A look at Golden Gate Fields which opened in 1941 and will close Jun 9, 2024 an East Bay race track and part of the sport’s tradition for decades (file photo San Francisco Chronicle)
On the Golden Gate Fields is closing for good podcast with Augie:
#1 Time has come to it’s end for Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley as the horse track will see it’s last race on June 9th. Attendance has been sparse averaging 2,000 a race at a track that seats over 20,000. What would you say is one of the big reasons for the track’s closing?
#2 The fans who showed up at the track some continued wearing Derby attire where women dressed in summer gowns and fancy hats and the men with their straw hats. That tradition amongst racing fans will be a thing of the past after the 9th of June.
#3 Golden Gate Fields is a part of a long gone history built in 1941 and built at a time when baseball and horse racing were the top sports in America.
#4 The saddest part of the closing of Golden Gate Fields is the employees who will lose their jobs, 500 track workers, jockeys, hotwalkers, exercise riders, grooms, stall muckers, valets, trainer, clerks, security, concession and engineers now all looking for work elsewhere. Some of the track workers might get work someplace like Santa Anita.
#5 Golden Fields was a East Bay institution and now it will be part of history just like the Oakland A’s will be when they leave the East Bay after this season.
Augie Mesenburg is a podcast contributor for http://www.sportsradioservice.com and is a reporter for 1080 KWAI News Radio Honolulu
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