San Francisco Mile put on hiatus

Golden Gate Fields will offer nine stakes during its upcoming meeting, but the Grade 2 San Francisco Mile won't be one of them. The San Francisco Mile, Northern California's highest-graded stakes, won't be run this year because track officials are concerned it would conflict with the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile at Hollywood Park and, consequently, draw a field of less than Grade 2 quality and be downgraded, said Golden Gate Fields general manager Robert Hartman.

Both races are for older horses going one mile on turf. The Shoemaker will be run May 26. The Golden Gate meet runs from May 14 to June 22.

The American Graded Stakes Committee allows a race to skip a year without affecting the race's grade.

Hartman said the race will be back next year.

"It was a very easy decision," he said. "It didn't make sense to run a Grade 2 a week or two before or after a Grade 1 down south."

Hartman said Golden Gate could not find a suitable date to run the race. The Golden Gate spring meeting is being run several weeks later than last year, because the Bay Meadows meet runs through May 11. The race was run last year on Aprilo28, at the start of the Golden Gate meet.

Golden Gate Fields will offer two graded races during its spring meet: the Grade 3, $150,000 Berkeley at 1o1/16 miles on the Tapeta main track May 26, and the Grade 3, $100,000 Golden Gate Fields Turf at 1o3/8 miles on May 31.

Six of the seven remaining stakes carry purses of $75,000. The Lost in the Fog, a stakes for 2-year-olds on closing day, had its purse bumped up to $75,000 from $50,000 last year.