Bay Meadows was a

horse racing Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic pr ...

track Track or Tracks may refer to: Routes or imprints * Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity * Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across * Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...

San Mateo, California San Mateo ( ; ) is a city in San Mateo County, California, on the San Francisco Peninsula. About 20 miles (32 km) south of San Francisco, the city borders Burlingame to the north, Hillsborough to the west, San Francisco Bay and Foster ...

from 1934 until 2008, in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area G ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

History

Built on the site of an old airfield, Bay Meadows Racecourse was the longest continually operating

thoroughbred The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word ''thoroughbred'' is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed. Thoroughbreds are ...

racetrack in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

—having been founded on November 13, 1934—until its closure on August 17, 2008. The innovative William P. Kyne introduced

pari-mutuel Parimutuel betting or pool betting is a betting system in which all bets of a particular type are placed together in a pool; taxes and the "house-take" or "vigorish" are deducted, and payoff odds are calculated by sharing the pool among all winni ...

wagering, the popular Daily Double, the first all-enclosed starting gate, the

totalizator A tote board (or totalisator/totalizator) is a numeric or alphanumeric display used to convey information, typically at a race track (to display the odds or payoffs for each horse) or at a telethon (to display the total amount donated to the chari ...

board and the

photo-finish A photo finish occurs in a sporting race when multiple competitors cross the finishing line at nearly the same time. As the naked eye may not be able to determine which of the competitors crossed the line first, a photo or video taken at the finis ...

camera A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with ...

at Bay Meadows. Prior to the track's closure, the Bay Meadows Handicap had been the longest continually run stakes event in California, having been started in 1934. Seabiscuit won this race twice: 1937 and 1938. The track was allowed to remain open during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

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 Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic pr ...

to be transported by plane, El Lobo, was set down in the parking lot. In 1948, the eventual

Hall of Fame A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actual halls or muse ...

jockey A jockey is someone who rides horses in horse racing or steeplechase racing, primarily as a profession. The word also applies to camel riders in camel racing. The word "jockey" originated from England and was used to describe the individual ...

Bill Shoemaker William Lee Shoemaker (August 19, 1931 – October 12, 2003) was an American jockey. For 29 years he held the world record for total professional jockey victories. Early life Referred to as "Bill", "Willie," and "The Shoe", William Lee Sho ...

, began his career by exercising horses on this track. He won his first stakes race here in 1949. In 1950 and 1951 the Bay Meadows 150 AAA Indy Car race was run at the track. In 1954, 1955 and 1956 the track was used for

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and ...

. In the 1955 event, Elias Bowie became the first African-American to start a top-level

race. All of the exterior scenes in Stanley Kubrick's 1956 heist movie '' The Killing'' were filmed at Bay Meadows. The track was renamed as Lansdowne for the movie but the Bay Meadows name is visible in at least one early scene. Bay Meadows' racing season began in August with the San Mateo County Fair portion of the meet, which ran two weeks. This was followed by a short break of a few days and until recently, this break avoided conflict with the first week-and-a-half of the California State Fair horse race meet. Racing picked up again on

Labor Day Labor Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday in September to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United St ...

Weekend (or thereabouts) with the main thoroughbred meet, which was split into two parts—one in the fall, the other in the spring/early summer (

Golden Gate Fields Golden Gate Fields is an American horse racing track straddling both Albany, California and Berkeley, California along the shoreline of the San Francisco Bay adjacent to the Eastshore Freeway in the San Francisco Bay Area. With the closing of the ...

' meet took place in the interim in the winter/early spring). Throughout its history, Bay Meadows has also hosted

harness A harness is a looped restraint or support. Specifically, it may refer to one of the following harness types: * Bondage harness * Child harness * Climbing harness * Dog harness * Pet harness * Five-point harness * Horse harness * Parrot harness ...

and

quarter horse The American Quarter Horse, or Quarter Horse, is an American breed of horse that excels at sprinting short distances. Its name is derived from its ability to outrun other horse breeds in races of a quarter mile or less; some have been clocked at ...

racing meets but due to the low revenue such events generate, they were not run in the final years of the track. At the end, Bay Meadows focused exclusively on thoroughbred racing.

Olden Times Olden Times (1958–1985) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse. Background Olden Times was conceived in France and bred in California and was raced by Rex Ellsworth, who also bred and raced U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee Swaps. He was con ...

, Silky Sullivan,

Citation A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose o ...

, John Henry,

Round Table The Round Table ( cy, y Ford Gron; kw, an Moos Krenn; br, an Daol Grenn; la, Mensa Rotunda) is King Arthur's famed table in the Arthurian legend, around which he and his knights congregate. As its name suggests, it has no head, implying that ...

and

Lost in the Fog Lost in the Fog (February 4, 2002 – September 17, 2006) was an American thoroughbred race horse. He won his first 10 starts (including two Breeders' Cup stakes), 11 of his 14 lifetime starts across the country, and career earnings of $978,099 ...

have raced here. In 1954,

Determine Determine (April 7, 1951 – September 27, 1972), was an American Thoroughbred race horse. In a racing career which lasted from 1953 through 1955, the California-trained colt ran forty-four times and won eighteen races. His best season was 1954 ...

won the Bay Meadows Derby then went to take the

Kentucky Derby The Kentucky Derby is a horse race held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, almost always on the first Saturday in May, capping the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The competition is a Grade I stakes race for three-yea ...

. Wild Again ran at Bay Meadows in 1984 and went on to win the

Breeders' Cup Classic The Breeders' Cup Classic is a Grade I Weight for Age thoroughbred horse race for 3-year-olds and older run at a distance of on dirt. It is held annually at a different racetrack as part of the Breeders' Cup World Championships in late October ...

. On December 1, 2006, jockey

Russell Baze Russell Avery Baze (born 7 August 1958 ) is a retired horse racing jockey. He holds the record for the most race wins in North American horse racing history, and is a member of the United States Racing Hall of Fame and the State of Washington S ...

won the fourth race to pass

Laffit Pincay, Jr. Laffit Alejandro Pincay Jr. (born December 29, 1946, in Panama City, Panama) was once flat racing's winningest all-time jockey, still holding third place many years after his retirement. He competed primarily in the United States. Career Pinca ...

as the winningest rider ever in thoroughbred horse racing. There was talk through the 2000s of demolishing Bay Meadows due to plans to build an entirely new racetrack near

Dixon, California Dixon is a city in northern Solano County, California, United States, located from the state capital, Sacramento. It has a hot-summer mediterranean climate on the Köppen climate classification scale. Its population was 18,988 at the 2020 cen ...

to replace the San Mateo race track so Bay Meadows remained open on a year-by-year case basis. The Bay Meadows Phase II Specific Plan Amendment was adopted by the city council of the city of San Mateo on November 7, 2005. The plan called for of

office An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific ...

space, 1,250

residential A residential area is a land used in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas. Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single-family housing, multi-family resi ...

units, of

retail Retail is the sale of goods and Service (economics), services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturing, manufacturers, dire ...

space, and of public parks, as well as a rebuilt Hillsdale

Caltrain Caltrain (reporting mark JPBX) is a California commuter rail line serving the San Francisco Peninsula and Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley). The southern terminus is in San Jose at Tamien station with weekday rush hour service running as fa ...

station near the site of the old Bay Meadows Caltrain station.

Physical attributes

Bay Meadows had a dirt oval and a seven furlong [] turf oval. The track had a total seating capacity of 12,000 and had stabling for 900 horses on site.

Closure

After the track failed to acquire a two-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. 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 was open to race for its last Spring Meet, February 6, 2008 to May 11, 2008. From May 14 to August 4, simulcasting occurred in Bay Meadows every open day, with free parking on August 4, free admission on August 11, and both on August 18. There were ten final race dates run in August 2008 for the San Mateo County Fair, with the last official race occurring on August 17, 2008. The last day Bay Meadows was open for simulcasting was on August 18, 2008. An auction for Bay Meadows paintings occurred from August 23 to August 25. Construction began on a housing and commercial development in September 2008. Criticism from local newspapers and community groups came when, after the demolition of the grandstand and clubhouse, debris waiting to be recycled was left in "unsightly" piles on the site for several months.

Racing

Bay Meadows had the following graded stakes events: *Grade 3 Bay Meadows Breeders' Cup Handicap *Grade 3

Bay Meadows Derby The Bay Meadows Derby was an American Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-old horses of either gender on the Longden Turf Course at Bay Meadows Racetrack. Bay Meadows was in San Mateo, California. The Bay Meadows Derby first ran in 1954 on th ...

*Grade 3 California Juvenile Stakes *Grade 3 El Camino Real Derby *Grade 3 Seabiscuit Handicap (Bay Meadows) And the following important ungraded events. * Bay Meadows Breeders' Cup Sprint Handicap *

California Oaks The California Oaks is an American Thoroughbred horse race held annually in February at Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley, California. Open to three-year-old fillies, it is contested on Tapeta Footings synthetic dirt over a distance of a mile and a s ...

, called Bay Meadows Oaks

References

External links