No Chicago racing in 2027

by Neil Milbert

Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association executive director Dave McCaffrey called Wednesday (Sept. 16), “a day of infamy” for Chicago racing.

“For the first time in over 100 years there will be no racing in the third largest metropolitan area in the nation in the succeeding year,” said the former standardbred trainer and former president of the Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Association after the Illinois Racing Board awarded dates for 2027.

The only dates awarded by the board went to Fairmount Park, which conducts thoroughbred racing and casino gambling in downstate Collinsville across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. Fairmount was awarded 73 live programs from April 6-Nov. 23.

The last remaining Chicago-area track, Hawthorne Race Course, officially went out of business earlier in the month when the Delaware shell corporation Allimac 23 closed on its acquisition of the bankrupt track, owned and operated by the Carey family since 1909, for $90 million.

Nevertheless, in a baffling move, Hawthorne president Tim Carey applied to the Racing Board for dates for Hawthorne and its Suburban Downs harness racing entity.

But Hawthorne failed to have a representative at Wednesday’s hearings that prefaced the awarding of dates.

“The applications submitted by Hawthorne and Suburban Downs did not comply with the Illinois Harness Racing Act and regulations prescribed by the Illinois Racing Board,” said the board’s executive director, Domenic DiCera. “The Board rejected the applications from Hawthorne and Suburban Downs because of irreparable deficiencies.”

The only racing at Hawthorne this year was the thoroughbred meeting that started three weeks later than scheduled in April and ended on July 19, nearly four months before it was scheduled to reach the finish-line.

All 14 of the Suburban Downs programs scheduled for January and February were canceled because of the track’s inability to fund purses and now that Hawthorne has gone out of business the harness dates scheduled to run from early November through December have been erased.

With no racing in Chicagoland the fates of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association (ITHA) and Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Association (IHHA) are up in the air but both organizations are holding out hope that new tracks will be built.

In the meantime, McCaffrey said: “We’ve got some money to divvy up in the bankruptcy proceedings. Some of that is designated for [thoroughbred] backstretch workers and [thoroughbred] owners and trainers, actually $350,000 in each pile. The funds have to be distributed in an Internal Revenue Service compliant fashion so we’re developing criteria that complies with the IRS and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court [of Northern Illinois]. We’re going to be able to give the backstretch workers who have been negatively impacted [by Hawthorne’s financial turmoil] a little bit of money to offset the negative effect.

“Then, we’ve got a couple things we want to pursue in the State Legislature [in the fall veto session]. We’ll probably be done as an organization by next spring.”

However, McCaffrey pointed out “three separate groups have recently contacted us about the possibility of pursuing a thoroughbred racino license.”

He declined to name the people involved with these groups but said none of them put in a bid for Hawthorne after it declared bankruptcy.

It’s conceivable that these people checked out the possibility and didn’t want to become entangled in the financial mess confronting Carey.

Other people are interested in putting a harness racino in downstate Decatur and in the south suburbs of Chicago when the 35-mile ban affecting builders in the Hawthorne area becomes non-existent because the 119-acre property is no longer a racetrack.

Hawthorne’s 11 off-track betting parlors in the Chicago area are licensed to continue operating through the end of the year, according to the Racing Board’s project director, Bob Dineen.

“That [2026] license expires Dec. 31,” he said. “It can’t be renewed in 2027 because Hawthorne will no longer be licensed to operate.”

It remains to be seen how the OTB revenue will be distributed.

Clarity should be forthcoming when the Bankruptcy Court of Northern Illinois reconvenes on Wednesday (Sept. 23) to consider a request by U.S. Trustee Adam Brief to either dismiss Hawthorne’s Feb. 27 filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection or change it to a Chapter 7 designation.

Brief is charging that the current owners cannot manage a successful reorganization and is citing “gross mismanagement” and “human cost.”

If Judge Timothy Barnes rules in favor of the U.S. Trustee, the Carey family would lose its debtor-in-possession status.

Brief’s Aug. 26 filing points out that the $90 million in sale proceeds from Allimac 23 fall far short of the massive amount the track owes its multitude of creditors. The number of creditors is reported to be approximately 250 and estimates of the amount they are owed range from $100 million to $500 million.