"Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold."Excerpted from "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost. Full poem available here.
After flying out of Bangor, Maine; making a tight connection in Charlotte; descending almost directly over where Bay Meadows once stood during the approach into San Francisco International Airport; getting an inadequate sleep in a hotel in Millbrae; riding BART past the former sites of Tanforan Racetrack, Ingleside Racetrack, and the Oakland Trotting Park; and walking 30 minutes from the El Cerrito Plaza BART station before making a detour to Target to replace a defective memory card, I had finally arrived at Golden Gate Fields prepared to document the final race day its 83-year history.
I had made videos about the final day at Bay Meadows, Hollywood Park, and Scarborough Downs and felt compelled to do the same for Golden Gate Fields, where I had attended the races semi-regularly in my youth and early adulthood and had worked for almost two years in my late 20s. A friend of mine who worked at the track led me in through the administrative entrance and I talked briefly with some of my former coworkers before I headed to the clubhouse level to shoot some interior footage. After doing that, I began my journey to the track apron by walking to the sporadically functioning escalator until a security guard called for my attention.
"Excuse me! You can't have that camera!" he said.
"What do you mean, I can't have that camera?" I replied dumfounded, having used this humble Canon numerous times to shoot photos and videos at numerous tracks, including Golden Gate Fields, during the past 12 years.
"Cameras aren't allowed here! How did you bring that in‽"
I proceeded to tell to tell him that I used to work at Golden Gate Fields; was planning to document the track's last day just as I had for three other tracks; and how I was unaware of the camera ban. The security guard called for backup and we were soon joined by two of his colleagues. I repeated my spiel but once more I was told firmly that the camera was not allowed and then was interrogated about how I even got it into the facility, becoming increasingly uncomfortable as I explained how I had dodged security and the admissions clerks by coming through the administrative offices. I pleaded my case and was allowed to make phone calls in an attempt to pull some strings and ask for some sort of ad hoc media credential, but my efforts were ultimately fruitless.
"Can I leave it in somebody's office?" I inquired.
"You can't do that. We can't be responsible for your personal property. Can you put it in your car?"
"I don't have a car here. I took BART. What am I supposed to do, throw it away?"
At this point, I felt miffed about my camera being contraband, curious about possible reasoning behind the policy, and fearful that my entire day at the races for which I had traveled a long distance at a significant expense was in jeopardy.
Eventually, we agreed we that I could leave my camera outside the track and a security guard escorted me to the exit so I could leave my it hidden behind the dumpster near the administrative entrance. The guard stayed inside the clubhouse, which gave me an idea. Because she could no longer see me, I realized I could instead place the camera inside the administrative office entrance by placing it on a counter near the door. I did not know if I would be reunited with my camera before the races were over, but at least it would be in a safer location than by the dumpster.
After stashing my camera and jogging back to the entrance, I passed through the metal detector (yes, Golden Gate Fields in its final years was making its patrons go through metal detectors). I was feeling both peeved and relieved while I resumed my videography efforts, this time using the camera on my aging iPhone. The video quality was adequate for shots of the facility and zoomed-out stretch runs, but I wanted to use the Canon for the final race so I could zoom in on the horses. A person on the inside who will remain unnamed successfully recovered my camera and gave it back to me, but I decided to play it safe and keep it in an office until late in the day.
I never received an official explanation for why cameras were banned. My best guess is the policy is a response to an anti-racing social media campaign that had been waged by a local group of animal rights activists. Management may have seen every camera possessor as a possible public relations threat. I'm not totally confident in this hypothesis, given how almost every person these days carries a smartphone and could easily use it to upload unflattering pictures and videos. I tried not to take my encounter with security personally, but I found it impossible to not feel sad that in eight years I had gone from the track's publicity manager to a suspicion-raising rulebreaker who merited the deployment of three security guards and who could not talk management into making an exception on the policy.
I roamed the facility as best I could, but the combination of the large crowd, staircases that had been fenced off since the COVID era, and the malfunctioning escalator made that difficult. Also, security blocked access to the press box where I had once worked. I eventually got word that the door leading to the press box was being guarded by somebody who was willing to let me through, and I used that as my opportunity visit the place where I worked with Sam Spear from August 2015 until June 2016.
It was not my first visit to the press box in the post-COVID/post-Sam Spear era, so I knew all of old charts, media guides, and other artifacts were long gone. Still, it was depressing to see that on the track's last day the press box was occupied only by Larry Stumes, the San Francisco Chronicle's semi-retired turf writer; and Ron Flatter of Horse Racing Nation. I talked with Stumes briefly before Alan Balch and Bill Patterson of the California Thoroughbred Trainers arrived so Balch could be interviewed by Flatter. Equibase chart caller Jerry Stone came down from the roof between races and we engaged in a conversation about the notorious "Kelso Guy," the man who calls racetracks and media organizations just so he can extol the accomplishments of Kelso.
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| The view from the press box |
For the final three races, I joined my friend Susan, whom I first met at Bay Meadows in 2008, and her friends in a box seat. By sitting in the box with others, I would had cover when I took out my camera. At one point we saw a photographer/reporter standing in the walkway in front of us. I called for her attention and recommended that she keep a low profile because security was enforcing a camera ban. She said that she works for a local news organization and that she had showed up, without a credential, to capture the sights of the last day. She continued to shoot unharrassed, and I felt relieved for her but also slightly envious of how she had avoided the interrogation I received. Most importantly, I grew increasingly confident that security was not going to stop me if I took out my camera this late in the day.
Just like on the three previous occasions I attended a track's final day of racing, my preoccupation with shooting footage distracted me from the fact that the end of an era was rapidly approaching. A sense of dread suddenly enveloped me as the fillies and mares walked onto the track for the final post parade. The sun was low enough in the sky to give the horses a golden radiance, but this hue would not hold. Sunset was still three hours away on this Sunday afternoon in early June, but Golden Gate's figurative nightfall was imminent.
The final race, a $27,079 first-level allowance/optional claimer conducted at one mile on the yellow-green Lakeside turf course, was won by Adelie, an Irish-bred shipper from Southern California who entered the affair with a 1 for 15 record. With no disrespect to trainer Phil D'Amato, the fact a mediocre Southern California-based horse won the last race at Northern California's only remaining commercial racetrack felt like a final twist of the knife.
I shot footage of Adelie walking away, said goodbye to a few people, and went with Susan and her friend John to the barn area, which in the past would have been the most difficult area for an unlicensed and uncredentialed patron like myself to access. We easily strolled into the ghost town of a barn area and stepped into Bill McLean's shed row. I found it only fitting that the last video I recorded at Golden Gate was not of an empty grandstand but rather of some of the horses that helped make 83 years of history possible.
When Bay Meadows closed in August 2008, I was 23 years old, single, and was just beginning my career in racing by working as staff writer for the Thoroughbred Daily News, with my zeal for the sport compensating for my lack of writing experience and naivete. I'm now 38, married with an infant child, employed outside the industry, and often feel cynical about racing and pessimistic about its future. And while the closure of Bay Meadows was a loss for racing fans on the San Francisco Peninsula, it did not feel like an existential threat to Northern California racing. This time, it seems that Northern California racing could be extinct within the next few years. Economic and social forces may take our racetracks away, but I will never lose the friendships and memories I made at Golden Gate Fields. Those memories will stay gold.
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| One last look at the clubhouse turn and grandstand |
