Arlington, horsemen agree on contract; short 2020 meet planned

Arlington International Racecourse and the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association were expected to sign a two-year contract by Thursday morning that would bring a short 2020 race meeting to Arlington.

The suburban Chicago track hasn’t yet opened its stables to horses following the coronavirus pandemic, and because of Arlington’s initial reluctance to conduct spectator-free racing and an ongoing contract dispute with the ITHA, it was feared Arlington might not host a race meet this year.

This year’s meet, which has to be approved by the Illinois Racing Board, would start July 24, with the backstretch opening during the first week in July. The season would run 30 days, without spectators, with three-day race weeks Thursday through Saturday, post time 2 p.m. Central.

The track and horsemen have been lobbing contract proposals back and forth for months. They met for a socially distanced, in-person negotiation mediated by IRB commissioner Thomas McCauley on June 6 at Hawthorne but failed to reach a deal that weekend. Negotiations ramped up again this week with a IRB meeting set for Thursday and time running out for conducting a meet this summer, and Wednesday, both parties said they had struck a tentative deal for a contract covering racing seasons in 2020 and 2021. The two parties still were negotiating a couple details regarding the 2021 season, a source said early Wednesday, but it was expected a contract would be in place before Thursday morning’s IRB meeting.

There will be no open stakes races this year, meaning the Arlington Million program will go on hiatus, but the Million and its attendant Grade 1 turf stakes, the Beverly D. and Secretariat, are expected to return in 2021. How they’re paid for – through the purse account or with some contribution from track ownership – will be determined by how much purse money is generated before the 2021 racing season. Churchill Downs Inc. owns Arlington.

:: Click to learn about our DRF's Free Past Performance program.

Arlington has generated little purse money this year during the economic freeze brought on by the coronavirus; purses at the track are funded almost entirely through betting, and Arlington’s offtrack-betting parlors have been slow to reopen following the coronavirus shutdown. Purse levels for the 2020 meet aren’t set and figure to be minimal, but the absence of stakes races will boost the overnight outlays.

Arlington, which gets large crowds on summer holidays and certain weekends and charges daily admission, said in late May and early June that its business model precluded racing without fans, but eventually moved off that position. The track and CDI declined last summer to apply for a casino license while the state’s other two tracks, Hawthorne and Fairmount, filed applications.

Hawthorne committed in May to running a fall-winter Thoroughbred meeting, and Arlington’s opening at least gives Chicago horsemen some stability during the rest of a chaotic 2020. Tracks in Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, and Iowa recently have opened, and Arlington could struggle to attract a critical mass of horses to facilitate even a drastically shortened meet this summer. But at least, as far as committed Chicago horsemen are concerned, there will be a meet.