Services at Golden Gate Fields for Northern California trainer Armando Lage

A memorial for popular trainer Armando Lage will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. at Golden Gate Fields. There will also be a remembrance for Lage following one of the races.

Lage, 59, died Monday night after suffering a heart attack.

Lage’s runners won 1,259 races after his arrival in the United States from his native Mexico, with the final victory coming the day before his death when favored Cherokee In Me scored a 3 1/4-length win in a $20,000 claiming race in Sunday’s final race.

The son of trainer Roberto Lage, Armando began training at age 17 in Mexico and came to the United States in 1984. He trained in Southern California in 1997, when he moved his base to Northern California. His 1,000th winner came Aug. 13, 2007 with San Montuno at Bay Meadows.

“I was really born in the business,” he said in a Daily Racing Form profile in 2008. “My father was a trainer. I grew up at the racetrack. My dad would bring me in the morning when I was very young, and, when I was in school, I spent every weekend at the track. I watched my father every day.”

Lage is survived by his mother, Maria Elena; two daughters, Caroline and Nicole; two sisters, Adriana and Lupe; and six grandchildren.