Golden Gate handle up slightly

The Golden Gate Fields winter meeting, which ran 59 days from Nov. 10, 2004, to Jan. 30, showed a slight increase in total handle over the corresponding period from its last meeting. The previous Golden Gate Fields winter meeting ran for 109 days, from Nov. 11, 2003 to April 4, 2004, making meet-to-meet figures difficult to compare.

All-sources handle averaged $4.36 million per day for the meet, a gain of 1.4 percent over the first 59 days of the 2003-2004 meeting. Daily average ontrack betting declined about 5 percent from last year, to $572,364, but total wagering was boosted by a 5.6 percent increase in out-of-state betting on Golden Gate's races. Account wagering on the races rose 28 percent from the first part of the 2003-2004 meeting, to $232,018 a day.

Ontrack attendance rose about 2 percent, to 2,235 a day.