Delaware Park
Thoroughbred Racetrack Opened In 1937 In Stanton, West Of Wilmington, With A Year Round Casino On The Same Grounds And A Live Racing Meet Each Spring To Autumn · Wilmington, Delaware
Delaware Park is the state's thoroughbred racetrack, opened in 1937 in Stanton, just west of Wilmington, where Route 7 meets I-95. It is two businesses on one site. The racetrack has a dirt main track with a turf course inside it, a tree-lined paddock and a large shaded picnic grove behind the grandstand, where families spread out on race afternoons. The casino, added in the 1990s, runs all year with slots, table games and sports betting, and is 21 and over. Live racing is seasonal: the 2026 meet, the track's 89th, runs 75 days from Wednesday 13 May to Saturday 17 October, on three or four afternoons a week. The biggest days are in June, with the Delaware Derby and the Grade 3 Delaware Oaks, and in late September, with the Grade 3 Delaware Handicap, long one of the better-known races for older fillies and mares in the East. Admission and parking for live racing have historically been free. A golf course sits on the same property. It is not a grand old palace of racing, but it is one of the easier places in the Mid-Atlantic to stand at the rail on a summer afternoon.
777 Delaware Park Boulevard, Wilmington, Delaware, 19804, United States
Two different clocks run here. The casino is open all year, with long daily hours that have at times run late into the night; confirm current hours, as they have changed since 2020. Live racing runs only during the meet: in 2026 that is 75 days from Wednesday 13 May to Saturday 17 October. Race days follow a pattern that shifts by month - roughly Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday in May and June, Wednesday to Saturday in July, and Thursday to Saturday from August into October, with exceptions for holidays and stakes days. First post has usually been in the early afternoon, so the racing is over by early evening; check the day's post time. On days with no live racing the grandstand is quiet and the picnic grove may be closed, although simulcast betting on other tracks may still be offered. Outside the meet, from late October to May, there is no live racing at all. The stakes days - 13 June for the Delaware Derby and Oaks, 26 September for the Delaware Handicap - draw the biggest crowds. Confirm everything on the track's own calendar before you drive over.