasn’t missed a summer at Del Mar since he was 5, clocking workouts and handicapping for the last 20 years.

I don’t think there’s a big gap, which is different than you’re used to with the old tracks. But it’s really apparent now when a horse isn’t taking to Polytrack. They struggle finding their rhythm. I’m seeing horses work good at short distances, but when they try and go five and six furlongs, they really have to be fit to go a nice work.

The Del Mar Thoroughbred Club invested more than $8.5 million to install the Polytrack. But it will ease onto its new surface by starting five races on today’s nine-race card, beginning with the second race. The opening race and three others are on turf.

Tips for the track Consensus betting tips for races on Del Mar’s new Polytrack surface, from handicappers and those in the racing business:

Look for horses that show improvement in workouts, particularly at Del Mar.
Look for a closing style of running. Polytrack favors fit horses with stamina and energy for the finish line.
Speed, particularly cheap speed (in low-level claiming races and all maiden races) likely won’t hold. Forget Beyer Speed Figures for now.
Look for jockeys who have a reputation for rating horses and adjusting their timing to different track rhythms.
Old-school jockeys might have a tougher time adapting. Young jockeys Michael Baze and Joe Talamo finished 1-2 for the season on Hollywood Park’s Cushion Track.
Turf horses have done well switching to Polytrack.

That Del Mar isn’t busting out of the gate on its Polytrack matches the attitude of many handicappers and bettors, most of whom will see the striking off-white oval for the first time today.I’m taking a wait-and-see approach, said Bob Ike, whose picks run in the Union-Tribune and on bobikepicks.com. It’s a whole new ballgame. I’m going to tread lightly and watch some races. I’ll bet the turf races at first.

Bruno De Julio who, like Turrell, clocks and owns horses, said: Take everything you know or thought you knew about handicapping and throw it out the window and start fresh. Go to school, watch these races, look at the works. You need to completely reverse your thinking from speed-oriented to stamina-oriented. Look at the closers.

Natale De Thomas has had a private box at Del Mar for the last 18 years. He visited Del Mar on Sunday morning to see the new track.

I want to see how the speed holds up compared to the dirt track, De Thomas said. The first two weeks or so I’ll really watch the toteboard and the betting more than anything else.

Polytrack not only is different for horses than dirt tracks in that it’s composed of silica sand, carpet fibers, recycled rubber and wax, but it looks different, too.

De Julio said, It looks like oatmeal here. Atother tracksthey said it looked like grits.De Bruno and Ike both think the early going on Polytrack could be wild for Del Mar’s horseplayers.

Chaos, Ike said. There could be some big exactas, trifectas and superfectas. Might see some amazing payoffs.

Said De Julio: Opening Day, it’s going to be a free-for-all. You’re going to have horses running three, four wide, sweeping around the turn, blowing by the speed, and there could be some big upsets. This is true racing. Horses are back to running on their class, their speed, their fitness and stamina. It’s not just a speed-oriented game anymore.

Traditionalists such as Andrew Beyer, whose Beyer Speed Figures revolutionized handicapping in the early 1990s, don’t like the synthetic tracks. Beyer called it a mutant version of horse racing that penalizes thoroughbreds for being fast.

Hall of Fame jockey Julie Krone, now retired and a mom, sees Polytrack producing exciting finishes. She won Del Mar’s Pacific Classic aboard Candy Ride in 2003.

Del Mar used to be more partial to speed horses, and for me, as a jockey, riding horses that last 1/16th of a mile used to seem like forever, Krone said. With this new track, horses are going to be able to come from the pack and run up on the speed. Fans are going to have a more thrilling and exciting summer because it’s going to play more true. There will be more horsemanship from the jockeys, healthier horses and bigger fields.

That may not be as apparent today with the five races on Polytrack all being sprints of 5 to 6 furlongs.

Joe Harper, CEO and general manager of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, believes bettors will adapt. He’s not as concerned about the handle being down if the Whales heavy bettors don’t go deep into their pockets early. He said he’ll take the trade-off if jockey and horse injuries stay way down.

If that’s the price we pay for safety, I’ll accept it, Harper said. There are enough synthetic tracks around the country now Woodbine, Keeneland, Arlington, Turfway, Hollywood Park that these guys have been betting them and have a handle on it. It’s not a big concern. I think we’ll see some big prices and carryovers the first couple of weeks as horses adapt.

De Julio said, It looks like oatmeal here. Atother tracksthey said it looked like grits.

Comic-Con Sold Out Already?

admin — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 09:06:42 +0000

For the first time in its 38-year history, Comic-Con International has sold out. Kind of… Yesterday, the Con stopped selling four-day passes to its July 26-29 event. The official Web site contained this ominous warning: We’re NOT completely sold out yet ... but it COULD happen!

Although that’s possible, Con spokesman David Glanzer issued a less-alarming explanation.

Last year, the Con closed its box office during the event’s Saturday afternoon, when a crush of walk-up ticket buyers threatened to overcrowd the San Diego Convention Center. To avoid similar problems, this year the Con is encouraging online purchases in advance.

The strategy worked perhaps too well. We established artificial caps for the number of four-day passes we would sell, Glanzer said, and that artificial cap was reached yesterday.

Advance three-day memberships, good for the event on Thursday, Friday and Sunday, are still available online, as are one-day passes for each of the four days. Single-day passes will be sold at the convention center during the event.

Del Mar Racing Season to Open

admin — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 15:36:22 +0000

Yesterday, the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club opened the track for training leading up to the start of its summer meeting Wednesday. And the biggest change? The surface of the track itself.

In a 5-hour period starting at 4:30 a.m., track officials estimated 400 of the approximately 600 horses already on site were exercised over the surface a mixture of silicon sand, fibers, rubber and wax installed early this year at a cost of $9 million. It was the first thoroughbred contingent over the surface since a dozen horses were sent out as a test group over a two-day period in late April upon completion of the project.Reviews yesterday were heavily positive, none more so than the one issued by retired Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens.

It’s as good a track as I’ve ever been on, Stevens said. I galloped two horses for (trainer) Wesley Ward and I loved the way they were getting over it.

To me, it felt identical to Keeneland.

The historic Keeneland track in Lexington, Ky., installed Polytrack before its fall meeting in 2006 and conducted another meeting over the surface this spring. Polytrack is reputedly more consistent, safer and has had reduced instances of fatal injuries than the traditional dirt surfaces it has replaced at a handful of North American tracks.

Stevens, whose primary employment these days is as a TV commentator on racing, said his presence in the saddle yesterday should not be interpreted as a sign of an impending comeback.

I’m like a (basketball) gym rat. I can’t stay away from it, Stevens said. This just gives me some exercise. Unless they raise the scale of (riding) weights to 135 pounds, I’m not making any more comebacks.

Del Mar clocker Dane Nelson recorded only two timed workouts, both at the half-mile distance, one at 50 seconds flat and the other at :50 3/5. Most horses were taken at a more leisurely gallop pace and kept several paths out from the rail.

Trainers, many of them with horses now stabled at Hollywood Park, where the Cushion Track brand of engineered surface is in place, expressed satisfaction with the day of introduction.

It’s brand new, and it seemed to me to be a lot like Keeneland when they first installed Polytrack, or the Cushion Track at Hollywood Park before it got a lot of traffic on it, said Eric Guillot, who had Hollywood Juvenile winner Salute the Sarge among his contingent of exercisers.

It seemed to have a lot of cushion to it, but firm, a little different than Cushion Track, said trainer David Hofmans.

So far, so good, said Jim Barnes, assistant to seven-time Del Mar training champion Bob Baffert. We don’t know yet what changes might take place as the day goes on (or) days get warmer. ... We’re very happy with it right now.

Star of Sea Room to Reopen – sort of

admin — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 15:28:46 +0000

Anthony’s Star of the Sea Room, a San Diego bayfront dining institution since the 1960s, which has been shuttered for more than a year, will reopen in a few months under the same owner, but on a limited basis as a special-event venue.

In early September, the Star of the Sea Room is scheduled to be available for special-event occasions such as wedding receptions, large parties and convention group gatherings. Otherwise, it will be closed.

“We did extensive research and learned that San Diego, because it’s a popular convention destination, has a pressing need for this kind of venue,” said Beverly Nascari, a co-owner who serves as director of guest relations. “It’s an untapped market that’s perfect for the level of dining experience we provide our guests.”

Several months ago, the restaurant was set to reopen under the name of Ghio’s, paying homage to the Italian fishing family that has owned and operated the popular seafood chain since the 1940s. Those plans, however, were put on hold after it was determined that San Diego has a surfeit of high-end seafood and steak eateries.

The restaurant has remained dark since late last year, in contrast to its always lively dining neighbors, the family style Anthony’s Fish Grotto and Anthony’s Fishette take-out venue.

The Ghios recently refurbished the 60-ft. dock alongside the Fish Grotto, which can accommodate up to four boats.

The upscale Star of the Sea Room was once regarded as one of San Diego’s most exclusive restaurants, along with the long-ago defunct Lubach’s a few blocks away.

“San Diego has changed a lot since we first opened (in 1966) and competition is fierce,” Nascari said. “We learned that even the good ones aren’t always that busy these days.”

The Star’s overall decor and high-end cuisine will remain the same. “The only difference is, we’ll only be open when we have a group event scheduled,” Nascari said.