The red light will finally be flashing again on Friday, January 15th. After 2 months of dealing with a widespread coronavirus outbreak, Golden Gate Fields has finally been given the green light to resume racing. Local health official have deemed it safe enough for live racing to resume after the outbreak reached over 300 employees on the backstretch. Unfortunately in December, trainer Bob Hess Sr. passed away at 86 due to complications with coronavirus– he was an icon in California racing, and had been running horses in Northern California since 1971.
Fans and owners will not allowed to attend the races to start the meet (If anything changes in the coming weeks, I will update everyone about this on the Twitter/IG pages). The full Stakes schedule for the Winter- Spring Meet has many highlights. It starts with the El Camino Real Derby on February 13th, where the winner is awarded 10 KY Derby points. Then, we move onto Gold Rush Weekend on April 24th-25th. GRW is headlined by the G3 250k San Francisco Mile and also includes 7 other stakes races (75k Golden Poppy, 75k Camilla Urso, 100k California Derby, 75k California Oaks, 75k Lost In the Fog Stakes, 75k Silky Sullivan Stakes, and the 75k Campanile Stakes). The 75k Alcatraz Stakes will be run on May 23rd. The 100k All American Stakes will be run on Memorial Day, May 31st. And the final stakes race of the meet is the 50k Albany Stakes on June 12th.
The Winter/Spring Meet will run from January 15th- June 13th. All races for the first few months will be on the main track– turf racing usually resumes around April. For the first two weeks of the meet, race days will be Friday- Sunday. On January 28th, racing will return to its normal Thursday- Sunday schedule. First Post to start the meet will be at 12:45pm (moves to 12:15pm if there are 10 races on the card).
2021 is starting off with a bang at Golden Gate Fields. On opening day there is going to be a mandatory payout in the .20 P6 wager, which has a carryover of $26,201. The P6 starts in Race 3.
While the quality of the jockey colony took a hit when Juan Hernandez and Ricky Gonzalez moved South last year, there are still many good riders that are hungry to prove what they’ve got. Kyle Frey is coming into 2021 on a hot streak, as he took the Summer and Fall Meet Riding Titles.
Jonathan Wong swept all 3 training titles last year at Golden Gate Fields, and he’s looking to keep that going in 2021. Wong’s stable has branched out to start the year as he currently has horses stabled at 3 other tracks– Santa Anita, Turf Paradise, and Sam Houston.
Opening week entries:
Friday, 12:45pm first post- https://www.equibase.com/premium/eqbHorsemenAreaDownloadAction.cfm?sn=ONSC-GG-20210115D
Saturday, 12:15pm first post- https://www.equibase.com/premium/eqbHorsemenAreaDownloadAction.cfm?sn=ONSC-GG-20210116D
Sunday, 12:45pm first post- https://www.equibase.com/premium/eqbHorsemenAreaDownloadAction.cfm?sn=ONSC-GG-20210117D
I plan on creating a lot more content throughout 2021, so if you want to keep up to date on everything please follow my social media accounts below.
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