* 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.
