Harness racing has half as many dates in Chicago as the thoroughbreds and six fewer cards than what the standardbreds have in 2024.

by Neil Milbert

Once upon a time, many of the finest harness horses in North America came to Sportsman’s Park, Maywood Park and later Balmoral Park every spring and summer to compete in lucrative and prestigious races and the trainers and drivers based at these Chicago area tracks raced for robust purses six nights a week.

These days that all seems like a fairy tale.

Now, dual-purpose Hawthorne Race Course is the only track in the metropolitan area, there are no races of national importance and racing either two or three nights weekly during the coldest and snowiest months of the year is the new normal for the Illinois harness horsemen.

The Illinois Racing Board awarded 2025 dates on Thursday (Sept. 19) and Hawthorne was allotted a meager 40 harness programs, six fewer than this year’s number.

This year’s second meeting that is scheduled to begin Oct. 19 and continue through Dec. 30 will be extended from Jan. 4 through Feb. 23 with racing on Saturday and Sunday nights. Then, after an absence of more than eight months the standardbreds will return for a Nov. 7-Dec. 30 meeting with racing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.

In stark contrast, the thoroughbreds will have 80 programs, running from March 20-Nov. 3.

Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Association president Jeff Davis, executive director Tony Somone and their constituents don’t like it one bit that Hawthorne and the Racing Board are giving them the cold shoulder.

“Over the past decade Illinois harness racing has been devastated,” said Davis, looking back to 2014 when there were 225 harness dates.

“The winter is least favorable for us. Our Illinois-bred 2-year-olds and 3-year-olds do not race during those months. Give us back our two weeks in October [that are on the 2024 schedule] and we would be good with that”

The three preceding years at the hearings the IHHA, the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and Hawthorne came to a mutual agreement on the schedule.

In 2022 it was split into four segments with the harness horses racing from Jan. 7-March 30 and from July 2-Sept. 11.

In 2023 the format was altered with both breeds being allocated one extended meeting, which was from Sept. 9-Dec. 31 for the standardbreds.

That meeting stretched into 2024 with the harness horses competing from Jan. 1-Feb. 12 before their long absence from Hawthorne until Oct. 9 when they will resume racing.

But at the Sept. 19 dates hearings for the first time there was no meeting of minds in drafting the 2025 schedule. The ITHA and Hawthorne agreed to hold 80 race programs — more than double the harness allotment — during the spring, summer and early autumn over a span of more than seven months.

“We all realize we need to share Hawthorne,” said Somone, speaking for his IHHA constituents. “But this [harness racing] is not a club sport; it’s a professional sport.”

The rationale of ITHA president Chris Block for the October takeover was to add more opportunities for grass racing, incorporate the Breeders’ Cup simulcast into the thoroughbred meeting and make it easier for trainers at Hawthorne to transition to the winter meetings at the Fair Grounds, Tampa Bay Downs and Oaklawn Park.

Davis argued for a four-segment schedule similar to that of 2022. He proposed that the harness horses race from January through February; the thoroughbreds from March through the first two weeks of May; the harness horses from the last two weeks of May through July; the thoroughbreds from August through October; and the harness horses from November through December.

His argument was in vain and the Hawthorne/ITHA proposed schedule was approved by a 7-1 vote.

Both harness and thoroughbred racing in Illinois are in disarray because of the decision by corporate owner Churchill Downs, Inc., to discontinue racing at one of North America’s foremost tracks, Arlington International Racecourse, after its 2021 meeting.

For nearly two decades Arlington’s management had joined the rest of the Illinois racing community in lobbying the state legislature to legalize casinos at the tracks — racinos in the gambling vernacular — so that a portion of the revenue could be used to augment purses, thereby significantly improving the quality of the racing product.

But in 2018 CDI acquired a 62 per cent interest in Rivers Casino, the most profitable casino in Illinois located less than a half hour drive from Arlington.

When a major Illinois gaming expansion bill permitting racinos at long last was legalized the following year suddenly and unexpectedly the people running CDI did a complete about-face. They put Arlington up for sale with the stipulation that the buyer wouldn’t conduct either racing or casino gambling on the premises.

The Chicago Bears of the NFL bought the property and to lower their real estate taxes tore down iconic Arlington, which was considered North America’s showcase thoroughbred track. Now, the Bears have shifted their focus for a proposed new football stadium to a Chicago lakefront location near their current home at Soldier Field.

Arlington lies in ruins and Illinois racing has been devastated by the collateral damage.

A proposed racino at Hawthorne came up during the dates hearings and on this subject the IHHA and ITHA were in complete agreement. They castigated Hawthorne for its inability to make its proposed $400 million racino a reality.

Large portions of the grandstand and clubhouse were torn down in 2020 in anticipation of construction. But, after assuring the board and horsemen’s organizations at every subsequent dates hearing that the debris would be cleared and the racino would be open by the end of the following year, Hawthorne president Tim Carey has been unable to deliver.

“We’ll believe it when we see it,” said Somone, who pointed out that the casinos in Chicago, Waukegan and Rockford that also were legalized in 2019, “all are operational in some way.

“Hawthorne already owns the land. Five years later the elephant in the room is: will they ever get financing? Horse racing in Illinois has gone backward because of the failure to go forward.”

ITHA executive director Dave McCaffrey told the board, “The racing side at Hawthorne is terrific; the racino side is abysmal. We’ve been here for five and a half years [waiting for a racino]. We need to know what’s going on.”

Block testified, “This racino was needed a long time ago. It’s a tough economic environment for horse racing in Illinois — it’s beyond tough.”

The ITHA president added that the conditions created by the teardown have exacerbated the situation because they “are not conducive to fans watching live racing — it’s like sitting in the end zone at a football game; you have no idea where your horse is turning for home so you have to look at a TV.”

Davis likewise deplored the status quo for spectators.

At this dates hearing Carey introduced Edward Winkofsky as Hawthorne’s regulatory counsel on financing and development of property, a newly created position.

According to Winkofsky, “the team has made significant progress” but he said there now is a confidentiality agreement in the final phases of the project and information can only be shared privately with the Racing Board and Illinois Gaming Board.

So, for the foreseeable future everyone else will be in the dark.

During 2023 and 2024 non-betting harness racing supplemented by the Hawthorne purse account has been conducted at the state fairgrounds in Springfield and DuQuoin. This year the twice weekly programs began in June and will continue through early October.

“We made an investment in excess of $250,000 in the non-wagering races,” Carey said. “We believe in harness racing and we believe it can thrive in the future. We remain steadfast in our effort to have a $400 million racino. The process is the process and the circumstances are what they are.”

The possibility of replacing the races funded by Hawthorne’s purse account with a pari-mutuel meeting at Springfield came up at the hearings.

“It’s something we have to look at,” Davis said. “We’re in uncharted territory.”

John Walsh, Hawthorne’s assistant general manager, said the track had discussions this year about pari-mutuel racing with the Illinois Department of Agriculture, which controls the fairgrounds at Springfield and DuQuoin, and tried to get a Springfield lease but it wasn’t feasible because of other activities scheduled at the track.

“If there’s some way to figure it out for the coming year, we’re for that,” Walsh said. “This [shortage of harness racing pari-mutuel programs at Hawthorne] is a short-term problem. We think in the next two years things will be much, much better.”

Finish lines: Fairmount Park in downstate Collinsville across the Mississippi River from St. Louis is the only pari-mutuel track in Illinois other than Hawthorne and it conducts thoroughbred racing. At the hearings it was awarded 55 programs in 2025 from April 22-Oct. 28. Accelentertainment, a publicly-traded gambling conglomerate formed in 2009, this summer acquired Fairmount from FanDuel Sportsbook and Horse Racing for $35 million and its officers introduced themselves to the Racing Board by making a presentation at the hearings. Accel president Mark Phelan said plans call for a temporary casino with 200 slot machines and 46 gaming tables to open at the track in 2026, the 100th anniversary year of its opening. According to Phelan, “This is Accel’s first foray into horse racing. We want to use the casino as a financial tool to facilitate our horse racing objectives.”