After an Amazon cargo plane overshot the runway Sunday at Miami International Airport, killing five people and leaving the pilot and co-pilot with minor injuries, you might wonder what would happen if the same situation unfolded here.

Since the crash, some have speculated that an Engineered Materials Arresting System (EMAS) could’ve stopped the 767 before lives were lost.

An EMAS is basically crumbled concrete that a plane sinks into, bringing it to a stop. There is an EMAS at the west end of San Diego International’s single runway.

“We first got our EMAS in 2006. We got a newer one installed in 2021,” said Mark Taylor, a senior airside operations duty manager at the airport.

He’s in charge of the safety of the runway and all areas where there’s movement on the ground. That means he’s something of an expert when it comes to the EMAS system.

“It’s like a sand or a pit that catches a truck (when their brakes fail),” Taylor said. “This is the same idea where it’s designed to catch an airplane.”

If a plane ran into the EMAS here, the runway would have to be closed for an investigation, Taylor said. But he said the airport would be ready to replace the EMAS quickly.

“You can replace the panels, so it’s not a one-use and it’s done,” Taylor said.
“We’ve got extra panels on site so that if we were to have use one, we can remove the aircraft, remove the panels that were destroyed, so that it’s back in business and then we can open the runway again.”

San Diego’s EMAS has never been used. But if a situation like in Miami were to unfold here, at least there’s a good chance it wouldn’t end with the loss of life.

DEL MAR — The 5-year-old mare Medoro was nearing the end of a career filled with near-misses in big races. Her trainer Pete Eurton was sending out his last runner of a frustrating meet.

Fortunately for them, closing day of the 87th Del Mar summer season was made for satisfying finishes, both on the racetrack and in the offices where the betting handle was added up.

It was made for Medoro and Eurton, who benefited from the latest sharp big-money ride by Juan Hernandez to score a mild upset of Thought Process in the Grade II John C. Mabee Stakes for fillies and mares on the Del Mar turf course Monday.

Eurton, who went into the Mabee 4 for 37 at the meet, had seen Medoro thrive in lower-level stakes but go 0 for 6 before this in Grade I’s and II’s. The losses for the daughter of Honor Code included a second to Gimme a Nother in the 2025 John C. Mabee, a second to Iscreamuscream in the Del Mar Oaks, and thirds to She Feels Pretty in the American Oaks and to dead-heat winners Expensive Queen and Segesta in Keeneland’s Jenny Wiley.

“It feels good,” Eurton said after Medoro and Hernandez locked into a battle with 3-5 favorite Thought Process and Hector Berrios on the turn for home and outdueled the Grade I winner down the stretch to earn a one-length victory.

Medoro got her seventh victory in 18 starts in a career that Eurton said could soon shift to the breeding shed. Owners Lee and Susan Searing of Claremont got $150,000 of the $250,000 purse. Winning bettors picked up $8.60 for each $2.

It took a 1:47.61 clocking for 1-1/8 miles, the fastest Mabee in eight years, to beat Thought Process.

Trainer Phil D’Amato said he wished Berrios had tried to take command earlier.

Eurton, meanwhile, credited good positioning by Hernandez, whose own fast finish to the Del Mar summer gave him a meet-high 14 stakes wins.

Said Hernandez: “When it was time to go, she really went.”

Hernandez rode three winners on Labor Day, but Joel Rosario clinched the Del Mar riding title in absentia to end Hernandez’s streak of Del Mar summer titles at four. Rosario finished with 42 wins (19%), Hernandez with 38 (23.5%).

Rosario, a 41-year-old Racing Hall of Famer who returned to California earlier this year, won his fourth Del Mar championship but first since 2011. He rode Monday at Kentucky Downs.

Doug O’Neill clinched his sixth Del Mar summer training title on Saturday and finished with 27 wins, 10 more than runner-up Bob Baffert.

The windy, cloudy day was the 32 nd and last day of the Del Mar meet and a day for summing up.

On the track, highlights included Knightsbridge and jockey Junior Alvarado winning the $1 million Pacific Classic, a 6-1/4-length romp that lifted the 5-year-old to No. 2 behind Sovereignty in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association rankings.

The popular Journalism rallied from a distant last to win the San Diego Handicap, but an injury sustained in his awkward start forced his retirement before the Pacific Classic. Local hero Gold Phoenix won the Eddie Read Stakes to become the first six-time stakes winner in Del Mar history, only to later be denied a fifth consecutive Del Mar Handicap. Test Score won the Del Mar Handicap to make East Coast trainer Graham Motion 3 for 3 in stakes here this summer.

Sweet Azteca won the Rancho Bernardo Stakes for fillies and mares for the third time. Proletariat dominated 3-year-old competition in the Oceanside and then repeated that in the Del Mar Derby. The sprinter Listenupshance gave O’Neill his biggest victory of the meet in the Bing Crosby Stakes.

Baffert won the Del Mar Futurity for the 20th time with Hughes and won the Del Mar Debutante for the 13th time with Miss Monica, extending his own record with his 196th stakes win at the track.

Second in career stakes wins at Del Mar is John Sadler, whose victory with Early Encore ($3.80) and jockey Emisael Jaramillo in Monday’s I’m Smokin Stakes for Cal-bred 2-year-olds was his 95th.

Most of those achievements were noticed more on the West Coast than nationwide. In the latest NTRA rankings determined by media balloting, Knightsbridge was the only horse who ran at this Del Mar meet who placed in the top 20 — and Knightsbridge is not a California-based runner but a product of Bill Mott’s New York-based barn. By comparison, six of the top 10 ran at Saratoga’s summer meet, including top-ranked older male Sovereignty, older female Nitrogen, turf horse Deterministic and one-turn horse Englishman.

Off the track, Del Mar reported increases for the second summer season in a row in total, all-sources wagering (up 2.3% to $546.8 million) and wagering specifically on Del Mar races (up 3.1% to $366.8 million), though it took one more racing day than a year ago.

Del Mar Thoroughbred Club president Josh Rubinstein attributed the rise to maintaining strong field size (8.6 horses per race) despite a slight drop in the track’s horse population.

“I’m really pleased with the results,” Rubinstein said Monday. “Bettors like full fields, they like value, and our racing office really delivered that.”

Bill Nader, the Thoroughbred Owners of California president and CEO, attributed the economic upticks of the past two years to the consolidation of the state’s racing to Del Mar, Santa Anita and Los Alamitos. (Northern Californians would say it doesn’t make up for the loss of tracks up there.)

“I think we should be a little more optimistic about our future,” Nader said.

One increase wasn’t to be celebrated: Three horses died from injuries in races at Del Mar, the most at the track’s summer meet since the California Horse Racing Board began posting fatality data in 2020. (There were no deaths in training, so Del Mar’s total fatalities were slightly fewer than the average for the previous six years.)

Thoroughbred racing moves to Los Alamitos (Friday to Sept. 20) and Santa Anita (Sept. 25 to Nov. 1) before returning to Del Mar for the meet’s 13 th fall meet (Nov. 6-29). For the first time since 2023, the fall meet won’t include the Breeders’ Cup, which will be held at Keeneland Oct. 30-31.

Notable

• Hughes’ 84 Beyer speed figure for covering 7 furlongs in 1:22.57 in winning the Del Mar Futurity on Sunday was one of the lowest in recent years for California’s first Grade I race of the season for 2-year-olds. But it was one point higher than The Good Life received for going 7 furlongs in 1:24.08 in Sunday’s Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga.

• The longshot of the season came on the last day. The 3-year-old filly Marvelousmissmabel and jockey Cristobal Herrera unexpectedly went to the lead and kept going to win the maiden-claiming second race and pay $170.60 for $2. Marvelousmissmabel entered with two off-the-board finishes; Herrera had been 0 for 30 at the meet, trainer Luis Mendez 1 for 22.

• Hottest trainer as the meet ended was Andy Mathis. Zero for 27 to start the meet, Mathis had wins with 5 of 9 starters after Dottie Hinson ($15) and Mo Bradley ($7.60) won the fourth and fifth races Monday. Mathis also had a victory with his lone starter at Los Alamitos in that stretch.

The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in San Diego County rose to $5.95, its highest amount ever on Labor Day.

The previous Labor Day record was $5.38 set in 2023.

The average price has risen 19 of the past 20 days, increasing 26.9 cents, including six-tenths of a cent Sunday, according to figures from the AAA and Oil Price Information Service. It is the highest it’s been since June 5, and is $1.24 more than a year ago.

It has increased $1.265 since the start of the joint U.S., Israel war on Iran in February, which sent oil prices higher and drastically accelerated increases at the gas pump.

Crude oil traffic through the key Strait of Hormuz has plunged, and Iran has refused to reopen the waterway, according to the Associated Press.