by Neil Milbert

The Hawthorne Racecourse harness meeting that left the starting gate on Oct. 9 will cross the finish line on Sunday night (Feb. 23).

Racing has been limited to weekends and Sunday will be the 48th night. One program was canceled by mutual agreement of track management and the Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Association (IHHA) because of bad weather and Saturday night’s program was cancelled because of a shortage of entrants.

Five of the races that would have been held Saturday were added to Sunday’s card, making the finale a 13-race program.

Except for this past week when the temperature turned bitterly cold following the most significant snowfall of the season, the weather conditions have been favorable throughout the meeting.

Hawthorne’s perennial leading driver Casey Leonard, who is adding another title to his collection, gave high marks to the racing surface.

“The track crew has done an outstanding job,” he said. “That was one bright spot of this winter meet.

“The stakes program was pretty strong but the overnight program struggled mightily.”

ITHA executive director Tony Somone said of the meeting, “I wouldn’t categorize it as anything special. We’re hanging in there — same old thing.”

Next month, the thoroughbreds will take the reins at the once-flourishing Chicago metropolitan area’s only remaining racetrack and the harness horses won’t be back until Nov. 7 for a meeting that is scheduled to run through Dec. 30 but probably will be extended into the following year as it was this year.

Except for the mini-meetings that will total approximately eight programs during the State Fairs at Springfield and DuQuoin in August and September, no pari-mutuel betting on Illinois harness racing is in the offing for more than eight months.

However, the non-betting summer races at Springfield and DuQuoin funded by the Hawthorne purse account that were held in 2023 and 2024 are expected to resume in June, following the same twice weekly format.

The possibility of conducting pari-mutuel betting on these races came up at last fall’s Illinois Racing Board dates hearings. Hawthorne’s general manager John Walsh said he discussed the possibility of leasing the Fairgrounds from the Department of Agriculture last year but was told it wasn’t feasible because of other activities scheduled at the track.

“If there’s some way, we’re for that,” Walsh told the board, looking ahead to this year.

Speaking for the IHHA, Somone said, “I hope so. I’d say maybe. We are trying, but it’s not easy to pull that off. If it was up to us, we’d do it but there are other people involved.”

Last year the county fairs proved to be an integral component in keeping the struggling sport on its feet financially.

Leonard said he drove at the fairs for the first time “in
about 15 years” and he intends to return to the circuit this summer.

“It’s kind of a different path than we normally take but it shows where we’re at [economically in Illinois],” Leonard said.

This wasn’t the scenario that was anticipated when the Illinois legislature passed a gambling expansion bill in 2019 that permitted the state’s racetracks to add casino gambling — with a significant portion of the revenue earmarked for purses — and gave the green light for the construction of a harness track/casino in any one of seven townships on suburban Chicago’s far South Side.

But both thoroughbred and harness racing were thrown into disarray when corporate owner Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI) sold its world-renowned, architecturally-magnificent and tradition-rich thoroughbred track Arlington International Racecourse to the Chicago Bears of the NFL with the stipulation that there be no gambling of any kind on the property.

The obvious reason was to wipe out casino and pari-mutuel gambling competition for Rivers Casino, the state’s most profitable casino which CDI acquired in 2018 and is located less than a half-hour drive from the opulent racetrack that the Bears have destroyed to reduce their property taxes.

Compounding the problems created by Hawthorne’s thoroughbred/harness time-share arrangement, Hawthorne has been unable to follow through on its proposal to incorporate a $400 million casino into its racing facility.

Large portions of the grandstand and clubhouse were demolished in 2020 as the first phase of the project but five years later instead of a showcase racino there is only rubble.

And now much higher than anticipated construction costs appear to be inevitable as a consequence of President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs.

After assuring the Illinois Racing Board every previous year that the rubble was going to be cleared and construction was forthcoming Hawthorne president Tim Carey last fall introduced Edward Winkofsky as the track’s regulatory counsel on financing and development of property, a newly-created position. Winkofsky cited “significant progress” but said a confidentiality agreement stipulates that information henceforth could only be shared privately with the Racing Board and Illinois Gaming Board.

“Nothing,” said Somone when asked if the IHHA had been briefed on any further developments. “It has been incredibly quiet. It’s just so frustrating.

“Not only horsemen are suffering but also people in all of the other ancillary jobs that are reliant on the industry going forward. Right now, everybody is in limbo.”

Meanwhile, a bill has surfaced at the spring session of the Illinois legislature that would allow a harness track/casino to be constructed on a 200-acre parcel of vacant land in Decatur, a city of 67,917 residents in downstate Macon County. Decatur is 200 miles south of Chicago; 49 miles west of Champaign-Urbana, where the University of Illinois is located; and 40 miles east of Springfield, the state capital.

Virginia-based Revolutionary Racing has pledged to invest $150 million in the proposed racino and hopes to have it open in the fall of 2026.

According to Somone, “They’re working on it and we’re supporting it. We need a place to race and we also need a Chicago metropolitan area racetrack.”

Leonard is of the same mind.

“Anything at this point would be great,” said the state’s foremost driver. “It would be a very nice addition, but it would not fix our problem. Decatur cannot support a 10-month schedule.

“The perfect scenario would be to also have a racetrack in the Chicago metropolitan area. Our ultimate goal is to be able to race 10-12 months a year.”