PLEASANTON — Timothy Bellasis wears a black and blue bruise on his left hip after just lately being kicked by a horse. It’s the newest damage for the horse coach who has known as the Alameda County Fairgrounds house for 3 many years.
Whereas feeding, operating and washing his steady of horses, he carries a slight hitch in his step, a painful reminder of the time six years in the past when he fell off a horse and broke his hip.
The damage, he says, pressured him to take two weeks off — the longest break he’s ever taken from thoroughbred horse coaching.
Till just lately, subsequent to nothing may hold the 66-year-old away from the Pleasanton’s Equestrian Heart, a brief drive from his single-wide cell house at one of many floor’s RV parks. He’s the final in an extended line of trainers residing the place there have been as soon as dozens of cell properties. Bellasis may quickly be gone, too.
“If I leave, they’ll rip this thing out of the ground and level it,” he stated of his house. “If they want to kick everybody out, they can.”
He’s slowly watching the top of a storied but controversial sport. Over the previous few many years, racing has vanished from the Bay Space, first on the Bay Meadows observe in San Mateo County after which, final 12 months, on the East Bay’s Golden Gate Fields.
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The California Authority of Racing Gala’s’ resolution this 12 months to cancel all races at county festivals – successfully shuttering racing in Northern California – despatched shivers by means of a neighborhood already on edge, and now fearing that is the top. In the meantime, the Alameda County Honest Affiliation has introduced that it’s going to finish stabling and coaching on the fairgrounds.
The lots of of horses there must be relocated by the top of March, Bellasis stated, and horse trainers, grooms, breeders and riders all through the area might be pushed out of a job.
Races on the Pleasanton observe – held through the summer time truthful – return generations. First inbuilt 1858, it’s the oldest one-mile dust observe within the nation, based on the county. It is usually the place the legendary Seabiscuit as soon as skilled.
A brand new group, Golden State Racing, vowed at a meet final winter to revive Pleasanton racing, however Bellasis known as the races a “disaster” with an absence of attendance, advertising and marketing and extra.
Alameda County Supervisor Dave Haubert, who together with different county officers has held conferences on the matter, stated “it’s certainly sad to see it come to this.” He hopes the county can discover use for the land, and acknowledged that the truthful could be dropping out on racing income.
“I know that a lot of people will be disappointed,” Haubert stated in an interview. “Every year I look forward to the racing season. I would say that this is a significant part of our cultural history, and it’s going away.”
Animal rights activists, nonetheless, are celebrating the information. Horse racing got here beneath scrutiny in 2019, as a rising variety of euthanizations at Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita Park in Southern California left the trade reeling and prompted hypothesis that the controversy may finish thoroughbred racing in California.
Kristina Verdile, a Pleasanton resident, has lengthy been a part of the native opposition to the races, claiming the circumstances the horses are saved in are usually not wholesome for the herd animals, which she stated must be held in extensive, grassy pastures with area to roam.
“That’s amazing. That’s a great step for animal rights and the rights for horses in Northern California,” Verdile stated of the current resolution in an interview. “But I still have great concern about where these horses will end up, because many of them will be shipped to Southern California, where they can race there and where the rates of injury and death are high.”
Today, Bellasis makes use of the grounds to coach his six horses. A naturally gifted storyteller, Bellasis can nonetheless be seen wearing brown leather-based boots, denims, a weathered winter coat and a black Ford cap embroidered with orange flames, whereas he makes his rounds feeding carrot items and sugar cubes to his horses.
He and his companion, Cassy Tschanz, an knowledgeable equestrian, purchased the cell house within the Nineteen Nineties, cleansing up a spot he stated was tar-colored as a result of earlier proprietor chain smoking cigarettes inside. On a current go to, the San Francisco-born man who grew up in Menlo Park and Pleasanton confirmed off his San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s memorabilia, earlier than digging up a photograph from 1986 of “Smart Gem,” his horse who positioned first on the Sacramento State Honest that 12 months.
He laughed and smiled extensive, seeing Tschanz, who died final 12 months, with a person’s arm round her within the winners circle.
“She had no idea who the hell she was standing next to,” Bellasis recalled. “I said, ‘That’s Willie Mays!’”
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When Tschanz’s well being began to say no, he stated, he began rehoming a few of his horses, as a result of he had a dozen on the time and wanted to work much less to be able to spend extra time together with her. Of their prime, the 2 would hold as much as 25 horses at most, and usually saved between 15 to twenty all through their 39 years collectively.
Now he has simply six, a few of which can by no means race once more, and a pair which he’s planning to run within the coming months. His largest horse, 7-year-old “Gallant Warren,” has a profession 63 races, with six first-place wins, 13 second-place honors and 9 third-place finishes, bringing a complete of $219,315 in earnings since 2020. Only a few years in the past, Gallant Warren gained Bellasis his largest purse ever — about $42,000. The horse ran its remaining race final 12 months.
Now, he’s planning to run his remaining horses, together with “Old Triangle,” on the Santa Anita observe in Southern California. He’s not wanting ahead to the journey and totally different observe circumstances there.
He says he faces a troublesome resolution: choose up and transfer all the things to Southern California, transfer out of state, or retire.
“Nobody wants to retire. I don’t want to retire. It’s being forced,” he stated. “It’s the end of life in our circle. Racing for the Bay Area? Gone.”
