SoCal trainers lament loss of Golden Gate

DEL MAR, Calif. – “We’ll go up north.”

For decades that has been a familiar refrain of owners and trainers seeking easier maiden races, allowance races, or lower-level stakes opportunities at Bay Area tracks for Southern California-based horses.

That will change in December, when Golden Gate Fields closes after 82 years as part of the California circuit.

The track’s parent company, 1/ST Racing, shocked California racing on July 16 with the announcement that the track would cease to operate before the end of the year. The company hopes to lure Northern California-based stables to Santa Anita, near Los Angeles, the company’s other track in the state.

Over the years, there has been plenty of traffic in the other direction, too.

At the Golden Gate Fields meeting from late December to mid-June earlier this year, trainer Michael McCarthy was the most active of the Southern California-based trainers, winning with 8 of 28 runners. He was not alone.

Simon Callaghan, Keith Desormeaux, Craig Dollase, Phil D’Amato, Peter Eurton, Craig Lewis, Doug O’Neill, and George Papaprodromou each won at least two races at Golden Gate Fields.

McCarthy won the $75,000 California Oaks with Lily Poo, five races for maidens, an allowance race, and a $12,500 claimer.

In coming months, McCarthy is likely to have runners at Golden Gate Fields for the track’s late summer and autumn meetings, but he spoke recently at his Del Mar stable as if the track had already closed.

“It was a nice outlet to send a horse up there to get a maiden broke or get a little black type with a horse that may be a cut below what it takes to win down here,” he said.

For McCarthy, the Golden Gate program complemented the Santa Anita winter schedule. Both tracks ran three days per week.

“With three days a week, you’re left with limited options at times,” he said. “It puts everyone in a pinch.”

The 2024 Northern California racing calendar has not been finalized. The California Authority of Racing Fairs is preparing a substitute calendar of race meetings based at county fair facilities. The 2024 calendar will be the subject of discussion at Wednesday’s California Horse Racing Board’s dates committee meeting at Del Mar.

Racing dates for 2024 in Northern California will not be finalized until the racing board’s September meeting, at the earliest. The racing board is not scheduled to take action on racing dates at its monthly meeting Thursday.

That leaves Northern California stables in a state of uncertainty for several more weeks, at best. Even if a calendar is finalized, with considerable dates at venues such as Pleasanton or Sacramento, racing will be held far from where many people involved in the sport have homes in the area around Golden Gate Fields.

“It’s unfortunate and I feel bad for everyone that has been up there and has roots there,” McCarthy said. “No one wants to be uprooted and go somewhere.”

In the last 30 years, Hall of Fame trainer Neil Drysdale has won 11 stakes at Golden Gate Fields, including three Grade 2 races – the Golden Gate Handicap with Special Price in 1995 and Time Star in 1996, and the San Francisco Mile in 1998 with Hawksley Hill. Those races were each worth $200,000.

“It was very good if you were trying to develop a horse and get a race in,” Drysdale said of the Northern California circuit. “Over the years, I’ve sent some very good horses up there. There was serious racing.”

The closure of Golden Gate Fields, combined with the cessation of racing at Bay Meadows on the San Francisco side of the Bay Area in 2008, leaves the sport without a presence in close proximity to California’s second most populous region.

The Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton, Calif., is approximately 25 miles from Golden Gate Fields. Pleasanton is expected to have an added role in racing dates aside from its four-week fair meeting in early summer.

The lack of racing close to San Francisco and Oakland could affect the enthusiasm of owners, who may be reluctant to frequently drive longer distances to watch racing at Pleasanton and Sacramento.

“The thing that worries me the most is there is a strong base of owners in San Francisco and the area,” Southern California trainer Leonard Powell said.

“We will lose those owners. People that enjoy having horses at Golden Gate, they’ll weed out those horses and they aren’t going to reinvest.”

Powell has supported racing at Golden Gate Fields in recent years. He won three minor stakes at Golden Gate Fields in 2021 and 2022 with Avenue de France, who won the Grade 2 John Mabee Stakes at Del Mar last September.

Powell predicts that “10 to 20 percent” of the runners based in Northern California would fit the existing racing program at Santa Anita. The loss of a full calendar of racing options in the northern part of the state will have a detrimental effect on many Southern California stables.

“California is already considered an island,” Powell said. “We will be more isolated if we don’t have a second circuit.”