Photo Record
Images
Additional Images [41]
Metadata
Title |
Bill Vassar Photography, circa 1990-2008 |
Object Name |
Print, Photographic |
Description |
Bill Vassar Photography, circa 1990-2008. Race and catered event, possibly fund raiser auction. The photographs are mostly unidentified. There are approximately 74 items. |
Date |
circa 1990-2008 |
Photographer |
Unknown |
Studio |
Unknown |
Catalog Number |
2014.027.016.009 |
Collection |
Archival Collection |
Category |
Photographs |
Place |
Bay Meadows Racetrack, San Mateo, CA |
Notes |
"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 on August 17, 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. Prior to the track's closure, the Bay Meadows Handicap had been the longest continually run stakes event in California, having been started in 1934. 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. Throughout its history, Bay Meadows has also hosted harness and quarter horse racing meets, but due to the low revenue such events generate, those events were not run in the last years of the track. At the end, Bay Meadows focused exclusively on thoroughbred racing. Olden Times, Silky Sullivan, Citation, John Henry, Round Table, and Lost in the Fog have raced here. In 1954, Determine won the Bay Meadows Derby and then went to take the Kentucky Derby. Wild Again ran at Bay Meadows in 1984 and then went on to win the Breeders' Cup Classic. On December 1, 2006, jockey Russell Baze won the fourth race to pass Laffit Pincay, Jr. as the winningest rider in thoroughbred horse racing. There was talk through the 2000s of demolishing Bay Meadows due to plans to build an entirely new race track near Dixon, California to replace the San Mateo race track and Bay Meadows remained open on a year-by-year case basis. 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." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Meadows_Racetrack] |
Subjects |
Horse racing Horses Jockeys Photographs Racing |
Search Terms |
Bay Meadows Bay Meadows Race Track Horse Horse Racing Horses Horses - Thoroughbred Racing Photograph Racing |
Credit line |
Bay Meadows Collection |