When the Bay Ran on Horses: A Timeline, 1851 to 2024

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In 1880 San Francisco counted 233,959 people and an estimated 23,000 horses. Feeding them took about 350 tons of hay and grain a day. Horses pulled the streetcars, filled the grandstands and shaped where neighborhoods grew. This timeline follows them from the first racetrack in the Mission to the last race day on the bay.

The city that ran on horses

• 1860s. Horsecar lines crisscross San Francisco.

• 1880. The census counts 233,959 residents. The city's horses are estimated at 23,000, and they eat about 350 tons of hay and feed every day.

• 1913. The last horse-drawn streetcar runs up Market Street.

The racetracks

• March 24, 1851. Pioneer Race Track opens near Mission Dolores, in the middle of the Gold Rush. Over the winter of 1861 to 1862 the grounds become Camp Alert for Civil War volunteers, and the land is sold in 1863.

• 1871. Oakland Trotting Park opens in Emeryville for harness racing. Thoroughbreds arrive in 1896.

• September 1873. The Bay District track opens in what is now the Richmond district.

• November 15, 1873. One race day in the outside lands draws the largest crowd California had yet seen for a horse race, and with it what FoundSF calls the first traffic jam.

• Thanksgiving Day, 1895. Ingleside Race Track opens. Bay District runs its last race on May 27, 1896, after years of neighbors pressing for the land to become housing.

• March 1899. San Francisco bans wagering and Ingleside closes two days later. It hosts occasional racing until 1905, and the 1906 earthquake ends it for good. The site becomes Ingleside Terraces.

• November 5, 1899. Tanforan opens in San Bruno, about 12 miles outside the city and beyond the reach of the San Francisco ban.

• February 5, 1909. The Walker-Otis Act passes, and Thoroughbred racing stops at Oakland and Tanforan.

• 1933. Betting is legal again, and racing resumes at Tanforan.

• November 4, 1934. Bay Meadows opens in San Mateo on a former airport site.

• 1941. Golden Gate Fields opens on the East Bay shoreline.

• April to October 1942. Tanforan is used as a detention camp for Japanese Americans.

• 1964. Tanforan is sold for redevelopment in March and burns in July.

• August 17, 2008. Bay Meadows holds its last day of live racing.

• June 9, 2024. Golden Gate Fields runs its final card after 83 years. It was the last racetrack left in the San Francisco area.

The riders

• 1940. The San Francisco Horsemen's Association forms to share horses and trails with the city. Its records from 1940 to 2007 are kept at the San Francisco History Center of the San Francisco Public Library.

What is left

The grandstands are gone. The riding is not. There are still barns, trails and beaches around the bay where you can get on a horse this weekend. See places to ride in the Bay Area.

More from this series

• Tanforan: the racetrack that became a detention camp, then a mall

• Blackie's swim: a horse crosses the Golden Gate in 1938

• The Horse in Motion: The Palo Alto Racetrack That Led to Moving Pictures

• The Night the Pony Express Reached San Francisco, by Boat

• A Palace for Cows: How Daly City Got the Grand National

• The Presidio’s Cavalry Stables and the Buffalo Soldiers

• Since 1874: San Francisco’s Mounted Police

• The Morgan Horse Ranch at Point Reyes

• Golden Gate Park’s Horse Years: The Speed Road, the Stadium and the Stables

• The Fire Horses of San Francisco, 1863 to 1921

• The Mounted Patrol of San Mateo County, Since 1942

Sources

• Thoroughbred Racing Commentary, "Looking back: The lost tracks of the San Francisco Bay Area" (Pioneer, Bay District, Ingleside, Oakland, Tanforan, Bay Meadows)

• Streetsblog San Francisco, "The Heyday of Horsecars" (horsecars, the 1880 horse count, 1913)

• FoundSF, "The First Traffic Jam" (November 15, 1873)

• San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco Horsemen's Association Records (1940 to 2007)

• Daily Racing Form, "Fans crowd Golden Gate for one last memory" (June 9, 2024)