Hawthorne sale is now closed

by Neil Milbert

The latest episode in the sad story of the death of once-vibrant Chicago area racing took place on Wednesday (Sept. 2) when Allimac 23 LTD closed on its $90 million acquisition of Hawthorne Race Course, a 119-acre property that was owned by the Carey family since 1909.

With some interruptions, Hawthorne’s Suburban Downs had been conducting harness racing since 1970.

But this year, the 14 harness programs scheduled for January and February were canceled because of Hawthorne’s dire financial situation and, now that it has been sold, the harness meeting that was to begin in early November and continue through December will not be held.

This means there will be no harness racing in Illinois this year for the first time since 1945, a year before Maywood Park in west suburban Chicago inaugurated pari-mutuel betting on the sport.

Extended thoroughbred meetings at Hawthorne date back to the early 1920s. The 2026 thoroughbred meeting began in April, three weeks later than scheduled, and ended on July 19, almost four months earlier than scheduled.

The last three thoroughbreds who’d remained in training at the track were vanned off the backstretch on the morning of Aug. 31 in accordance with an order issued earlier by Judge Timothy Barnes of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of Northern Illinois.

Working with local charities and other organizations, the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association (ITHA) relocated the resident stable area workers and their children after Judge Barnes authorized the sale to Allimac 23 in July. Allimac 23 is a Delaware shell corporation that reportedly is representing the data center giant Digital Realty of Austin, TX.

Although Hawthorne president Tim Carey had assured Judge Barnes that he’d received overtures from entities that wanted to perpetuate racing and activate the dormant casino license that the track had been awarded by the Illinois Gaming Board in 2020, Allimac 23 was the only bidder.

At the Sept. 2 closing, Judge Barnes directed the principals involved in the sale to return to his courtroom on Sept. 23 when a hearing will be held on a motion by U.S. Trustee Adam Brief to either dismiss Hawthorne’s Feb. 27 filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection or change it to a much more stringent Chapter 7 reorganization.

Brief cited “gross mismanagement” and “human cost” in arguing that Hawthorne’s debtor-in-possession is no longer viable, meaning Carey would no longer have control of either the sale proceeds or the remaining assets that might be liquidated to pay creditors.

The sale price falls far short of the amount needed to pay all of the creditors.

The number of creditors is reportedly in the neighborhood of 250 and estimates of the amount owed range from $150 million to $500 million.

According to the U.S. Trustee, “The record is clear that the debtors’ gross mismanagement resulted in harm to the horsemen and to contractual counterparts, both of whom the debtors relied on for their operations and revenue. Rather than protecting these necessary relationships, the debtors squandered them [and] have attempted to lay the blame for the chaos they created at the doors of others.”

The executive director of the Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Association (IHHA), Tony Somone, said the Sept. 23 decision “will be a critical one” because, even though the track is out of business, it still controls a remaining asset, its 11 off-track betting parlors that take wagers on races at downstate Fairmount Park, the thoroughbred track in downstate Collinsville, and other tracks in North America.

“There is still active income and expenses flowing through them and the court will need to decide if Hawthorne can continue to control them,” Somone said in a post on the IHHA web-site.

The Illinois Racing Board also may weigh-in on the situation when it conducts hearings and allocates 2027 dates on Sept. 19.

In addition to Fairmount Park, which conducts both thoroughbred racing and casino gambling across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Hawthorne is asking for both thoroughbred and harness dates, even though the track in the Chicago south suburb of Stickney officially went out of business on Wednesday.

Members of both the harness and thoroughbred communities are baffled by the Hawthorne request and Carey’s only explanation is that “it’s part of our continuing commitment to Illinois racing.”