Fall handle: $2.6M daily

Golden Gate Fields averaged $2,695,536 in all-sources handle on its races for its 36-day fall meet that ended on Sunday. Precise comparisons with the same period last year are impossible because the fall meet was run last year at Bay Meadows, which conducted 33 days of racing. The 2005 Bay Meadows meeting had an average all-sources daily handle of $2,883,979, 6.5 percent greater than this years Golden Gate fall meet.

Total all-sources handle through mid-October on races at Golden Gate and Bay Meadows is down about 5 percent from last year.

At the Big Fresno Fair, which ended an 11-day meeting on Sunday, all-sources average handle (not including account wagering) on the tracks races increased 9 percent over the 11-day 2005 meet, from $1,060,658 daily to $972,833.

The Big Fresno Fair was the only track on the seven-fair circuit to show an increase in all-sources handle in 2006 as well as being the only fair to show an increase in ontrack handle. The average daily ontrack handle of $316,018 was up 1 percent over last year.

All-sources handle on the tracks races (not including account wagering) for the rest of the fair meets dropped 1 to 19 percent from the banner 2005 season.

The San Joaquin County Fair in Stockton declined 19 percent, the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton 6 percent, the Solano County Fair in Vallejo 11 percent, the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa 1 percent, the San Mateo Fair at Bay Meadows 1 percent, and the Humboldt County Fair in Ferndale 2 percent.