Golden Gate, Zia Park must wait out COVID shutdowns

Hurry up and wait. It is an all too familiar feeling for trainers and jockeys and others working at Golden Gate Fields. They once again find themselves all dressed up with nowhere to race because of the coronavirus.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” trainer Ellen Jackson said Friday. “They don’t allow spectators. The owners can’t go into the saddling paddock. There’s no more exposure than there is in morning training, but evidently the City of Berkeley doesn’t understand that.”

Whether it was an outright order or the big foot of influence, the city’s Public Health Division called Friday for an immediate one-week suspension of racing at Golden Gate Fields. This came after track management said 24 cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in the stable area in the past two weeks.

“Following the best guidance from local health authorities, Golden Gate Fields will temporarily pause live racing effective noon (PST) today, Nov. 13, through to Nov. 20,” said a written statement from The Stronach Group, the track’s owner.

What happened in California was mirrored later Friday in New Mexico. That is where racing was suspended at Zia Park after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.) ordered the state’s non-essential businesses shut down until Nov. 30.

The idea that racing should fall into the non-essential category reinvigorated an argument heard early in the pandemic, when tracks like Golden Gate Fields were shut down even though horses still required daily exercise.

“I know the whole San Francisco area is very concerned with the rise of COVID,” Jackson said. “But this is an outdoor sport. It’s not like we’re inside. The same riders are there in the morning training. The same grooms are grooming the horses in the mornings. The same trainers. There’s no difference. There’s no more exposure by having racing in the afternoons.”

That argument fell on deaf ears during the spring, when racing at Golden Gate Fields was shut down for six weeks by health authorities in Alameda County. Around the same time Santa Anita, also owned by The Stronach Group, had racing suspended on similar orders from Los Angeles County.

As was the case at the start of pandemic restrictions in the U.S., there was precious little advance warning Friday that racing would be stopped at Golden Gate Fields. The announcement stunned trainers and jockeys at 12:24 p.m. PST, 21 minutes before the first race.

“I was taken back,” trainer Eddie Rich said. “I was hoping to win a race today, and the horse got turned around. We walked over to the receiving barn, got there and had to get turned around. They told us we were canceled.”

At first it was said that racing was called off through the weekend. Then the suspension was extended to next Friday. Whether that was inclusive of racing that day was not immediately made clear.

Jackson said that this suspension could be tougher than the one during the spring because of the uncertainty of government relief.

“Then at least we could get that payroll protection to help tide us over, but that’s not being offered anymore,” she said. “We just have to keep making all the overhead payments without any chance of making income. It’s going to run a lot of people out of business.”

At Zia Park, the racing shutdown was confirmed by its owner, Penn National Gaming, in a notice on the track’s website. “We remain closed under the modified emergency public health order,” it said. “We will continue working with state and local officials to develop and implement a plan to welcome (the public) back safely.”

The racing season at the Hobbs, N.M., track was already cut back because of the pandemic’s impact on purse money coming from the adjacent casino that has been closed for eight months. Instead of Sept. 21, it began a three-day-a-week schedule Oct. 5. Closing day is still set for Dec. 23.

“This year has been a rollercoaster to date,” Zia Park general manager Bill Belcher said in September. “While our 2020 season will be shortened, we are glad to be able to provide the New Mexico racing industry with a needed bridge in terms of racing opportunities and stabling.”

Racing or not, horses at both Zia Park and Golden Gate Fields will continue to be exercised, even if it is not certain when racing will resume.

As Rich feared when he first heard Golden Gate’s suspension might last only through the weekend, “I imagine it’s going to be longer than that.”