Golden age of racing - dies a little

[jake_fink]

Has this been posted already? Terrible news for me, since I'm a racing nut and I've never been.

Bay Meadows era comes to a close
By Chuck Dybdal
Daily Racing Form
(Archive)
Updated: May 12, 2008, 9:08 PM ET

SAN MATEO, Calif. -- Although two weeks of fair racing is scheduled there for Aug. 6-17, for most people, the Bay Meadows era ended Sunday with the final day of the spring meet.

Appropriately for jockey Russell Baze, who has won more races than any other rider at Bay Meadows - called Baze Meadows by some - what may have been his last ride at the track resulted in a victory, giving him 130 for the meeting and his 40th Bay Meadows riding championship.

Baze will be in England this summer during the Bay Meadows Fair, competing in an international jockey competition.

Redevelopment of the Bay Meadows racetrack property is scheduled to begin after the fair racing dates.
"I really wanted to go out with a win," said Baze after his 11-length victory aboard odds-on Hold the Advantage in the seventh race. "I'm sad to see this place close, but they've been talking about it closing for 20 years. Change is inevitable but not always for the better. I'll miss it."

Baze rode Hold the Advantage for trainer Steve Miyadi, who had three wins Sunday to finish the meet with 54 - only one behind Jerry Hollendorfer as Hollendorfer won his 37th straight Bay Meadows training title. Hollendorfer had clinched the title going into Sunday's card.

Hollendorfer, aware of the changes coming to the Northern California racing scene, has established himself with a solid Southern California-based stable in the past year, ranking in the top 10 at both the Hollywood Park fall meet and Santa Anita 2008 meet, where he won the Santa Anita Handicap with Heatseeker.

There were week-long eulogies about the track, which opened in 1934, in Bay Area newspapers, and television stations flocked to the track for closing-week stories.

The publicity paid off for Bay Meadows, which attracted 14,366 to its final Friday night of racing. The attendance was the largest on-track since 15,425 attended on Labor Day 1992. Sunday's attendance was 8,203.

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/horse/news/story?id=3393396

Here's Seabiscuit entering history at Bay Meadows:

Here is the airport that was there beofre the track:

 

[dhermann1]

It's kind of sad. In 1920 the three most popular sports by far were boxing, baseball and horse racing. All others were way behind. Now boxing and the horses are way down the list. I enjoy watching both, but I'm very ambivalent about them as well. You really have to see both of them as blood sports. This recent tragedy at the Derby brings it home even more. The one difference between boxing and horse racing is that at least human boxers know what they're getting into when they step in the ring. Horses just go where they're led. My grandfather (that's him in my avatar, cool, huh?) was a jockey, and I grew up watching and cheering for the horse moving up on the pack. But I'm starting to lean towards the opinion that there's something not quite right about it.

 

[panamag8or]

I felt this way when Hialeah closed down.

 

[Tomasso]

With the proliferation of legalized casino gambling across America has come the realization that the majority of former horse players were in it for the action, not the sport. [huh]

 

[kpreed]

I worked in Foster City and drove by the track almost every day. I find it so sad
so much is changing, but that is why I moved too.