Tag: golden gate fields

Jockey Antongeorgi Adopts Beloved Mount Gratzie After Her Retirement

Thirteen-time winner Gratzie has been retired and will spend her post-race life in North Carolina on a farm run by jockey William Antongeorgi III and his mother. Gratzie, who went out a winner on Feb. 4 against claiming competition, ended her racing career with earnings of $261,610.

Antongeorgi, who guided Gratzie to four lifetime wins, is excited about spending more time with her in the future. In total, Antongeorgi rode Gratzie in eight different races.

“She was always really honest,” said Antongeorgi. “Even if we didn't win, she was right there-second or third. I would always go see her in the barn and give her lots of attention. We formed a strong relationship.

I told [trainer] Manny [Badilla], 'I love this mare. If the owners are willing, I'll ship her back to my place in North Carolina and she'll be able to go out in the field and live out a good retirement on our farm.' We were able to make it happen.”

Antongeorgi relayed that Gratzie arrived in North Carolina on Tuesday in good order.

“She's a world traveler,” said Antongeorgi. “She's from England. She's traveled before. From what I understand, she had a very smooth trip across the country and looks really happy. We've got a pony named Dusty right next to her. They're already hitting it off and in love with each other, so that's really cool. We'll take her out on the trails, and she'll enjoy her life living out there in the pasture.”

Gratzie, by Grade 2 winner and Juddmonte homebred Three Valleys, was bred in Great Britain by John Troy and Robert Levitt and began her racing career as a 2-year-old in 2013. Three years later, she was sold to American owners Ron Charles and Sam Gordon for $25,685 at the Tattersalls Horses-In-Training Sale of 2016. Since the purchase, Gratzie won 7 races in America, raking in U.S. earnings of just over $150,000. Throughout her career in the states, Gratzie was conditioned by Manny Badilla.

“She's a barn favorite for sure,” said Badilla. “She was always so sweet. You could come up and pet her and feed her and love on her. What I'll remember about [Gratzie] is her heart: not only was she sweet around the barn but she tried so hard in every race she ran in. She never got sour. She always tried and loved being around our team. We'll miss her here.”

With that, Manny had just one more thing to say.

“It's the greatest thing ever to send her somewhere nice.”

 

— Matt Dinerman (@3coltshandicap) March 10, 2021

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LA Times Columnist John Cherwa Joins Writers’ Room

Los Angeles Times columnist John Cherwa has seen a lot in just a handful of years on the Southern California racing beat, and Wednesday morning he joined the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland to discuss the past, present and future of racing in the Golden State. Calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Cherwa talked about the progress in Santa Anita's safety record, the top 3-year-olds on the west coast and the effect of last week's protest at Golden Gate Fields.

“I wrote tens of thousands of words on the horse breakdowns at Santa Anita,” Cherwa recalled. “I was on the phone with a source who was at the track when Battle of Midway went down and then it just mushroomed from there. Last week at Golden Gate, you saw where protesters went on the track over some recent deaths there. At that point, there were five deaths. One was a sudden death, which was probably a heart attack. There were only two what we call breakdowns. At a similar point in 2019 at Santa Anita, there were 20. I think a lot has been done [since], mostly I think through pre-race evaluations. If you watch the Los Alamitos races on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, you'll see a lot of scratches, and a lot of those are because of pre-race evaluations. So I think the progress has been immense. However, until the number [of deaths] becomes zero, it's never enough [for anti-racing protestors]. And zero is, in many terms, unattainable number.”

Asked about the challenges to presenting the sport for a national audience, Cherwa said his dispassionate approach to racing has led to some backlash both from within the industry and outside of it, but that having only covered racing for a few years affords him a fresh view of things.

“I get hate mail from a lot of the horse racing people because I cover horse deaths and things like that,” he said “I get threats from the animal rights activists because I'm not covering it enough. I've even gotten death threats from the animal rights people. Frankly, no one is covering that more than I have, not because I want to, but because it is a big story in California. The fact that I'm kind of new to this myself, means that I'm learning along with my audience and I do on a lot of things. I've got like three or four, I'll just call them sources, that I will call all the time to have them explain something to me just to make sure of what I think I know.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, in a jam-packed West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, the writers discussed the first sentencing domino to fall from last year's indictments, the official news of Gulfstream adding a Tapeta surface that first broke on the show back in December, and the Golden Gate protests. Click here to watch the podcast; click here for the audio-only version.

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Golden Gate Protestors Arrested for Trespassing

The four protestors who disrupted a card at Golden Gate Fields were arrested at 6:30 p.m. (Pacific Time) on Thursday without incident and were released after being cited for trespassing, according to Isabelle Leduc, the assistant city manager for the town of Albany, California.

Leduc identified the individuals as Omar Aicardi (43) of Modesto, Rocky Ming Fan Chau (32) of San Francisco, James Nicholas Crom (29) of Oakland and Rachel Christina Ziegler (28) .

The four, members of the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere, scaled a fence before the first race and then lay down on the track on the far turn. They locked themselves together with heavy, interlocking pipes over their arms. The pipes made it very difficult for police and security personnel to remove them from the track.

Golden Gate management canceled the first race, scheduled for 12:45 Pacific time, but waited out the protest and eventually ran the remaining six races under lights. The card resumed at 7:28 p.m. and finished just after 9:30 p.m. The total handle was $619,349.

Matt Johnson, a spokesperson for the group, said the four ended their protest voluntarily, about six hours after it began.

“They were sunburnt and it had been a long day,” he said. “It was a question of how much longer they wanted to be doing this. We decided we were at our end point. I don't know what the police prospects would have been when it comes to cutting through those pipes. It would have been very difficult.”

Representatives of the group had said their goals included disrupting the entire card Thursday, which didn't happen.

“We were trying to shut them down, in the immediate term, the medium term and the long term,” Johnson said. “This wasn't the goal we were looking for. They knew they might try to fit in some races during the night, but those people were uncomfortable.”

Despite being unable to halt Thursday's card all together, Johnson said the protest achieved the group's goals.

“Overall, I would say we were successful,” he said. “This reached a lot of people and the public sentiment is very much moving against this industry. We think as a general matter, by getting more exposure to this subject and doing something the general public is inclined to support, that is going to be a good thing. That is pretty much what we were going for.”

The group said it was inclined to act when it did because of a recent rash of breakdowns at Golden Gate Fields. According to a Feb. 23 report from the Associated Press, five horses have died at the track in 2021. According to the television station KTVU, three horses died at Golden Gate between Feb. 20 and 25.

Johnson said the group had no immediate plans to lodge another protest, but added that it will stay on top of the situation. Direct Action Everywhere has said its goals include a nationwide ban of horse racing.

The ripple effects from events at Golden Gate Friday aren't restricted to the north of the state, with eyes now turning to Santa Anita, which cards a huge weekend of racing top-lined by Saturday's G1 $400,000 Santa Anita H.

Nate Newby, Santa Anita's general manager, said that he was unable to provide specifics about any beefed-up security team, but added that the track has “increased our security presence” for this weekend and has been “in touch” with the local Arcadia police department.

Golden Gate posted several statements on Twitter about the incidents.

“Golden Gate Fields is committed to the safety of the horses and the people who care for them, and the types of actions exhibited today run directly counter to the safe environment we are trying to create.

“Thoroughbred horse racing is a highly regulated, legal sport. Trespassing and endangering others are completely inappropriate and illegal methods to express opposition to the sport.”

When the activists first lay down on the track, they set off purple smoke flares, presumably to alert the track, the harrows, and the field for the first race that they were there.

“Further,” said the statement from Golden Gate, “bringing incendiary devices onto the property is inherently dangerous to human life, the more than 1,200 horses stabled here and the hundreds of people who care for them. This behavior will not be tolerated. We encourage those responsible to find an appropriate way to air their grievances rather than endangering the lives of thousands, including the horses they claim to want to protect.”

After the second race went off, the track Tweeted, “We are grateful for the support of racing fans in the Bay Area and around the globe. A special acknowledgement is due the Albany Police Department for their professionalism and responsiveness. We were able to race tonight thanks to them and we continue to believe in our commitment to safety, the beauty and greatness of our sport and the right of thousands of Californians to enjoy what we regard as a treasure. We would like to thank all the owners, trainers, grooms and our dedicated employees at Golden Gate Fields for their commitment and patience under extremely trying circumstances today.”

Additional reporting by Dan Ross.

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Protestors Lying On Track Delay Golden Gate Card, Shut Down Vaccination Site

A group of four protestors lying on the track in a “sleeping dragon” maneuver caused officials to push back the start of Thursday's card at Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley, Calif. Races were scheduled to begin at 12:45 p.m. Pacific, and have not begun as of 3:45 p.m. The track feed indicates that the afternoon's first race has been canceled, while races two through seven are delayed until further notice.

The actions also caused a 2 1/2-hour shutdown of the COVID-19 vaccination clinic hosted at Golden Gate.

The protestors were joined by a group of about a dozen others demonstrating outside the track, and belong to a group called Direct Action Everywhere (DXE), which has been live streaming the goings-on on their Facebook page.

Spokesperson Cassie King, appearing on the live feed, said DXE was spurred to action by the deaths of three horses during a recent four-week period.

According to a press release issued by the organization, the four on-track protestors are Omar Aicardi, Rachel Ziegler, Rocky Chau and Jamie Crom. They are connected by heavily-weighted PVC pipes in a direct action maneuver called a “sleeping dragon.” They also lit purple smoke flares while in place.

“These beautiful animals live lives of exploitation and abuse for the sake of profit, then they're killed for the same reason,” said Chau. “The public is increasingly aware of the reality of this barbaric industry, and is demanding that we leave it in the past.”

At about 1:30 p.m., security personnel could be seen on the track hovering over the protestors, but didn't take any action against them. An hour later, a tent was placed on the track to shade the protestors.

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