by Jerry Klein
Bay Area horsemen lost more than a major Thoroughbred venue when Bay Meadows Race Course called it quits in August.
The San Mateo, California, racetrack also was the year-round base for many trainers and home to hundreds of horses and dozens of backstretch workers. In the wake of its closure, Northern California racing officials considered their options before settling on the Alameda County Fairgrounds at Pleasanton as the most sensible alternative.
Located 40 miles southeast of Golden Gate Fields, the facility hosted its first racing in the late 1800s and runs a thriving county fair meeting in July. In fact, it most likely will be granted Bay Meadows’s racing dates not absorbed by Golden Gate Fields. For that to happen, it needs to install a synthetic track, but while it seeks financing for the upgrade, it has morphed into a year-round training center.
“We considered other sites, including Sacramento,” Golden Gate Fields General Manager Robert Hartman said recently, “but that was too far. Pleasanton is only a few miles further than Bay Meadows and is an easier trip because you don’t have to cross a bridge to get here.”
Hartman said there were 684 horses stabled there—Bay Meadows’s capacity was 700—to complement the 1,370 at Golden Gate. The track issues $115 travel vouchers that trainers redeem for each horse shipped in. Hartman noted that, on average, ten starters per day come from Pleasanton.
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