Remembering Harry Aleo (1919-2008)

Commemorating the life of one of San Francisco's and horse racing's most interesting characters

Harry Aleo in his office on May 23, 2008

Proud San Francisco native and resident, minor league baseball player, World War II combat veteran, realtor and landlord, outspoken and unapologetic Republican, sponsor of homeless individuals, hater of laptops and lattes, packrat, and thoroughbred horse owner are all words and phrases that can be used to describe Harry Aleo.

June 21 marks the 13th anniversary of the death of Harry Aleo at the age of 88. Aleo, who spoke in a gruff baritone voice and whose Stetson hat, wool jacket, and blue jeans made him look like he had been airdropped into modern San Francisco from a cattle ranch in Wyoming, was one of the most fascinating characters I met during my time in the horse racing industry.

Victorina, Harry Aleo, jockey Glen Corbett, and trainer Greg Gilchrist in the winner's circle following the 2006 Ahwatukee Express Stakes at Turf Paradise
Coady Photography

Racing fans in North America knew him best as the owner of the 2005 Champion Sprinter Lost in the Fog and graded stakes winners Minutes Away, Victorina, and Smokey Stover. Outside of racing, he was known in the San Francisco neighborhood of Noe Valley as the owner of the infamous office featuring posters, signs, and memorabilia that ranged from generically patriotic (flags and an Uncle Sam statue) to partisan (photos of Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon) to cheeky (a Weekly World News front page with the headline ALIENS SETTLE IN SAN FRANCISCO which Aleo had captioned “WE NOW KNOW WHERE YOU LEFT WING LOONIES CAME FROM”). Over the years, Aleo’s displays inspired ire, laughter, eye rolls, and vandalism. 

It was Aleo’s office, not his racehorses, that was the main angle of stories in the Noe Valley Voice and Wall Street Journal. Like Bay Meadows, Aleo and his Twin Peaks Properties office were anachronisms that had been slowly surrounded and eventually enveloped by elements of the modern bourgeoisie, and he eagerly expressed his displeasure with these trends. A musical instrument shop, Russo Music, now occupies the storefront. “Harry's problem is that he has survived long enough to become a minority in his own neighborhood,” wrote Larry Gallagher about Aleo in 2006 for SFGate.com.

Harry Aleo's business card

I had the fortune of interviewing Aleo at his office on May 23, 2008, approximately one month before his death. I had graduated from the University of Arizona’s Racetrack Industry Program in December 2007, and while I was waiting for a full-time job in racing media I worked a customer service position at Bay Meadows during its final commercial meet (the San Mateo County Fair conducted the track’s final 10 days of racing that August). I had brief conversations with Aleo when he would pass by my booth in the Bay Meadows grandstand. What I really wanted to do, however, was have a longer conversation with him and see his office with my own eyes. I received that opportunity when the Thoroughbred Owners of California asked me to write a short article about the imminent closure of Bay Meadows and the track’s history for its Owners’ Circle magazine. Who better to interview for the story than somebody who had been attending the races at Bay Meadows since the track's first days in the 1930s?

I rode BART to the 24th Street/Mission station and then walked four-fifths of a mile to Aleo’s office. TWIN PEAKS PROPERTIES/HARRY J. ALEO/REALTOR/EST. 1947 read the sign above the front door and windows in a font that looked like it had been taken off an Old West wanted poster. 

The exterior of Twin Peaks Properties on May 23, 2008

Before going in, I took a moment to look at everything on display in the front windows. In addition to the aforementioned photos of Reagan and Nixon, flags, and Uncle Sam statue, there was a “LIBERALS MAKE ME SICK” bumper sticker and a sign reading "IT WILL ALWAYS BE ARMY STREET," an annoyed reference to how the street had been renamed in honor of civil rights activist Cesar Chavez. There were also three additional hand-written signs. One simply stated "ENGLISH SPOKEN HERE." Another one read (complete with a smiley face at the end):

WELCOME TO

LOONEY VALLEY, THE

HEART OF KOOK CITY!

THE HOME OF LAP TOP 

LEFT WING LIBERALS.

THIS IS AN ISLAND OF

TRADITIONAL CONSERVATIVE

VALUES IN A SEA OF 

THE LATTE SIPPING LIBERAL

LOONIES.

☺

And then there was this sign:

SEPT. 7TH WAS THE

60TH ANNIVERSARY

OF TWIN PEAKS PROPERTIES! 

THE OLDEST ORIGINAL OWNER

BUSINESS IN LOONEY VALLEY.

WHEN WE OPENED CABLE CARS

RAN OVER CASTRO ST. THE 

FOX AND NOE THEATERS WERE IN 

THEIR PRIME. THE GOLDEN GATE 

AND BAY BRIDGES WERE ONLY

9 YRS. OLD. HARRY TRUMAN WAS

PRESIDENT. NO STARBUCKS,

NO CELL PHONES, NO LAPTOPS,

NO LATTES. NO LEFT WING 

LIBERAL LOONIES! IT WAS

A GREAT CITY!

CONGRATULATIONS ARE IN ORDER!

DON'T ALL RUSH IN AT ONCE!

Due to the passage of time, I do not remember any specifics about the inside, but I do remember that the combination of patriotic and political memorabilia and old random items made Twin Peaks Properties feel like a cross between a conservative political action committee office and an antiques store. 

Aleo’s secretary took me to the office in the back where Aleo was at his desk. I had already known a lot about his life due to all of the coverage he received when he was campaigning Lost in the Fog and I needed only a brief quote for my article, but I decided to ask him questions covering his entire life. After all, how often do you get to talk to somebody with connections to Seabiscuit, Joe DiMaggio, Branch Rickey, and General George S. Patton?

I asked Aleo, who had been born in San Francisco in 1919, about his childhood. Aleo said he was born to “a couple of dagoes from Old Italy” before describing what Noe Valley was like back then and how it had changed over the decades.

“It was a much nicer time,” Aleo said of the 1930s. “There was a five-and-ten-cent store across the street. A clothing store, a little grocery store. There were three drug stores in this five-block area. We had two theaters on this block. Five gas stations on five blocks. Figure that one out. And of course, Walgreens comes in, RiteAid comes in, Radio Shack comes in, and they pay a lot more money and out go the little mom and pop stores. They got all the chains because they’re the only ones that can afford to pay the money.”

During his adolescence Aleo attended the races for the first time when he visited Tanforan, which was located in San Bruno approximately 10 miles south of San Francisco and nine miles north of where Bay Meadows would be built later that decade. 

“It was exciting as hell,” he recalled. “Crowds of people. Horses come thundering down the stretch and all of that screaming and cheering.”

Aleo was in attendance when Seabiscuit won the 1938 Bay Meadows Handicap in his last of four victorious appearances at the San Mateo track.

“[Seabiscuit] beat a horse named Gosum by about five lengths,” Aleo said of Seabiscuit’s 1938 Bay Meadows Handicap win, exaggerating the actual margin by two lengths. “I’ll never forget that. It was exciting. Thousands of people there, unlike today.”

Racing, however, was not his passion. Baseball was. Aleo played for San Francisco Junior College (now San Francisco City College) and signed a minor-league contract to play third base for the Brooklyn Dodgers organization. 

I had read that Aleo pitched to Joe DiMaggio at one point, and I asked Aleo to tell me the story in his own words. “Oh, come on now!” he protested while giving me a dismissive hand wave. “It’s no big deal!” Following a short pause, he cracked a grin and told me that when he was in college he played a pick-up game against professionals who were spending time in San Francisco before their season started. Aleo got DiMaggio, who was already putting up big numbers for the New York Yankees, to pop out on a curveball. 

Aleo had his 22nd birthday ruined by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in Patton’s Third Army, seeing combat in France, Luxembourg, and Belgium and participating in the relief of the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge. 

He returned to San Francisco after the war and began working part-time for a real estate firm. But Harry had greater ambitions. Six months later, he started his own real estate and insurance brokerage. Sixty years later, Aleo still showed up at the Twin Peaks Properties five days a week.

Aleo and his wife had three daughters before the couple was divorced in the late 1970s. It was around that time when Aleo made his foray into thoroughbred ownership.

“I got an article from a son-in-law—ex-son-in-law, probably the only good thing he ever did— called ‘How to Make Money When Your Horse Loses.’ It’s all about owning horses. How to depreciate them and all of the deductions. That got me into the game. That’s when I bought my first horse. Sonny Shy, right there," Aleo said as he pointed to the winner's circle photo on the wall next to his desk.

From the beginning Aleo teamed with trainer Greg Gilchrist, a third-generation horseman whose training career was delayed by two years spent in Vietnam with the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army. The tandem of veterans had their first stakes success on the local racing scene in 1985 when Minutes Away won the Grade 3 Bay Meadows Derby by seven lengths. In the early 2000s they campaigned minor stakes winners Beyond Brilliant, Taraval, and Frisco Belle.

It was Lost in the Fog, a speedy bay colt with an off-center blaze, who brought national recognition to Aleo and allowed him to tour the country as the sprinter won major races at many of the country’s best tracks. 

The saga of Lost in the Fog could warrant its own blog post, but I will provide a brief-ish version. Aleo purchased Lost in the Fog privately after bidding on the Florida-bred son of Lost Soldier when he did not meet his reserve at the 2004 OBS March sale of 2-year-olds in training. Lost in the Fog broke his maiden by 7 ½ lengths in his debut in November 2004 at Golden Gate Fields, then set a Turf Paradise 6 ½-furlong track record of 1:13.55 (a record which still stands) when crushing the competition in the Arizona Juvenile in December. To begin his 3-year-old campaign, he rattled off wins in the Ocala Stud Dash and Grade 2 Swale at Gulfstream Park and Grade 3 Bay Shore on Wood Memorial day at Aqueduct Racetrack. He set a six-furlong track record of 1:07.32 when defeating two opponents in the Golden Bear at Golden Gate, displayed his mettle when turning back the promising but ultimately ill-fated Egg Head in the Grade 2 Riva Ridge on the Belmont Stakes undercard, and registered easy victories in the Grade 2 Carry Back at Calder Race Course and Grade 1 King’s Bishop at Saratoga Race Course on Travers day.

Lost in the Fog and Russell Baze winning the 2005 Grade 1 King's Bishop at Saratoga
Coglianese Photos

When shooting his documentary about Aleo and Lost in the Fog, filmmaker John Corey caught Aleo as he walked into the paddock, saw the statue of the 1993 Kentucky Derby and Travers winner Sea Hero, and scoffed, “Sea Hero? He wasn’t that great.” Moments before the horses entered the gate for the King’s Bishop, ESPN’s Quint Kessenich stuck a microphone in Aleo’s face, leading to a memorable exchange:

KESSENICH: Harry, what is the price tag on this horse?

ALEO: There is no price tag.

KESSENICH: Why wouldn’t you sell?

ALEO: What?

KESSENICH: Why wouldn’t you sell this horse?

ALEO: Why wouldn’t I sell‽ If I sold him, then I wouldn’t have the horse, now would I?

KESSENICH: What kind of impact has he had on your life?

ALEO: It’s exciting. Thrilling. One of the most important things ever in my life.

KESSENICH: You played minor league baseball. You battled in World War II, the Battle of the Bulge. How does this compare to those lifetime moments?

ALEO: How am I going to compare this great horse, winning eight in a row, with the Battle of the goddamn Bulge? Forget it.

Bay Meadows added a sprint stakes, the Bay Meadows Speed Handicap, to its stakes calendar, to attract Lost in the Fog, who proceeded to extend his winning streak to 10 with a dominating win over four overmatched opponents. The alternative newspaper SF Weekly published a feature story about Lost in the Fog and his appearance at Bay Meadows. In the article, Aleo offered the following explanation for why he steadfastly refused to sell Lost in the Fog, despite the lucrative offers he had received.

“The horse is not for sale. All this excitement and fun I'm having, just to get some money? Then what? Then I've got to start looking for a good horse again? These don't come around once in a million. So I'll run the horse. After a couple years, I'll retire him to stud.

“A lot of people sell 'em right away. Like Smarty Jones. They sold him for $38 million. The guy is older than I am — he's in a goddamn wheelchair. What's he going to do with $38 million that he can't do now, you know what I mean?”

Lost in the Fog disappointed when he finished seventh in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint in October at Belmont, pressing the pace and leading briefly on the turn before fading in midstretch. Despite the off-the-board performance in his first graded stakes start versus older horses, Lost in the Fog was later awarded the 2005 Eclipse Award for Champion Sprinter.

Following a layoff, Lost in the Fog began his 4-year-old season in April in the Golden Gate Fields Sprint, finishing second by three lengths after being outdueled by Carthage, a solid-but-unspectacular local horse from the barn of Art Sherman. Lost in the Fog seemed to be rounding back into form when he defeated eventual Dubai Golden Shaheen winner Kelly’s Landing with a 1 ¼-length victory in the Grade 3 Aristides in June at Churchill Downs, but something appeared to be wrong when Lost in the Fog was uncharacteristically dull when seventh a month later in the Grade 2 Smile Sprint Handicap at Calder. Aleo and Gilchrist soon learned the reason why the colt had lost his brilliance. Lost in the Fog had two large, inoperable tumors and he was euthanized September 17, 2006, a little less than 12 months after approximately 10,000 spectators had packed Bay Meadows when he won the Bay Meadows Speed Handicap.

For whatever reason, I do not have quotes from my interview with Aleo about Lost in the Fog, other than the quote I used in my Owners’ Circle article: “I know I saw Seabiscuit run [at Bay Meadows]. Noor. Citation. I saw John Henry. Cigar. And my Lost in the Fog was one of the greatest.” I did not use the other quote he gave me: “We don’t need another goddamn development!”

At some point, Aleo’s secretary came into the room carrying a bottle of pomegranate juice. She said, “Harry, I want you to drink some of this.” “Ahh, I don’t want to drink any of that crap!” Aleo protested. Aleo then took a sip, grimaced as if he had tasted rancid milk, and pushed the bottle away.

Despite the death of Lost in the Fog, Aleo’s racing operation remained strong. Smokey Stover won four stakes in 2007, including the Grade 2 Potrero Grande and Grade 3 Bay Meadows Sprint. At the recently concluded Bay Meadows meet, two of Aleo’s fillies had bookended the stakes schedule as the promising 3-year-old sprinter High Resolve won the Princess on opening weekend and the late-blooming 4-year-old Wild Promises won the Mother’s Day Handicap on closing day. Victorina, who had won the 2006 Grade 3 Azalea, was about to make her 5-year-old debut. It seemed as if Aleo was poised to find himself in the winner’s circle following stakes races well into the future, but it was not meant to be. He casually mentioned during the interview that he was ill, and I asked him what the matter was. Pancreatic cancer, he said. I muttered something like, “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that” before I awkwardly continued with my questions.

Sixteen days following my visit to Twin Peaks Properties, Victorina won the Washington State Legislators Handicap at Emerald Downs. Thirteen days after that, I was visiting the Golden Gate Fields press box on closing day for the spring meet when I discovered that the track’s publicist, Tom Farrell, was writing Harry Aleo’s obituary, having learned that morning that Aleo had succumbed to the disease that had claimed Lost in the Fog 19 months earlier. I will always be grateful for how Aleo took two hours of his little remaining time to talk to me, a young and green wannabe turf writer. 

Aleo’s horses continued to compete through 2009, but he was not there to enjoy their successes. Wild Promises won the 2008 Grade 3 My Charmer in December at Calder and Aleo’s estate won two races at Gulfstream on Sunshine Millions Day one month later, with Wild Promises taking the Filly & Mare Turf and High Resolve capturing the Filly & Mare Sprint. The Aleo colors were carried to victory twice during the final meet at Bay Meadows, with Victorina defeating her younger stablemate High Resolve in an allowance and the otherwise undistinguished Gherig breaking his maiden on the final day of racing at the Peninsula track. Victorina added wins in minor stakes at Golden Gate, Fresno, and Santa Anita to her catalogue page and on December 26, 2009 she became the last horse to carry Aleo’s flame orange silks when she finished fourth in Turf Paradise’s Kachina Handicap.

Aleo’s death was covered by racing trade publications and Bay Area newspapers, with the San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate.com and the Noe Valley Voice running lengthy obituaries. The Voice obituary included numerous tributes from neighbors, a few of which I will share here.

Carol Yenne, who owned the children’s clothing store next to Aleo’s office, talked about how Aleo would sponsor local homeless individuals and one time bought a panhandler a bus ticket to his family’s home. The man reconciled with his family and sent Aleo a postcard to thank him. “Outwardly, [Aleo] could appear to be a hard shell, a curmudgeonly conservative,” Yenne told the Voice. "But he was really an authentic, caring, personable individual.”

Bevan Dufty, the Democratic supervisor of Noe Valley, talked about how he and Aleo worked together, “even though I was gay and there were some things about me that Harry didn't get.” Aleo supported 2002 Dufty’s campaign, going as far as placing one of Dufty’s campaign posters in his window next to a picture of Ronald Reagan. “I was momentarily agasp," Dufty told the Voice. “‘People are going to think I’m a Republican!’”

Others talked about how Aleo would give books and candy to children at local events and how he purchased an abandoned movie theatre and donated the property to the city so they could turn it into a much-needed parking lot. 

The article also included quotes from Joel Panzer, who also rented properties in the area. Panzer said he offered to manage Aleo’s properties and mentioned that he could make more money by raising the rents, but Aleo refused to relinquish control or change his rents.

The 2009 Wall Street Journal (paywall) article about Aleo and his office included quotes from Panzer about his desire to create a Noe Valley history museum, which would include a Harry Aleo exhibit. After reading that article as part of my research for this story, I decided to track down Panzer and ask him about the fate of Aleo’s office decorations and if he had any additional anecdotes about Aleo that he would be willing to share. 

Panzer, who described himself as a “neighbor, competitor, and friend” of Aleo’s, told me that the museum never came to fruition but he found a different way to share some of the San Francisco history Aleo had squirreled away in his office. 

“I saved a lot of his stuff and I had entertained thoughts that I would [put everything together for an exhibit], but I don’t see it happening now,” said Panzer. “Harry’s office was like a little slice of time. For a while I had all of his real estate records for years and years, but it became too cumbersome to keep in my house. So, eventually, I had to get rid of them. If I found a few that were in my immediate neighborhood, I pulled them out and gave them to the people who owned the property now. ‘Do you want to see what your house sold for in 1953?’”

One historical gem of Aleo’s that stood out to Panzer was a newspaper from when President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

“He had a bunch of detritus and old papers, and one day he came out and he gave me this folder and said, ‘Look at this.’ It was a copy of the New York Herald that was published on the day Lincoln was assassinated,” said Panzer. “I love history and the front page of the paper was talking about the end of the Civil War and the surrender of the [the Confederacy]. Papers were set with individual pieces of type, and they had the entire front page set and the next thing they know as they are about to run the paper is that Lincoln has been assassinated and the secretary of war has been wounded terribly. So, they strike it and flip it over and print ‘LINCOLN ASSASSINATED.’ He had this in a manila folder in one of his file drawers. So I said, ‘Can I read this?’ And he said, ‘Sure!’ It was fascinating and I did not want anything bad to happen to it, so I took it to a frame store, which was one of his tenants, and I had it framed and I brought it back to him. It disappeared, but it was like, ‘Harry, you got this kind of stuff? What else is in here?’”

Aleo had lived through significant history himself, but Panzer did not know much about Aleo’s participation in World War II until one evening when he hosted Aleo and let his guest thumb through various history books, including a book that compiled British newspaper front pages during the World War I era. 

“[The book] had pictures of soldiers in a trench and it’s wintertime,” said Panzer. “You can see the cold and the pain in their faces. Harry was looking through the pages as I was looking for other things to share with him. He stopped and he stared at the page and he said, ‘Now, I can relate to this.’ And he had this look on his face like he was there. I looked at him and said, ‘You were at Bastogne, weren’t you?’ And he says, ‘Yeah, with General Patton.’ So, that was an epiphany for me. Then he told me a story which showed how he looked at life. He was on patrol with a few other guys. They had spent the night in this bombed out farmhouse. They got up and left and they were going down the road, and Harry said, ‘I gotta go back’ because there was a crucifix he had seen on the wall. He went back to get the crucifix and when he got back to his buds, they were dead.”

Panzer said Aleo’s life experiences when he was younger shaped the person who became the outspoken Noe Valley conservative and the thoroughbred owner who refused to sell his brilliantly fast sprinter.

“Harry was a Republican who was [financially] tight, but he believed in paying it forward,” said Panzer. “I told Harry I could get him more rent, but his response was surprising. He said, ‘After I got out of the Army, my wife and I had a damned tough time finding a place to live. If somebody hadn’t cut us a little slack, we never would have gotten a place. So, I’m just trying to do the same thing.’

“He survives poverty, growing up during the Depression. He plays baseball and then the war breaks out. He survives the war and comes home probably penniless. He has a wife and a child and has to find a place to live and build a whole new life. All of his dreams of playing baseball and doing things that are fun and exciting are gone. He starts a business, which is a success. [He gets Lost in the Fog], and then what happens? At the very pinnacle he gets knocked off again.”

Aleo, however, was not one to lament his misfortune. He described himself as “lucky” when speaking to Mary Forney for a 2005 profile in Owners’ Circle during the height of Lost in the Fog mania. “I got to Paris after the war when they drew two names out of a hat, out of our whole regiment, for a three-day pass,” said Aleo. “Then, when we were in England they drew two names for 48 hours in London, and I was one of them… I win all the time – it’s so funny!”

And I would say Noe Valley and the sport of horse racing were lucky to have had a colorful character like Harry Aleo.

The crowded winner's circle following Lost in the Fog's victory in the 2005 Bay Meadows Speed Handicap, with Lost in the Fog and groom Pascual Garcia in the background
Vassar Photography

Q&A with Ed Burgart

An interview with the renowned announcer with a focus on his time calling the quarter horse races at Bay Meadows

On May 18, I interviewed Ed Burgart, who is best known for his announcing work at Los Alamitos Race Course until his retirement in 2019. Burgart's announcing career began in 1979 at Bay Meadows, where he called every quarter horse meet until 1991, the final year of quarter horse racing at the Northern California track. I was a few days short of turning 6 years old when the final Bay Meadows quarter horse meet ended and I have only one hazy memory of attending quarter horse racing on the San Francisco Peninsula. I wanted to learn more about the history of quarter horse racing at Bay Meadows, and Burgart kindly agreed to this interview, which has been edited slightly for clarity.

Ed Burgart
Los Alamitos photo

Can you tell us about how you were introduced to horse racing?

My dad owned a liquor store, but he loved to play the horses. He started taking me to the racetrack when I was about 4, 5 years old. I just fell in love with the sport. I would get on his shoulders to watch some of the big races at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park. I remember Silver Spoon and Hillsdale, who were the big horses in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By the time I was in second grade, I was bringing the Racing Form to class and sneaking it between my books. I enjoyed the aspect of handicapping and mathematics and putting figures together. My father told me, “If you don’t get a ‘B’ average, I won’t take you to the track.” That encouraged me to keep my grades up.

How did you go from attending UCLA to working in horse racing?

I attended UCLA 1970 to 1974. I was the sports editor of the UCLA Daily Bruin in 1974 and covered all of the basketball games [featuring] Bill Walton. I was able to travel around the country, but I would still go to the track as often as I could, to Hollywood Park in particular because it was so close to UCLA. I was still really involved in watching horses run. [Turf writer and handicapper] Gordon Jones spoke in one of my journalism classes. That encouraged me to talk to him. He said, “If you want to come out to Hollywood Park one weekend with me, I’ll take you up to the press box and show you around.” That’s how I got introduced to a lot of people at Hollywood Park at that time. Harry Henson was the announcer, Nat Wess was involved in publicity, and with Gordon Jones and some of the other people there I was able to make early contacts into horse racing.

When did you first start working in racing and in what roles?

I first went to work for a newspaper in Costa Mesa called the Orange Coast Daily Pilot, which was a subsidiary of the [Los Angeles] Times at the time. It was a smaller paper and I was a sports writer, but I also was going to Los Alamitos Race Course and writing stories about jockeys and trainers who lived in the area. I told Bruce Rimbo, who was the publicity director at the time, “If anything opens up at Los Alamitos, please keep me in mind.” A position opened in 1977. Ted Dale was doing the results for the radio stations and he basically was their TV person at the track. He was doing interviews in the winner’s circle and results for the radio stations. He left and I got that job, and that’s how I got involved at Los Alamitos. 

How did you come to work at Bay Meadows?

Jim Smith was the general manager of the Horsemen’s Quarter Horse Racing Association, which leased the winter meet at Los Alamitos. For the Peninsula Quarter Horse Racing Association, he was the general manager of that. They leased the meet at Bay Meadows. He thought it would be a good idea for me to come up and do the morning line and do interviews and announcements between races. I came up to Bay Meadows in 1979. Tod Creed was the announcer. Bobby Doyle had been the quarter horse announcer, but Bobby was getting close to retirement and decided he did not want to go to Bay Meadows. Tod Creed let me call the last race one day. I had expressed an interest in calling a race. Everybody said what a great job I did. Tod was sick for the next three days, and I got thrown to the wolves. I had to call three full days with only one race on my résumé. Everybody loved the work I did and I got hired the next year as the announcer at Bay Meadows before getting hired at Los Alamitos soon after. 

What was it like calling those early races? In quarter horse racing, you have zero margin for error.

I had been involved in a handicapping publication at Los Alamitos called Quarter Horse Report. I was watching a lot of head-on shots of replays and different angles. The outside horses would appear to have an advantage on the head-on shot. On the pan shot the optical illusion would make it look like the inside horses had an advantage. It kind of came naturally to me. When the horses came out of the gate, I was able to pick up what horses were breaking good on the outside and the horses that were breaking good or not breaking so good on the inside. I fell into a rhythm like that.

What years did you work as the full-time quarter horse announcer at Bay Meadows?

I started in 1980 as the quarter horse announcer and called every quarter horse season until the last season in 1991.

When did you start announcing full time at Los Alamitos?

Full time, probably not until 1990 or 1991. I called the winter meet there. Millie Vessels owned the track and they had Terry Gilligan as the announcer during the summer meets after Bobby Doyle retired. Marje Everett when she bought Los Alamitos in 1986 kept Terry as the announcer for the summer meets. I just called the winter meet at Los Al and the meet at Bay Meadows until I got the full-time position for all the meets in 1991.

If we go back to 1980 or so, can you tell me what the quarter horse racing calendar was like?

Los Alamitos ran two meets. They ran a winter meet. I want to say the dates were November to late January or early February. There was the meet at Bay Meadows, which I want to say started in the middle of February and went to the middle of April. And then Los Alamitos had a summer meet after that. That was the longest meet of the year. I’m trying to remember the exact dates. You could probably say it went from May to September.

How did the quality of racing at Bay Meadows compare to the quality at Los Alamitos?

The quality at Los Alamitos was better. There were several reasons for that. Bay Meadows was a meet where a lot of horsemen would get their 2-year-olds ready to run. All the big races for 2-year-olds other than the Bay Meadows Futurity were run at Los Alamitos and the major races for older horses were run down there. It was a cheaper group of horses who came to Bay Meadows, but they did have the Golden State Derby and a couple of races that got some top-notch 3-year-olds and older horses, but generally I would say it was a notch below the quality of racing at Los Alamitos.

What were the top races during the Bay Meadows quarter horse meet?

The Golden State Derby probably was the top race. There was the Peninsula Championship for the older horses and, of course, the Bay Meadows Futurity. Those would have been the three major races. There were some great horses who won the Bay Meadows Futurity. Merridoc (1979) won it before I came up there. Eastex, who went on to win the All American Futurity, also was victorious in the Futurity (1984) there. And we had Tolltac, who went on to win the Golden State Futurity (1983) and Golden State Derby (1984). Corona Chick ran there. She did not win the Bay Meadows Futurity (1991), but she went on to win 13 in a row after she ran at Bay Meadows. 

Merridoc winning a trial for the 1979 Bay Meadows Futurity
Bay Meadows track photo/Shane Burke personal collection

Are there any other top horses who come to mind?

The Black Alliance won the Peninsula Championship in 1984. 1991 was the last year with quarter horses up there. I believe that was the year Corona Chick ran in the Bay Meadows Futurity. Ed Grimley won the race. I would rank Corona Chick, Tolltac, and Eastex as the three best horses I saw up there. 

In addition to those top horses and big races, do any moments stand out to you?

I used to have people come up periodically and stand outside the announcer’s booth if they wanted to watch me call a race. I had a friend who was a bartender who came up there. He did not realize he was supposed to keep his mouth shut. At the sixteenth pole he started getting real excited and was screaming and was using some profanity. I had to shut my microphone during the race. That was the only time I ever did that. 

As far as the actual race calling, I believe we had the first quarter horse race on the grass there. I had never seen quarter horses run on the grass. Bob Wuerth was the publicity director at the time for the quarter horse meet as well as the thoroughbred meet. He got us a lot of good PR out of that race on the turf. Of course, the thoroughbred trainers weren’t particularly fond of us doing that. They thought that because of how hard the quarter horses came out of the gate that it was going to tear up the turf course, so that was the only race we ran on the grass. 

What would you say were the distinguishing characteristics of Bay Meadows?

I would definitely say the indoor paddock. I thought that was a definite plus as far as people getting a close-up view of the horses before they came out to the walking ring. I loved the scenery, calling the races from the roof up there. You had a lot of beautiful homes to look at and you could look at the hills behind you. Probably the biggest detriment was wind. We had some really windy days up there and it would get a little scary when it would get windy. 

What were handle and attendance like for the quarter horse meets?

When I first went up there, I believe we were racing Thursday through Monday. There was no racing at Golden Gate on Sunday at the time early in my days announcing up there. We would have Sunday afternoon racing and evening racing the other three days. I would say the crowds on the weekend might have been three, four thousand people. We never got the crowds the thoroughbreds got. The first five or six years I was up there was before we had simulcast wagering. I can’t exactly recall what the mutuel handle might have been. It might have been $400,000 to $500,000 a day. It would be a little higher on the big days. It was considerably lower than what they were handling on the thoroughbred racing, but we were still holding our own. 

Did you know anybody who would attend Golden Gate during the day and Bay Meadows at night?

Some of my friends would go to Golden Gate in the daytime and then come back. There were some hardcore players who loved going day and night, but I don’t know how many there were. I definitely think once simulcast wagering came around where they could stay at one track, it made it a lot easier instead of going back and forth.

From what I have read on the Bay Meadows Racing Memories Facebook group page, it seems like the quarter horse racing community at Bay Meadows was close knit. Is that a fair assessment?

A lot of the business owners couldn’t wait for the quarter horse meet to start because there was a lot more camaraderie. You got more groups coming together than you did during the thoroughbred meets. You had places like the Hillsdale Inn, The Van’s Restaurant, the Villa Hotel. A lot of horsemen would go there and it would always be bigger than two or three people. You would always have groups together. It was kind of a vacation for a lot of the horsemen that got out of Southern California. They didn’t make a lot of money because of the expenses, but they really enjoyed the atmosphere and going to a lot of the really good restaurants like Original Joe’s in downtown San Francisco and several of the places in Foster City.

During the 1980s there were a lot of changes in the San Francisco Bay Area as you had the rise of Silicon Valley and the tech industry. Did you notice any of those changes?

I did not notice a big difference, but I noticed a difference when I came back in 2008 to call that quarter horse race. I had not been there in a number of years. I noticed the difference then. I pretty much did my work and frequented the same places, so I did not notice a major change [in the 1980s].

Did you ever attend the thoroughbred racing at Bay Meadows, either in the 1980s or after the quarter horse meets ended?

I worked one of the thoroughbred meets with Art Lobato. I was working in group sales. I want to say it was 1981. We were doing some interviews in the winner’s circle between races. We had the jockeys from out of the country come in for that all-star competition. I was one of the hosts for that and was able to go to some of the restaurants in San Francisco. I would come back and watch thoroughbred races at Bay Meadows periodically after 1991 just because I made a lot of friends up there. I would go to Golden Gate as well. I met Larry Collmus when I was the announcer at Bay Meadows, and we became really good friends.

Why did quarter horse racing come to an end at Bay Meadows?

There was the expense factor. It was hard to get a lot of horsemen to come up there. I know that Ed Allred and a lot of people wanted to get a year-round circuit in Southern California and have more racing down there because it would ease the expenses of having to come up to Bay Meadows. I don’t know if there was a problem with the lease and why they stopped in 1991, but we ended up picking up those dates and running them at Hollywood Park. We were able to get more dates to Los Alamitos. It’s 12 months a year now, but it used to be quarter horse racing for an ‘X’ number of months and harness racing for an ‘X’ number of months. Basically, in the wintertime when we used to go to Bay Meadows up until 2000, the 2-year-olds would go to some of the training facilities at Fairplex Park, Galway Downs, and San Luis Rey and get ready to run at Los Alamitos. 

How did you get the opportunity to call the San Mateo Stakes for quarter horses on the final day of racing at Bay Meadows in August 2008?

[Bay Meadows simulcast director] Kay Webb had called me, and because I was the announcer there during the last quarter horse meet she thought it would be more than appropriate for me to call the final quarter horse race. Michael Wrona, the thoroughbred announcer at the time, was fine with that. My wife and I spent a couple of days up there at The Van’s Restaurant and we stayed at the Belmont Motel. 

How would you summarize your time calling quarter horse racing at Bay Meadows?

I think what stands out the most is how it’s where I got my start. I called my first race ever there at Bay Meadows in 1979. I called some great horses there. We added Arabians to some of our racing programs in the late 1980s, so I was able to get a little practice calling longer races. We ran a good number of 870 races there as well. As for one particular race, I would have to say Tolltac winning the Golden State Derby is the race that stands out the most in my mind. You just don’t win by that big of a margin in quarter horse racing, especially in a major race. 

Rombauer and the Royal Road to the Preakness Winner's Circle

Rombauer and jockey Kyle Frey win the 2021 El Camino Real Derby
Vassar Photography/Golden Gate Fields

On the first floor of the Bay Meadows Race Course clubhouse there was a narrow hallway with exposed aggregate flooring about 15 yards long that led from the horse path to a small room containing a deli, a bar, and a few betting windows. Along the hallway's walls were framed 8 ½ x 11 photos depicting all of the winners of the El Camino Real Derby when the race was contested at Bay Meadows, located along the historic El Camino Real, the road that linked the 21 Spanish missions in California.

By 2003, I was in high school and the El Camino Real Derby had been relocated to Golden Gate Fields due to racing calendar changes implemented by Magna Entertainment, which at the time owned Golden Gate and leased Bay Meadows. I would make occasional trips with my father to Bay Meadows for simulcasting during the offseason when the clubhouse’s downstairs deli/bar and betting windows were closed. Between races I would in solitude walk down the dimly lit and almost entirely silent hallway and think about the racing history captured within the El Camino photos. 

Northern California racing is what could be generously called a “B-circuit,” and by the time the 21st century had arrived star horses and horsemen were seldom seen at Bay Meadows. I would envy racing fans in Southern California, New York, Florida, and Kentucky who routinely got to see the sport’s elite participants. The photos would take me back to a bygone era when the stars, equine and human alike, would at least on occasion compete in front of packed grandstands at the humble but historic track on the San Francisco Peninsula in the city of San Mateo.

There was a photo showing the inaugural (1982) El Camino Real Derby winner, the one-eyed Cassaleria, the subject of his own Sports Illustrated article. There was a photo of Ruhlman, who went on to win the Santa Anita Handicap as a 5-year-old, crushing the competition in the 1988 edition of the El Camino, with the winner’s circle shot showing Pat Day patting the horse’s neck and a young Bobby Frankel displaying his characteristic sly smirk. There were photos of Ron McAnally’s consecutive El Camino Real Derby winners Silver Ending (1989) and the stub-tailed Sea Cadet (1990), both of whom went on to become Grade 1 winners who earned more than seven figures. And there were photos of Casual Lies (1992) and Cavonnier (1996), two horses who broke their maidens at Santa Rosa, won the El Camino, and finished second in the Kentucky Derby. The 1998 photo showed the locally based Event of the Year, who was expected to be the betting favorite in the Kentucky Derby but missed the race due a knee injury he suffered the week before the race.

The theme that stood out the most was how the El Camino Real Derby had at one time been a frequent stepping stone to Preakness Stakes glory. The photo from 1984 showed eventual Preakness winner Gate Dancer wearing his customary blinkers and earmuffs as he chased home that year’s El Camino Real Derby victor French Legionaire. The next two photos showed Tank’s Prospect and Snow Chief, the first two horses to win both the El Camino and the Preakness. The 1994 photo showed Tabasco Cat, who went on to win the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, capturing the El Camino in his first start since severely injuring D. Wayne Lukas’ son Jeff in a collision at Santa Anita (the younger Lukas had emerged from a coma six days prior to the El Camino). Lukas, who also trained Tank’s Prospect, narrowly missed an El Camino triple when Charismatic fell a head short of the California-bred Cliquot in the 1999 El Camino; Charismatic later became the first (and so far only) El Camino starter to win the Kentucky Derby and then in his next start became the El Camino’s fifth competitor to wear the Black-Eyed Susans.

The El Camino Real Derby hallway in the Bay Meadows clubhouse (2007)
Jim Fetter/Bay Meadows

The El Camino Real Derby initially was a companion race to the El Camino Real Stakes, a race for 2-year-olds conducted at Bay Meadows every November. The Derby eventually overshadowed the Stakes, which was contested for the final time in 1984. In 2001, Magna Entertainment, which at the time owned Golden Gate Fields and leased Bay Meadows, made major changes to the Northern California racing calendar that resulted in the relocation of the El Camino Real Derby to Golden Gate Fields on the Albany/Berkeley border in the East Bay. The race returned to Bay Meadows in 2005 for the track’s final four years before its closure, with Golden Gate becoming the race’s permanent home in 2009.

A combination of schedule changes, the switch from dirt to Golden Gate’s Tapeta Footings surface, cuts to the Northern California stakes program, and the overall decline of Northern California racing caused the El Camino’s prestige to slowly wane, culminating in the loss of its graded status in 2018. The race in the 21st century still attracted a few nice horses (Captain Squire, Ten Most Wanted, Buzzards Bay, Bold Chieftain, and Silver Medallion come to mind) and the 2012 edition was particularly strong (the winner Daddy Nose best went on to win graded stakes on dirt and turf; third-place finisher Handsome Mike won the Grade 2 Pennsylvania Derby, and sixth-place finisher Lady of Fifty captured the Grade 1 Clement L. Hirsch), but 13 of the 21 El Camino Real Derby winners between 2000 and 2020 never won a graded stakes following the El Camino and four of them ended their careers in cheap claiming races. 

After watching Rombauer blow past Midnight Bourbon and Medina Spirit to win the Preakness by 3 1/2 lengths, I immediately thought of the El Camino Real Derby hallway and the race’s golden age when it produced five Preakness winners in 16 years.

Rombauer, second in the Grade 1 American Pharoah and fifth in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile as a 2-year-old, made his 3-year-old debut in the El Camino, rallying from 11 ½ lengths back to defeat the filly Javanica by a neck. After finishing third, beaten 5 ¾ lengths in the Grade 1 Blue Grass at Keeneland, Rombauer had enough points to compete in the Kentucky Derby, but his owners John and Diane Fradkin elected to bypass the race and instead compete in the Preakness.

When speaking to the media following Rombauer’s Preakness victory, Diane Fradkin said, “We won the El Camino Real Derby. That was our Derby.”

I was surprised to learn the Fradkins hold the El Camino in such high esteem, given the race’s ungraded status and the fact that they live in Southern California, home of highly regarded Derby preps like the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby and Grade 2 San Felipe. I decided to call Rombauer’s trainer Michael McCarthy and ask him about how Rombauer came to use the El Camino as a springboard to the Preakness. McCarthy had won the 2018 El Camino with Paved (so far the only filly to win the race in its 40-year history) and saddled Connemara to victory in 2010 edition as an assistant to Todd Pletcher, but those runners had pedigrees that suggested that turf and synthetic races, not the Triple Crown series, were in their future.

“[The El Camino Real Derby] was more or less John [Fradkin’s] choice,” explained McCarthy. “I would have liked to have run right out of my stall [at Santa Anita]. All things being equal, I just feel it’s easier on a horse. If we had run in one of these preps at Santa Anita, he would have run a mile or a mile and a sixteenth. I did not think that running a mile and an eighth on a surface that was foreign to him and putting him on a van was in his best interest, but he’s a very smart horse. It was unconventional, but he was afforded a free entry into the Preakness because he won the El Camino Real Derby.”

In the El Camino on February 13, Rombauer was unhurried as he trailed the field in eighth before commencing a rally with a half mile to travel in the 1 ⅛-mile event. After angling between rivals midway on the far turn and swinging to the six path near the quarter pole, Rombauer rapidly gained on the leaders under jockey Kyle Frey’s left-handed drive and collared Javanica 30 yards from the wire en route to a neck victory.

“I have to thank Kyle Frey,” said McCarthy. “We were further back than we would have liked, but he was able to get his nose down at the wire. Good thing he did or maybe none of this is possible.”

Following the El Camino, McCarthy and the Fradkins debated where to run Rombauer next before circumstances led them to the Grade 2 Blue Grass on April 3 at Keeneland.

“After winning the El Camino, I would have been happy to run out of our stall in the Santa Anita Derby,” said McCarthy. “John did a lot of hard studying and numbers work and thought a race like the Wood Memorial would have been a great spot, but Tex Sutton was not flying to New York at that time and when shipping into New York you usually end up training at Belmont and shipping into Aqueduct for the day, so the logistics were not easy. We ended up in the Blue Grass by chance. At that point, I was happy just to get the horse started somewhere.”

Rombauer in the Blue Grass stalked the early pace along the rail in third, got shuffled back to sixth on the backstretch, advanced back into third going into the far turn, briefly fell back to fourth while being scrubbed by Florent Geroux, and lost ground in the stretch to the top-two finishers Essential Quality and Highly Motivated but stayed on well enough to take show honors.

“You don’t always like to ship out of state to race against the 2-year-old champion in Essential Quality, but [Rombauer] showed up,” said McCarthy. “He had been training well and the race was basically paceless on paper and we needed to keep the horse closer to the pace than we would have liked. I think that may have taken a little bit of the starch out of him, but he ran well in defeat and his gallop out was fantastic.”

McCarthy believes Rombauer would have given a good account of himself in the Kentucky Derby, but the Fradkins never wavered in their desire to skip the race in favor of the Preakness.

“I was bullish on running in the Derby,” said McCarthy. “John and Diane felt like the Preakness was the way to go. We had a couple of discussions, but I never really pushed it.”

The Preakness results make it difficult to question the Fradkins' decision as Rombauer made a steady run from sixth to challenge the leaders at the top of the stretch before driving clear to a 3 ½-length victory under jockey Flavien Prat.

“There were three or four different points during the race when I was content with our position and thought we were moving well,” said McCarthy. “At the 3 ½-furlong pole, I started to think the horse was moving better than a few others. There was a marquee or stage in the infield and I had a hard time seeing what was going on, so I looked over to the matrix board. When I looked at the matrix board, I could see the horse was moving well. Chad Brown’s horse [Crowded Trade] started going up and down and it did not look like he was making a ton of forward progress. At that stage, I looked to see who was coming from behind and it did not look like anybody was going all that well. When I looked back in real time, I could see my horse was not gaining on the leaders but certainly was not moving back from them. I looked at the jumbotron again and could not see my horse and got nervous. I looked at the top of the stretch and for a jump I could not see him, but from my vantage point he was blocked because he was coming outside of Midnight Bourbon and Medina Spirit, and when they straightened for home and I could see my white bridle and my white helmet cover and the Fradkin silks, I started getting real excited.”

Following the race, McCarthy was congratulated by his former employer Todd Pletcher (eighth with Unbridled Honor) and Pletcher’s former boss D. Wayne Lukas (last of 10 with Ram), a seven-time Preakness winner. 

“Unfortunately, I could not have my family join me with COVID protocols still in place at a lot of elementary schools,” said McCarthy. “When the horse crosses under the finish line you expect a hug and a fist bump and all that stuff that you do, so there really was none of that. Todd was there. I spent 11 ½ years working for him, and that was the next best thing to family.”

When asked to describe what he learned from Pletcher and Lukas, McCarthy struggled to provide a succinct and specific answer.

“Their attention to detail, organization, showing up, always putting in the work,” said McCarthy. “This blog does not have enough space to start talking about something like that. It’s a hard question to answer in just a few seconds. It’s perseverance. It’s everything. It’s giving it your best every day. It’s showing up and doing your job properly and leaving it all out there every day. Todd’s tree is growing. George Weaver, Jonathan Thomas, myself, and a couple of other guys have been lucky enough to spend some time there and climb the mountain.”

Although there was a smaller-than-usual Preakness Day crowd due to COVID protocols, Rombauer’s victory generated excitement at Golden Gate Fields. Track announcer Matt Dinerman described the scene.

For this year's Preakness, I made my way to the first floor bar, where many trainers and owners relax in between races. Although there were surely plenty of people who had bet on horses other than our El Camino Real Derby hero, everybody I talked to before the race indicated they would love to see Rombauer win – or at the very least run well – in the second leg of the Triple Crown.

Out of the gate, we were watching and, like most race viewers, chatted to the people around us about how the race was unfolding. One person exclaimed, “Baffert's got an easy lead again!” when Medina Spirit entered the backstretch. At the half-mile pole, I looked to a friend next to me and said, “You know what? Rombauer is in a good spot and he looks good. He’s just coasting right now.” Midway on the far turn I told the same person, “He’s still in with a chance. He’s clearly into third.”

At the quarter pole, John Velazquez started to get to work on Medina Spirit. Irad Ortiz Jr., aboard Midnight Bourbon, had yet to shake the reins at his mount. Flavien Prat, atop Rombauer, started to pump on his mount and used the whip once before turning into the stretch. At that point, a few of us said, “Midnight Bourbon's gonna be tough.”

Turning for home, Rombauer was starting to catch up. His stride changed, his feet quickened, and the son of Twirling Candy began to accelerate.

“Come on, Rombauer!” one onlooker cheered, followed by the rest of the bar. The sound of discussion turned into loud cheering in a matter of a second or two. 

Shouts of “Go, Rombauer, Go!” and “Come on, baby! You got this!” could be heard as Rombauer roared to the lead inside the furlong pole. Drawing off from his company, the high fives began amongst our group, and the cheers of victory bellowed through the bar as Rombauer hit the wire clear of his competition. 

McCarthy said he appreciates the support from Northern California horsemen and racing fans.

“It’s exciting to have a horse come from somewhere like Golden Gate Fields, which is not known as having a bunch of Triple Crown contenders,” said McCarthy. “We’ll take all the support we can get on a big day like that. I’m sure it’s fun for the fans to know the horse had raced there and has Golden Gate Fields in his past performances. They had done a wonderful job of being able to persevere through the pandemic. Although it’s not top-class racing day in and out, it’s full fields, they got a good program, and they have a lot of good horsemen.”

Given how McCarthy hails from a branch of the Lukas coaching tree, it would be particularly fitting if Rombauer emulates Tabasco Cat and won the Belmont Stakes after having previously taken the El Camino Real and Preakness. No matter what happens in the Belmont Stakes, the 2021 El Camino photo and its storyline of Michael McCarthy continuing the El Camino-Preakness tradition certainly would make it worthy of inclusion among all of the other photos that had captivated me during my youth.