The Golden Gate Handicap is a Grade III American Thoroughbred horse race for horses age three and older over a distance of one and one sixteenth miles with handicap conditions on the Tapeta, a synthetic racing surface held annually in November at Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley, California.
The race was inaugurated on 13 October 1948 as the Berkeley Stakes for two-year-olds that were bred in California over the dirt track.
The event was won by Moonrush who was ridden by American Hall of Fame jockey Ralph Neves.
[1] Moonrush would win the event again the following year when ii was held in March for three-year-olds as the Berkeley Handicap.
The event in its early days would did not have set scheduled date but would regularly rotate March, May and November with a distance of either 6 furlongs or one mile.
† In the 2012 running of the event Positive Response was first past the post but interfered twice in the last 100 yards with Anthony's Cross who had finished fourth and was disqualified.