“The land at Golden Gate Fields was always going to be so valuable and racing is not the optimal use of 80-plus acres on the San Francisco Bay.Īpprentice Jockey Martin Garcia rides a horse during a morning workout at Golden Gate Fields in 2006. “Now that I look back and understand that going to Dixon would have been the best possible thing we could have done,” Hartman said. He even promised to close the track during tomato canning season, in deference to the local Campbell Soup Company plant.īut on April 17, 2007, the initiatives were voted down by an average of 300 votes.

He offered to turn the infield into athletic fields open to the public and construct a 20,000-square-foot indoor practice venue and build a baseball field on the property. He promised to not have casino-style gambling or slot machines, should that option become available. Stronach did everything he could to save the project. Not everyone in Dixon was happy with the idea of development and they demanded a series of ballot initiatives. His plans were to build a smaller-scale race track that looked like a Florentine villa, with open spaces and rows of trees, connected to an entertainment and retail complex. Stronach, then head of Magna Entertainment Corp., which became The Stronach Group, owner of Santa Anita and Golden Gate Fields, had bought 260 acres in this town of about 15,000 people. What are we doing in this field next to I-80?’” “I looked around and thought, ‘This is insane. “It was a Field of Dreams kind of moment,” Hartman said. “We get out of the car and stand in the middle of nothing, and he says, ‘We’re going to build a race track here,’” said Hartman, now chair of the University of Arizona’s renowned Race Track Industry Program.

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