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Bay Meadows was a horse racing track in San Mateo, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States.
Built on the site of an old airfield, Bay Meadows Racecourse was the longest continually operating thoroughbred racetrack in California, having been founded on November 13, 1934 until its closure in August 2008. The innovative William P. Kyne introduced pari-mutuel wagering, the popular Daily Double, the first all-enclosed starting gate, the totalizator board and the photo-finish camera at Bay Meadows.
The Bay Meadows Handicap is the longest continually run stakes event in California, having been started in 1937. Seabiscuit won this race twice: 1937 and 1938. The track was allowed to remain open during World War II 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 to be transported by plane, El Lobo, was set down in the parking lot.
In 1948, the eventual Hall of Fame jockey, Bill Shoemaker, began his career by exercising horses on this track. He won his first stakes race here in 1949.
In 1954, Determine won the Bay Meadows Handicap and then went to take the Kentucky Derby.
All of the exterior scenes in Stanley Kubrick's 1956 heist movie The Killing were filmed at Bay Meadows. The track was renamed as Landsdowne for the movie, but the Bay Meadows name is visible in at least one early scene of the movie.
Wild Again ran at Bay Meadows in 1984 and then went on to win the Breeders' Cup Classic.
Bay Meadows' racing season begins in August with the San Mateo County Fair portion of the meet, which runs two weeks. This is followed by a short break of a few days; until recently this break avoided conflict with the first week-and-a-half of the California State Fair horse race meet. Racing picks up again on Labor Day Weekend (or thereabouts) with the main throroughbred meet, which is split into two parts--one in the fall, the other in the spring/early summer (Golden Gate Fields' meet takes place in the interim in the winter/early spring).
Throughout its history, Bay Meadows has also hosted harness and quarter horse racing meets, but because of the lack of financial viability these meets currently do not run. Bay Meadows is currently focusing exclusively on thoroughbred racing. Olden Times, Silky Sullivan, Citation, John Henry, Round Table, and Lost in the Fog have raced here.
There has been talk within the past decade of demolishing Bay Meadows due to plans of building an entirely new race track near Dixon, California to replace the San Mateo race track. As these plans are still in development, Bay Meadows remains open on a year-by-year case basis, with the exact date of final closure uncertain. The Bay Meadows Phase II Specific Plan Amendment was adopted by the city council of the city of San Mateo on November 7, 2005 [1]. The plan calls for 1.25 million square feet of office space, 1,250 residential units, 150,000 square feet (14,000 m2) of retail space, and 15 acres of public parks, as well as a rebuilt Hillsdale Caltrain station near the site of the old Bay Meadows Caltrain station.
On December 1, 2006, jockey Russell Baze won the fourth race to pass Laffit Pincay Jr as the winningest rider in thoroughbred horse racing.
Bay Meadows' last race was run on August 17, 2008.After the track failed to acquire a 2-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. [1]
However, 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 thru May 11, 2008. From May 14 to August 4, Simulcasting occured in Bay Meadows every open day, with free parking on August 4, free admission on August 11, and both on August 18. [2] There will be ten final races 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 Simucasting was on August 18, 2008. An auction for Bay Meadows paintings occurred from August 23 to August 25. [3] Construction on a housing and commercial development will commence the following monthDepth to groundwater is quite shallow in the local area with groundwater flow in the direction of Seal Slough.[4] There are a number of historic subsurface toxic releases that have affected soil and groundwater in this neighborhood., including the San Mateo City Corporation yard at 1949 Pacific Boulevard; Shell Oil at 20th & El Camino Real; Exxon at 1801 Delaware Street; Shell Oil at 1790 Delaware Street; H.E. Underwood Warehouse at 78 East 21st Avenue; Honda at 101 East 25th Avenue; warehouse at 1934 El Camino Real. These releases have been partially mitigated to date, but residual levels of petroleum hydrocarbons, benzene, toluene and certain pesticides are present in the groundwaterHe was a promising schoolboy footballer and boxer when he was younger. At a fight evening held at a hotel in his native County Meath a spectator advised his mother that young Johnny would make a jockey explaining that he's small, light, got good balance, a good sense of rhythm and plenty of courage. Sheila Murtagh was interested by someone thinking Johnny could be a jockey because Michael, her husband, had wanted to be a jockey but he was told you couldn’t be a jockey if you weren’t brought up with them. She wrote to the school for apprentice jockeys in County Kildare, got a two-week trial for her son and sent him on his way. The teenager thought it would be a bit of fun but as soon as he stepped into the world of horses, he knew it was for him. From the trial, he got on the 10-month course and within a year, he was apprenticed to John Oxx, one of Ireland’s leading trainers. He was 17 when he rode his first winner, 19 when he became champion apprentice and 22 when he became first jockey to Oxx.
He is today one of the world's top jockeys and was appointed as the Coolmore operation's number one jockey in 2008. He excels on the big occasion having won many of the big races around the world. His haul includes five Irish Oaks and three Yorkshire Oaks, four Ascot Gold Cups and two Tattersalls Gold Cups, three Epsom Derbys and two Irish Derbys, three King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, two English and two Irish 2000 Guineas, an English and an Irish Champions' Stakes and wins in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, Breeders' Cup Turf and Breeders' Cup Mile and Hong Kong Vase. He is a jockey to follow particularly at Royal Ascot where he has scored at least once in all of the Group 1 races staged there (Ascot Gold Cup x4, Prince of Wales Stakes, Queen Ann Stakes x2, St James Palace Stakes x2, Coronation Stakes, King's Stand Stakes, Golden Jubilee Stakes x3).
This sustained success over nearly two decades is all the more impressive as he cannot naturally meet the flat jockey's weight and has to spend the season very underweight. He has been granted a National Hunt licence, which has enabled him to ride in Hurdle races occasionally which he enjoys as he is able to get closer to his natural weightHe was apprenticed to trainer John Oxx and rode his first winner on Chicago Style at Limerick in July 1987. He became champion apprentice in 1989 and enjoyed a steady rise in profile until 1992 when he lost his position with trainer John Oxx after problems with alcohol and his weight.
But Murtagh bounced back, and with the renewed support of Oxx and owner-breeder, the Aga Khan, was Irish champion jockey in 1995, 1996 and 1998.
In 1995 he achieved his first group successes when he and his first world-class mount, Ridgewood Pearl, trained by John Oxx, triumphed in the Coronation Cup at Ascot, the Prix Moulin at Longchamp and the Breeders' Cup Mile at Belmont Park to crown her as the champion miler of 1995. Their only reverse came in the QEII where she could not keep up with Bahri. (He also unfortunately missed out on her classic success in the Irish 1000 Guineas as he was required to ride the Aga Khan's runner, Khaytada, to third.) He also rode the Oxx and Aga Khan filly Timarida to brilliant victories in the Matron Stakes at the Curragh and in the Prix de l'Opera at Longchamp Racecourse.
In 1996 he was the regular partner of two more of Oxx's star fillies, Timarida again and also Key Change. His group 1 wins were the Yorkshire Oaks with Key Change, the Bayerisches Zuchtrennen, Beverly D. Stakes and the Irish Champion Stakes with Timarida who as a 4-year-old season competed and won at the highest level against the colts.
Over the next two years he monopolised the Irish Oaks aboard unfancied Oxx trained Ebadiyla in 1997 and Winona in 1998.
The Murtagh and Oxx team ended the 1999 season with two group 1 wins, the Ascot Gold Cup with Enzeli and the Irish National Stakes with Sinndar.
The following year Sinndar went on to give him his first victory in the Epsom Derby which was also Ireland's first win in 16 runnings. This classic win was followed up by a repeat performance in the Irish Derby. At Royal Ascot he partnered the Richard Fahey trained outsider Superior Premium to a 20/1 success in the Cork and Orrery Stakes (now the Golden Jubilee Stakes). Murtagh's services were in demand more than ever for the rest of 2000, especially after Kieren Fallon was injured at Royal Ascot and Sir Michael Stoute needed an able deputy for his Newmarket stable. Murtagh won eight Group 1 races for Stoute. He tasted further glory in the Irish Oaks aboard Petrushka and at the Yorkshire Oaks Petrushka reversed the tables with Epsom conqueror Love Divine. He partnered Greek Dance, out of the great Darshaan broodmare Hellenic, to victory in one of Germany's biggest races, the Bayerisches Zuchtrennen and runner up behind the great Giant's Causeway in one of Ireland's biggest races, the Irish Champion Stakes. His greatest day came at Longchamp in October when he completed a Group 1 treble, winning the Prix de l'Opera on Petrushka, the Prix de l'Abbaye de Longchamp on Namid and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe on Sinndar. Thus Sinndar became the first and so far only horse to win the Epsom Derby, Irish Derby Stakes and Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in the same year. Murtagh finished the year with more glory on the Stoute trained and Agha Khan owned Kalanisi at the Champion Stakes holding off a surge from the great Montjeu and at the Breeders' Cup Turf in Churchill Downs where the colt again triumphed over an international class field. He also enjoyed juvenile success with Dilshan in the Racing Post at Doncaster but the colt was to disappoint in the following year's Derby. He rounded off 2000 with two great rides in Hong Kong's biggest races by partnering Greek Dance to a second place in the Hong Kong Cup over 10 furlongs and Daliapour (Agha Khan owned), last year's Derby runner up, to victory in the Hong Kong Vase over 12 furlongs.
In all he finished the season with an incredible tally of 12 worldwide Group 1 wins; including 8 for trainer Michael Stoute and 6 for owner Agha Khan. (Retrospectively 13 as the Cork and Orrery Stakes is now a group 1 as the Golden Jubilee Stakes)
He could manage "only" three group 1 winners in 2001, on the Aidan O'Brien trained Black Minnaloushe in the Irish 2,000 Guineas and the St. James's Palace Stakes, and Mark Johnston trained Royal Rebel in the Ascot Gold Cup.
The year 2002 started well for the affable Irishman, with classic wins aboard Rock of Gibraltar in the English 2,000 Guineas and High Chaparral in the Epsom Derby relegating Mick Kinane on board the more fancied Hawk Wing to second in both races. He also repeated his Ascot Gold Cup triumph on Royal Rebel. But he lost out to Mick Kinane in a very tight battle for the Irish jockeys' championship which went to the last day of the season and also missed out to the same jockey on the Rock and High Chaparral's further wins that season.
His flagbearer in 2003 was Alamshar, who won the Irish Derby and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes under the same Sinndar combination of John Oxx and the Aga Khan. In the former Johnny was able to employ Alamshar's stamina to take the race from the Aga Khan's more fancied Dalakhani while in a high class King George Alamshar accelerated well clear of the field of older horses and also Kris Kin who had defeated Alamshar in the Epsom Derby for a convincing win. Murtagh also partnered the Aussie speedster Choisir to an incredible Ascot sprint double in the King's Stand Stakes and the Golden Jubilee Stakes but dropped a bombshell at the end of the season when he announced that he would be splitting from Oxx because of ongoing problems with his weight.
He began riding freelance and spent much of 2004 in England, initially based with David Loder but then teaming up in particular with James Fanshawe. This association brought four group 1 wins on two more super fillies with Soviet Song in the Falmouth Stakes beating Attraction, beating the colts including Refuse to Bend in the Sussex Stakes and confirming the form with Attraction in the Matron Stakes at Leopardstown. While he partnered Frizzante to a tremendous late surge in beating a world class field in the 6f sprint July Cup at Newmarket. He ended the year with a creditable 74 winners in the British jockeys' championship.