by Neil Milbert

Horseplayers won’t be lined up at the Hawthorne Race Course mutuel windows on Saturday (May 3) when the 101st Kentucky Derby is run at Churchill Downs.

Dating back to the 2024-25 Hawthorne fall/winter harness meeting that ended Feb. 23 and extending into the thoroughbred meeting that began March 20, Churchill Downs Inc. (CDI) has blacked out its simulcast signal at the Chicago area’s only racetrack and 13 affiliated off-track betting locations in the suburbs and downstate Illinois.

In addition, self-activating mutuel machines at the
track, the Club Hawthorne mobile wagering app and
clubhawthorne.comare blacked out.

According to CDI, the reason is because Hawthorne hasn’t paid its bills.

In a statement, CDI said: “The current situation with Hawthorne wouldn’t be characterized as a payment dispute but simply as significant arrears for services rendered. For this reason, CDI was forced to pull our signal last fall. Hawthorne has made no attempt to rectify the debt even despite our efforts to negotiate an incremental payment plan.”

On its website, Hawthorne said that the NBC telecast would be shown at the track and OTB locations, and horseplayers could make their wagers by phone or computer. This entails having or creating an account on Xpressbet, Twin Spires, FanDuel or NYRA Bets.

“We are expecting to once again be at full capacity at all of our venues for the biggest day in racing,” Tim Carey, president and chief executive officer of the family-owned track, said in a statement.

However, that seems overly optimistic because — unless they plan on watching and betting on some of Hawthorne’s live races — those fans with the accounts listed on the website and those who don’t can simply watch the extensive NBC race coverage in their living rooms.

The Hawthorne blackout also includes simulcasts from three other thoroughbred tracks whose meetings have ended: CDI-owned Turfway Park in Florence, KY, Fair Grounds in New Orleans, and Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs for which CDI negotiates simulcast contracts.

Betting at Hawthorne and its OTB outlets plunged 20 per cent in the first three months of 2025 compared to the same time frame last year, according to Illinois Racing Board statistics. Now, the blackout on Kentucky Derby Day is almost certain to compound the losses.

This has an impact on the bottom line of both thoroughbred and harness horsemen because they get a cut of the money bet on simulcasts. The Racing Board estimates that last year Hawthorne received $450,000 in commissions and $468,000 in purse money.

The current situation is the latest of a series of problems Hawthorne has encountered since it demolished major portions of the grandstand and clubhouse in 2020 in preparation for construction of a $400 million casino addition made possible by a major gaming expansion bill enacted by the Illinois legislature in 2019.

At the time, Carey said financing was being arranged and projected that the combination track/casino referred to as a racino would start conducting gaming in 2021 (with a portion of the adjusted gross revenue earmarked for harness and thoroughbred purses).

But that failed to come to fruition and each subsequent year Carey has insisted at the Racing Board dates hearings that his track is “on the cusp” of completing financing arrangements.

Last year, liens were filed by several companies involved in the demolition project, claiming Hawthorne owed them as much as $5 million in unpaid bills. Carey responded by saying these will be paid and the damage inflicted by the demolition will be repaired when financing is finalized.

Frustrated over the seemingly endless delay in the racino project, the Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Association (IHHA) has gone to the Illinois legislature in Springfield to plead for elimination of the statutory 35-mile restriction that prohibits another track from being built inside that distance from Hawthorne, (unless Hawthorne approves).  If the boundary is removed, several developers have expressed an interest in building a harness track/casino.

IHHA president Jeff Davis has made several trips to Springfield to join with the organization’s lobbyists in the push to change the statute.

“My message [to the legislators] about the 35-mile limit is: ‘the fantasy of Hawthorne being able to get a racino is over if they can’t even pay a simple simulcast bill [from CDI],’” Davis said. “If you can’t pay simple bills no one is going to come in and finance you.

“Enough is enough. This affects all the horsemen. It’s obstruction. It’s costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars and holding back an entire agri-business sector that supports thousands of Illinois jobs. We can’t afford to keep waiting.”

President Donald Trump’s tariffs seem destined to make a bad situation worse for Hawthorne because of an increase in prices for steel and building materials, probably raising the price tag for the racino from $400 million to as much as $500 million.

CDI is aware of the potential negative impact tariffs would have on its own $1 billion renovation plans for its iconic track and has paused the project, citing “increasing uncertainty surrounding construction costs related to the tariffs and economic uncertainty.”

But it’s hard to feel sorry for CDI in view of the havoc it has wreaked on Illinois thoroughbred and harness racing.

In 2013, Churchill Downs inaugurated a series of qualifying races for the Kentucky Derby and excluded Hawthorne’s Illinois Derby, the premier race for Triple Crown candidates in America’s third largest metropolitan area. This was an obvious attempt to damage the prestige of Hawthorne on behalf of its Chicago area rival, Arlington International Racecourse, which CDI had merged with in 2000.

At the 2015 Illinois Racing Board dates hearings — after trying for years to eliminate Hawthorne — Arlington allied itself with Hawthorne and they successfully jointly proposed a 2016 schedule, thereby wiping out the sister Chicagoland harness tracks, Balmoral Park and Maywood Park, while they were trying to recover from bankruptcy. They were ensnared in an FBI-recorded shakedown by a top aide of former Governor Rod Blagojevich, seeking a campaign contribution in return for his signing a bill the legislature had passed that extended an impact fee for all of the Chicago area tracks paid by the state’s highest grossing casinos. Although the contribution was never made, the casinos successfully sued for damages, forcing Balmoral and Maywood into bankruptcy.

In 2018 CDI purchased a majority interest in the state’s largest grossing casino, Rivers Casino, and after lobbying for nearly two decades to enable nearby Arlington to become a racino did a sudden about-face when the gambling expansion bill was passed in 2019. CDI said it had no intention of becoming a racino and then sold Arlington to the NFL’s Chicago Bears with a string attached that there be no casino or pari-mutuel wagering on the premises. To lower their (probably unanticipated) high property taxes, the Bears tore down the majestic and tradition-rich thoroughbred track.

That left Hawthorne as the only Chicago area track and, as a consequence, the thoroughbreds and harness horses have to time-share, an undesirable situation for both. This fall harness racing will resume on Nov. 7, following a hiatus of more than eight months.

Undeniably, Illinois harness racing is in critical condition.

CDI’s unbridled greed and Hawthorne’s inability to construct an on-site casino are the reasons.