My Yammy Lady has drawn the outside post in Sunday’s eighth and final race at Golden Gate Fields in Albany, Calif. There is a very good chance she will be the last horse to walk into the starting gate in the history of the famous Bay Area racetrack. “I hope she’s the last winner, too,” trainer Steve Sherman said Thursday. Golden Gate Fields, which first ran races in 1941, is closing after Sunday’s program. The decision was announced last July by the track’s parent company, 1/ST Racing, which also owns Santa Anita in Southern California. At the time, the track was scheduled to close in December, but California racing officials urged 1/ST Racing to conduct a winter-spring meeting. The season began the day after Christmas. On Friday, racing in Northern California shifts to the annual county fair circuit. In mid-October, a new organization, Golden State Racing, will conduct a nine-week meeting at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton. Those fall dates were previously run at Golden Gate Fields. Golden State Racing officials have indicated they plan to race at Pleasanton next winter to give Northern California racing a continuous circuit. Golden Gate Fields is the fourth California track to close in the last 16 years, and second in the San Francisco-Oakland area. Bay Meadows, in San Mateo, closed in 2008. In Southern California, Hollywood Park and Fairplex Park ran their last meetings in 2013. The loss of Golden Gate Fields is the latest blow to the sporting community in the Oakland area. The NBA’s Golden State Warriors have moved across the bridge to San Francisco. The NFL’s Raiders moved to Las Vegas in 2019 and will be joined in 2028 by Major League Baseball’s A’s, who are in the midst of their final season in Oakland. They will play in Sacramento from 2025-27. With Golden Gate Fields soon to be gone, there will be no racing in the San Francisco metro area. Pleasanton is approximately 35 miles from Albany, where Golden Gate Fields is located. Sherman, 60, expects the mood on Sunday to be “somber.” “I think there will be highs and lows, no doubt,” he said. “We know it’s coming to an end. It’s here and it’s upon us.” The track will have a swelled attendance Sunday, with many fans taking the opportunity for one last visit to a track adjacent to the San Francisco Bay. “I’m staffed for a lot of people,” track general manager David Duggan said this week. “I hope there are plenty of people.” The days of five-figure crowds from the 1950s and 1960s are long gone. Ontrack attendance on Kentucky Derby day was 2,162, while attendance on the four Sundays in May ranged from 689 on May 5 to 1,403 on May 12, according to California Horse Racing Board data. Betting will be robust on Sunday’s program, with mandatory payouts in the 20-cent Golden pick six, the early and late pick five, and the super high five. The final weeks of the meeting have not gone smoothly. Golden Gate canceled six days of racing from mid-April to earlier this month because of a lack of entries. At the corresponding meeting last year, the track ran 669 races. This year’s figure will be 539 races. The track carded only six races for Friday. As the current season progressed, some horses were shipped to other venues on the West Coast or to Eastern tracks. Prior to the start of the meeting in December, overnight purses were cut by 25 percent in an effort to recoup a $3 million overpayment in the purse pool accrued in recent years. The stakes program was decimated. After running 16 stakes worth $1.425 million at the 2022-23 meeting, there were only two stakes worth $275,000 this year. While racing at Golden Gate Fields never approached the same level of competition as the Southern California tracks of Del Mar or Santa Anita, the track had an important role as a mainstay on the northern circuit. Since the closure of Bay Meadows, Golden Gate Fields has operated a majority of racing dates in the northern part of the state, holding a lengthy winter-spring meeting as well as brief seasons in late summer and in late fall. For many participants, Golden Gate Fields has become home. All of that ends Sunday. Company officials have not said what will become of the Golden Gate Fields property. The racetrack is in Albany, while the adjacent barn area is in the city of Berkeley. Sherman, for one, questions if Sunday is truly the last day of racing in the track’s history. “If I see the wrecking balls, I’ll know it will be for sure,” he said. “You always have hopes.”