Kaia Diringer has worked as Berkeleyside’s photo intern for the past four months. One of her last assignments, which she chose herself, was to shoot at the Golden Gate Fields racetrack on the Berkeley-Albany border. Here, she writes about her impressions of the track, which she visited several times over the course of a few weeks:

I noticed the exit sign for Golden Gate Fields Racetrack the first time I drove down I-80 last fall and I was immediately curious. Horse racing didn’t really seem like a Berkeley thing to me. I grew up going to tracks like Laurel Park in Maryland — places that were rural or seemingly out of the way. But here was this racetrack, in a city on the bay, and so conveniently located.

Living off Gilman, I was always driving past it, but it always seemed  distant in some way, hard to see in, and even harder to imagine all that was going on inside.

I finally made it to Golden Gate Fields last month, having arranged to take photos that I hoped to share with Berkeleyside readers who may have been as intrigued as me. … Continue reading »