Hardly a week of racing went by this year without a horse owned and bred by Larry and Marianne Williams racing at Golden Gate Fields or on the fair circuit.Over the years, the couple has won stakes with such familiar names as Lady Railrider, Pulpit Rider, Rousing Sermon, Tamarando, and Ward ’n Jerry. They all earned more than $500,000.This fall, the 2-year-olds Grand Slam Smile and Wild Jewels won stakes for the Williamses at Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita.Those successful runners may represent the end of an era for the stable in Northern California.The landscape for racing in that part of the state is widely expected to change as early as the middle of 2024.Golden Gate Fields opens its winter-spring meeting Tuesday and is currently scheduled to close permanently at the conclusion of the season on June 9. Without Golden Gate Fields, the racing schedule is expected to expand to county fair venues, with locations such as Pleasanton, Sacramento, and Santa Rosa likely to add more racing days. Details have not been finalized.Of those fair venues, only Santa Rosa currently has a turf course.The turmoil has left many northern-based owners and breeders preparing to reduce the number of mares they breed, including the Williamses.“It’s got us worried,” said Dan Kiser, who directs racing and breeding operations for the Williamses. “We focus so much of our program on Northern California and kind of base out of Golden Gate and ship to Southern California.“I think the end result is we’ll be cutting back on the number of mares we breed and emphasize quality a little more.“We won’t have much choice. It’s such a shame. Golden Gate is such a beautiful place to race and as far as safety for the horses.”Kiser’s point of view was echoed by several other owner-breeders who are primarily active at northern tracks. The looming loss of Golden Gate Fields has affected their likely levels of investment.Golden Gate has dominated racing dates in Northern California since the closure of Bay Meadows in San Mateo, on the other side of the Bay Area, in 2008.The track’s closure for development, announced last July by parent company 1/ST Racing, shocked the entire California and West Coast racing community. The company said it plans to consolidate racing in state to Santa Anita, its track in Southern California. The idea of relocating to Southern California was poorly received by participants in the northern part of the state when announced last summer.Any reduction to racing in the north in the long-term will be a painful blow to the health of the sport in California in coming years.In recent years, the number of registered foals in the state has declined from 1,998 in 2010 to 1,310 in 2021, the most recent figures published by The Jockey Club. The 2019 foal crop was 1,664 compared to 1,479 in 2020, according to The Jockey Club.The data has led to concern that foal crops in coming years could show further decreases. Compounding the issue, two farms – Victory Rose in Vacaville and Tommy Town Thoroughbreds in Santa Ynez – have left the stallion business in the last year.With tracks in California reliant on statebred runners to help fill racing programs, a decline in California-bred racehorses will leave a worrisome void.For now, Doug Burge, president of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association, is reluctant to guess how active breeders will be in early 2024.“I can’t predict what the foal crop will be,” he said in mid-December. “I’ll have a better idea when we get into the breeding season.“For smaller breeders in the north we’re trying to do all we can to keep it going with an outlet to race or a place to sell.”The CTBA organizes two sales annually – a mixed sale in Pomona in January and a yearling and horses of racing age sale at Pleasanton in August. The 2023 Pleasanton sale had higher prices in gross, average, and median.More recently, Burge said he saw encouraging activity from California-based owners and breeders at the mixed sales in Kentucky in November.“Quite a few California breeders were out there buying mares, and that’s a positive,” he said.Kate Barton, whose family operates Barton Thoroughbreds in Santa Ynez, was among the buyers. Barton said in mid-December that she acquired broodmares to breed to the farm’s new stallion, Shaaz, by Uncle Mo, as well as other stallions.Barton Thoroughbreds is one of the most active breeding farms in the state. Its role will become even greater if smaller breeders reduce their investment or leave the sport. Barton said the key to her family’s operation is breeding California-breds who are eligible for extensive bonuses if successful at state racetracks.Foals produced by mares purchased in Kentucky in the fall can be registered as California-breds if the foal is dropped in California and the mare is bred back to a California-based stallion in coming months.“We have a lot of mares we bought that we need to breed back to one of our stallions,” she said. “At the end of the day, we’re still going to continue that game plan.”Similar to many other owners and breeders, Barton is optimistic that the disruption to racing in Northern California caused by the closure of Golden Gate Fields will be minimal. There is some hope in the racing community that racing at Golden Gate Fields will continue after June, at least on a temporary basis.“We’re just hoping that some solution or something comes to fruition,” she said. “It’s hard for a breeder that is providing horses for Northern and Southern California if that’s not in existence.”While the Williamses and the Barton family have high-profile operations, other smaller breeders are changing their outlooks. Larry Odbert, a retired businessman in Sacramento, is taking a more conservative approach in 2024.“I’m definitely breeding fewer,” he said in December.“Who knows where we’re going to run? It will be more expensive if we have to send our horses to Southern California or someplace else.”Odbert said that earlier this year he bred seven mares and that four were pronounced in foal. In 2024, he may only breed five mares, he said.Rozamund Barclay, who has a 50-year involvement with Thoroughbreds beginning with her days as an exercise rider in the early 1970s, said she has reduced her herd.In her experience, the closure of Golden Gate Fields will have a detrimental effect on the entire region, and not just Northern California. Barclay cited the closure of Bay Meadows, tracks in Oregon, the closure of Longacres in the Seattle area in the 1990s, and Hollywood Park near Los Angeles in 2013 as examples of lost racetracks impossible to replace.While Emerald Downs emerged as a substitute for Longacres in the Seattle area, the overall health of racing and breeding in Washington has declined in recent decades. Smaller tracks such as Playfair and Yakima Meadows, for example, are no longer in operation in that state.“I’ve had a lot of people tell me that it will help the neighboring racetrack, and it has not historically happened,” Barclay said. “We keep falling for leadership and administration that leads us in a bad direction.”From Barclay’s perspective, Golden Gate Fields has many appealing factors, including lower operating costs than Southern California and a synthetic main track that helps with soundness.Barclay said she will breed “six or seven” mares in 2024 down a few from recent years. Aside from racing some of the horses she breeds, Barclay also sells at auction.“I’m going to cut back,” she said. “It’s the only financially responsible thing to do.“I don’t want to produce a lot and not know if there are going to be buyers out there to buy them or a place to race them. We really worry where the buyers will come from.”Another concern is a reduction in available prize money in the immediate future, monies that can offset breeding costs.For the start of the winter-spring meetings at Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita on Tuesday, purses at both tracks will be less than last winter. Overnight purses at Golden Gate Fields have been slashed by a severe 25 percent because of a purse overpayment of more than $3 million, officials said earlier this month. The track wants to reduce that deficit as much as possible before the end of the upcoming meeting.“They kind of sprung it” on us, Odbert said of the purse decrease.Santa Anita had a minor cut to its overnight purse structure.Burge, who has been with the CTBA since 1996, was quick to emphasize that incentives for statebreds will help to offset some of those purse reductions, particularly in Northern California. Burge noted that owners receive a $10,000 bonus for winning maiden special weight races at Golden Gate Fields. Further bonuses are paid to California-breds who finish in the first five positions in maiden races or allowance races against open company at Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita.Such programs, he said, can provide vital revenue for owners and breeders in coming months.“The Cal-bred program is so important,” Burge said. “We have to do anything we can not to disrupt that. I want to preserve what we have.”