Bay Meadows Racetrack

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Bay Meadows is a horse racing track in San Mateo, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States.

Contents

[edit] History

Built on the site of an old airfield, Bay Meadows Racecourse is the longest continually operating thoroughbred racetrack in California, having been founded in 1934. The innovative William P. Kyne introduced pari-mutuel wagering, the popular Daily Double, the first all-enclosed starting gate, the totalizator board and the photo-finish camera at Bay Meadows.

The Bay Meadows Handicap is the longest continually run stakes event in California, having been started in 1937. Seabiscuit won this race twice: 1937 and 1938. The track was allowed to remain open during World War II because of its agreement to give 92% of its profits towards the war effort. The track generated more than $4 million for War Relief projects during the war years. Its ability to run during the war accounts for its status as the longest continually operating US racetrack. In 1945, the first racehorse to be transported by plane, El Lobo, was set down in the parking lot.

In 1948, the eventual Hall of Fame jockey, Bill Shoemaker, began his career by exercising horses on this track. He won his first stakes race here in 1949.

In 1954, Determine won the Bay Meadows Handicap and then went to take the Kentucky Derby.

All of the exterior scenes in Stanley Kubrick's 1956 heist movie The Killing were filmed at Bay Meadows. The track was renamed as Landsdowne for the movie, but the Bay Meadows name is visible in at least one early scene of the movie.

Wild Again ran at Bay Meadows in 1984 and then went on to win the Breeders' Cup Classic.

Bay Meadows' racing season begins in August with the San Mateo County Fair portion of the meet, which runs two weeks. This is followed by a short break of a few days; until recently this break avoided conflict with the first week-and-a-half of the California State Fair horse race meet. Racing picks up again on Labor Day Weekend (or thereabouts) with the main throroughbred meet, which is split into two parts--one in the fall, the other in the spring/early summer (Golden Gate Fields' meet takes place in the interim in the winter/early spring).

Throughout its history, Bay Meadows has also hosted harness and quarter horse racing meets, but because of the lack of financial viability these meets currently do not run. Bay Meadows is currently focusing exclusively on thoroughbred racing. Olden Times, Silky Sullivan, Citation, John Henry, Round Table, and Lost in the Fog have raced here.

There has been talk within the past decade of demolishing Bay Meadows due to plans of building an entirely new race track near Dixon, California to replace the San Mateo race track. As these plans are still in development, Bay Meadows remains open on a year-by-year case basis, with the exact date of final closure uncertain. The Bay Meadows Phase II Specific Plan Amendment was adopted by the city council of the city of San Mateo on November 7, 2005 [1]. The plan calls for 1.25 million square feet of office space, 1,250 residential units, 150,000 square feet (14,000 m²) of retail space, and 15 acres of public parks, as well as a rebuilt Hillsdale Caltrain station near the site of the old Bay Meadows Caltrain station.

On December 1, 2006, jockey Russell Baze won the fourth race to pass Laffit Pincay Jr as the winningest rider in thoroughbred horse racing.

[edit] Imminent Closure of Bay Meadows

After the track failed to acquire a 2-year extension of the deadline to replace its dirt oval with an artificial surface for the safety of the horses from the California Horse Racing Board, it was announced that Bay Meadows intended to close November 4, 2006 immediately following its summer-fall season. [1]

However, on July 3, 2007 the California Horse Racing Board unanimously voted to approve a one-year exemption for Bay Meadows to continue horse racing in 2008 on its current racing surface. Bay Meadows will be open to race for its last Spring Meet, February 6, 2008 thru May 11, 2008. [2] There will be ten final races run in August 2008 for the San Mateo County Fair, with the last official race occurring on August 17, 2008.[3] Construction on a housing and commercial development will commence the following month. [3]

[edit] Physical attributes

Bay Meadows has a one mile (1.6 km) dirt oval and a seven furlong turf oval. The track has a total seating capacity of 12,000 and has stabling for 900 horses on site.

[edit] Racing

Bay Meadows has the following graded stakes events:

[edit] Subsurface environment

Depth to groundwater is quite shallow in the local area with groundwater flow in the direction of Seal Slough.[4] There are a number of historic subsurface toxic releases that have affected soil and groundwater in this neighborhood., including the San Mateo City Corporation yard at 1949 Pacific Boulevard; Shell Oil at 20th & El Camino Real; Exxon at 1801 Delaware Street; Shell Oil at 1790 Delaware Street; H.E. Underwood Warehouse at 78 East 21st Avenue; Honda at 101 East 25th Avenue; wherehouse at 1934 El Camino Real. These releases have been partially mitigated to date, but residual levels of petroleum hydrocarbons, benzene, toluene and certain pesticides are present in the groundwater.[5]

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/22/SPGE8OQ4383.DTL Bay Meadows is photo finished, will close in November Retrieved on March 22, 2007.
  2. ^ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/03/SPGRFQQ80S7.DTL Bay Meadows reprieve: Open through 2008 Track can run races in '08 on old surface July 3, 2007, Retrieved on August 19, 2007
  3. ^ a b Roman, Tomas. "Bay Meadows race track closes down", ABC 7 News, 2008-05-11. Retrieved on 2008-05-12. 
  4. ^ Phase I Environmental Site Assessment]], 2070 South Delaware, San Mateo, California, Earth Metrics Report 10276A.002, Nov. 3, 1989
  5. ^ Leaking Underground Storage Tanks List and Files, San Mateo County Environmental Health Department, Redwood City, California (2006)

[edit] External links