Golden Gate Fields wraps up a successful fall meet
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The Fall meet at Golden Gate Fields is a wrap and the results are in. The winner is…….everybody, Tada.
The fans won because the meet showed an increase in field size from the same meet last year, from 6.7 average starters a race to 7.3. They also saw seven exciting stakes races that included David Lopez winning career race number 1,000, Kevin Krigger equaling a bay area record by winning four straight and unsung hot riders Inoel Beato and Frank Alvarado capped the meet winning the final two.
The track won too. It saw a double-digit increase in it’s average daily on-track handle (13.86 percent) and average daily on-track attendance (12.77 percent).It picked up steam heading into its Winter/Spring meet which begins the day after Christmas, and they will use it to introduce the Players Pick 5 wager (a .50 pick five) that is very popular at other tracks.
The meet ,which will run through June 17th , will include a raise in of two percent across the board and $150,000 more in stakes monies. The first big race of the meet is January 14th, when the $100,000 California Derby will kick things off.
Earlier I mentioned the jockeys that won the seven stakes races at the meet and one noticeable name missing was Russell Baze. The perennial leading rider was shut out at the meet, thanks mainly to the hot riding of Krigger and the closing weekend victory by Alvarado.
Alvarado won the Pacific Heights Stakes on Antares World as the pair ran down 1-2 favorite Halo Dolly and Baze in the final strides. Trained by Steve Specht, Antares World has hit the board in all 13 of her races at Golden Gate Fields.
The race couldn’t have played out any better for Alvarado. He was given the ok to go to the lead at the start, but when he saw Kevin Krigger send Two Thirds Victory to the front, he took back to a good spot. Then, down the back stretch it was Russell’s turn to put the pressure on as he was tired of holding back an aggressive Dolly. When he engaged Krigger for the lead approaching the far turn, all Alvarado had to do was wait for the right time.
“Today was perfect. She relaxed nice and easy and didn’t fight me,” Alvarado said. “When Russell’s horse moved up she wanted to go with him but I had plenty of horse and just wanted to run my own race. In the stretch she got her second wind.”
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Last month, I introduced you to 18-year-old Brittany Burrows, who is attempting to live out a life long dream of being a jockey. If you missed it you can read her first journal entry on my blog here.
Here is more on Brittany and her class at the Frank Garza Jockey School:
“So far most people I have met seem very supportive about my goal of being a jockey. Away from the school when I went to the tracks on my own time there is always a variety of opinions from horse people. Most are supportive of my dream to be a jockey but there are always people out there who think it's not possible.
Choosing an one idol is difficult for me because there are so many horses and people who have done amazing things to be admired. It's close between Mike Smith and Chantal Sutherland. They are both great riders and have done phenomenal things.
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