* The Tribune’s Neil Milbert has written a definitive story…
Now that Chicago-area horse racing has been pronounced dead, the time has come to perform an autopsy.
The fiscal irresponsibility and mismanagement of bankrupt Hawthorne Race Course President Tim Carey was the immediate cause of death.
But in the wake of the impending sale of the 135-year-old track to the Delaware shell corporation Allimac 23 LLC, which intends to develop the 119-acre property for real estate purposes, it must be said that in the past 28 years, other racetrack owners made decisions that were significant factors in Chicagoland racing’s ultimate demise.
They are Sportsman’s Park’s president of thoroughbred racing, Charles Bidwill III, and his right-hand man, the late Ed Duffy; the late Arlington International Racecourse owner Dick Duchossois; and Churchill Downs Inc., which merged with Arlington in 2000.
Go read the whole thing. It always seemed to me that the track owners hated each other. Indeed, just about everyone involved hated each other.
- Lisa - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 10:46 am:
It’s absurd to blame this on track owners. Sure, they could have managed to hobble on a bit longer, or could have gotten state subsidies if they’d been more effective politically - but horse racing always relied not on people coming out for a fun outing, but on actual gamblers, and the new generation of gamblers has so many other choices for their gambling dollar, from casinos to video gaming terminals to sports betting on their phones. Their heyday was at a time when they had a near-monopoly on gambling.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 11:22 am:
===It’s absurd to blame this on track owners===
What’s absurd is defending those out of touch oldsters.
They took what they had and threw it away and passed up sure-thing money in the process.
- Horse Racer - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 11:37 am:
===They took what they had and threw it away and passed up sure-thing money in the process===
This! These race track owners consistently scoffed at almost every effort to adapt and modernize (people proposed slots at racetracks 30 years ago!) - even as the industry deteriorated right before their eyes. Owners in other states have succeeded by accepting and adapting to the reality of the ever-changing landscape of gambling.
- Amalia - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 11:38 am:
great article. so many silly greedy decisions. meanwhile I always wonder about the welfare of the horses.
- Homebody - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 12:21 pm:
Racing as sports has never competed with other professional sports as an entertainment product, especially in the era of television. Racing as an entertainment destination product as seemed unwilling or unable to adapt to the changing entertainment landscape and the modern consumer. Racing as a gambling industry has significantly higher overhead than casinos, bar slots, or sports wagering, while providing an arguably worse and less varied product.
I don’t have any expertise in the area, but it seems to me that horse racing is mostly propped up by inertia, tradition, and rich people treating it as a hobby that they can write off on their taxes.
It seems inevitable that the entire industry will continue to slowly decline for the foreseeable future.
- Stella - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 1:25 pm:
There are lots of parallels between the Carey family and the McCaskeys. Third generation heirs to a sports dynasty. Neither is particularly good at the family business. The Careys were given a statutory right to two casino licenses and couldn’t figure out a way to monetize it. And we’ve seen what a bumbling crew we have at Halas Hall. The difference is the NFL is such a cash cow you can be horrible at running a franchise and it doesn’t matter — you acquire stunning generational wealth just by showing up. That’s not the case in horse racing, where you have to be shrewd and adaptable.
- BC - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 2:23 pm:
President Harmon put it best a few years ago during a committee hearing on Hawthorne’s struggle to open a casino. He said the horse racing industry was like a “bunch of bald guys fighting over a comb.”
- Two Left Feet - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 2:26 pm:
The article is spot on, but I’d take the mismanagement back to the 90s law on purse recapture. The tracks took $ out of purses when locals bet on out of state races. IL was supposed to true up the purses, but didn’t. Horse players left for bigger purses. Tracks couldn’t leave. Since then, tracks have been mismanaging a shrinking pie.
- Contrarian - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 3:02 pm:
As a horse player, I want to point out that Hawthorne had almost six and a half years to construct and open a casino which could have saved the race track. Hawthorne began construction and demolition work, but abruptly halted it.
Afterwards, it operated an ugly track where patrons could not watch horses from the apron opposite the finish line due to scaffolding. obstructing the view. These scaffolds remained in place for years.
All types of bogus excuses were given for the delay: interest rates on construction loans were too high, the pandemic, yada, yada. Even if Hawthorne simply installed slot machines in the vacant Gold Cup Room without redecorating, it would have been an improvement.
For years, Tim Carey fiddled while Hawthorne burned. Even through the bankruptcy proceedings, he kept insisting that angel investors were expected to ride to the rescue.
The General Assembly gave Hawthorne a golden ticket and the management squandered an opportunity by insisting that outside investment partners would pay for it rather than committing their own money to finish the job.
- Annonin' - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 3:08 pm:
Looks like an earlier comment didn’t pass go. Too bad. The article was 100% on track
- Crazy - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 3:30 pm:
Hawthorne has mystified state racing officials by applying for 2027 horse racing dates without specifying a location. In order to host races, an entity has to either own or lease track premises.
https://paulickreport.com/news/the-biz/inexplicable-hawthorne-seeks-2027-race-dates-despite-pending-sale
- Friendly Bob Adams - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 4:49 pm:
Race tracks used to be the only place you could legally place a bet in the US. Now everybody has a casino on their phone.
- Three Dimensional Checkers - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 5:13 pm:
Good article. Arlington was a beautiful park, and it is ironic it ended up destroyed because Churchill is kind of a dump really but survives. I was always a casual horse gambler, which everyone should be, but I lament not being able to go to Arlington anymore.
- Larry Monk - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 5:23 pm:
That industry received millions and millions of taxpayer subsidies over the years to prop up a failing industry.
- jrm - Tuesday, Aug 18, 26 @ 6:28 am:
The demise of horse racing is primarily because it takes too long between races. Gamblers want action. When they lose, they don’t wanna wait 15 minutes for the next race. A 9-race card offers only 9 gambling opportunities spread out over 4 hours.