Joe Harper to become Del Mar CEO emeritus after decades of leadership

Joe Harper will move into the honorary CEO emeritus role at Del Mar at the end of the year, and Del Mar president Josh Rubinstein will become chief executive on Jan. 1, 2027. Harper is 83, and the succession turns a long-planned handoff into the next step for one of horse racing’s most visible operators.

Harper’s run at Del Mar stretches back to 1977, with club references also placing his assumption of management in 1978. Over nearly five decades, he became the face of the track’s modern identity, helping turn a seaside venue with celebrity roots into a national summer destination with a tightly managed brand, a recognizable race-meet culture and the kind of operational stability that horsemen prize. A 2018 Sports Business Journal profile identified him as Del Mar Thoroughbred Club’s CEO, underscoring how closely his name became linked to the place itself.

That matters because Del Mar is not a typical regional track. Its summer meet remains one of the sport’s marquee stops, and the club’s 2025 media guide listed the summer season from July 18 through Sept. 7, followed by a fall meet from Oct. 30 through Nov. 30. Del Mar also hosted the 2025 Breeders’ Cup World Championships on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, putting the track on racing’s biggest stage during a year when Harper’s succession took shape.

Rubinstein now inherits the operating playbook that kept Del Mar relevant well beyond Southern California. The board selected him to succeed Harper as CEO, and his role as president already put him at the center of day-to-day decisions involving the racing office, horsemen relations, facility planning and the track’s public-facing marketing. For horseplayers, the key question is whether Del Mar keeps the same disciplined presentation, from field size and wagering product to the atmosphere around the summer stand. For horsemen, the watch points are continuity in communication and consistency in how the meet is managed.

Del Mar’s brand has long been tied to its history, from its Bing Crosby origins to the movie-star aura of the 1930s and 1940s. Harper’s value was that he translated that legacy into a modern business, and the move to emeritus keeps his institutional knowledge in reach while handing authority to Rubinstein. The transition gives Del Mar a rare commodity in racing, a clean succession at a track that depends on continuity as much as spectacle.