The Illinois Racing Board on Friday unanimously approved a request from Arlington International to suspend the start of its 2020 racing season because of the coronavirus pandemic. The board’s approval was a fait accompli since Arlington, scheduled to start its meet May 1, still hasn’t been able to open its backstretch for the season and since Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Thursday had extended the state’s stay-at-home order through May 31. The board conducted a regularly scheduled monthly meeting on a videoconference feed used by participants while providing an audio livestream to the public. The meeting was in part led by Dan Beiser, who became a board member last summer and on Thursday was appointed IRB chair by Pritzker. Six commissioners, the minimum number for a quorum, were present Friday as five IRB seats remain vacant. The meeting also included an update on negotiations between Arlington and the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association regarding a contract required to conduct racing in 2020. The contract remains unsigned, and Chris Block, an IRB board member, a longtime Illinois trainer, and part of the Block family breeding and ownership operation, a bulwark of Illinois racing, said negotiations conducted April 8 had begun fruitfully before breaking down. :: To stay up to date, follow us on: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Block said Arlington president Tony Petrillo had agreed to some concessions requested by the ITHA, such as redirecting at least a portion of purse money from the stakes schedule to overnight races, and that the broad outline of a 45-day meet running from July 4 through Sept. 26 had taken shape. But, Block said, Petrillo then insisted the contract be extended to cover the 2021 season with the ITHA leaving Arlington and its parent company, Churchill Downs Inc., to determine under what terms that meet would be run. Petrillo later in the meeting testified that “the statements [Block] made may not be my understanding of conversations we had.” Arlington counsel Shawn Wood also disputed the ITHA’s characterization of the April 8 negotiation. David McCaffrey, ITHA executive director, said the ITHA on Tuesday had sent a counterproposal to Arlington restricting a contract only to the 2020 season. There will be no need for a contract, however, if Arlington doesn’t race. Pritzker’s extension of the stay-at-home order pushes back Arlington’s timeline for opening the empty backstretch, though Petrillo told the board that Arlington had met with local health officials regarding protocols that could be employed to bring horses and humans back into the stabling area. Those communications will be broadened to include county and state health departments, but as of now there is no timeline for an equine population to return to Arlington. Petrillo, when directly questioned by commissioner Marcus Davis, also strongly hinted Arlington would be loath to conduct spectator-free racing. Petrillo said Arlington would have to double the 2019 simulcast handle on its races to generate the same purse levels as last year, since ontrack bets on live racing generate more than twice the money for purses as out-of-state bets. Purses in Illinois still are generated almost entirely through betting on races, and all the offtrack betting parlors in the state have been shut down since mid-March. Arlington’s purse account has continued making some money through CDI’s TwinSpires account-wagering platform, but McCaffrey, the ITHA executive director, warned that daily purses could average as little as $75,000 is the coronavirus shutdown continues and a shortened meet is attempted later in the summer. Mike Campbell, president of the ITHA, pressed further, reminding the board that last summer CDI had rejected the chance to turn Arlington into a casino while only verbally committing Arlington to remaining open through 2021. “We just want someone to give us some assessment of what to expect,” Campbell said. Meanwhile, Hawthorne, which has begun the first phase of constructing an ontrack casino (though they have yet to be granted a casino license by the Illinois Gaming Board), was forced to halt its harness meet in mid-March and has both Standardbred and Thoroughbred horses as well as more than 500 people housed on the backstretch. An item on the IRB agenda, introduced by Hawthorne president Tim Carey, asked the board to create a “working equalization group” composed of board members, board staff, and track operators. Carey said the group was needed to assess the uncertainty and fluidity in Illinois racing created by coronavirus, but the thrust of his proposal appeared to be aimed at an agreement between Hawthorne and Arlington governing the allocation of racing dates and dark-host days during 2020. The dark-host track keeps most of the revenue generated through simulcast handle on non-racing days, and while Arlington took in several million dollars in dark-host money during January and February, Hawthorne lost out on it’s dark-host period during March and April when simulcasting ceased. Carey also alluded to the inequity of Hawthorne currently housing horses and humans who would wind up supporting a summer race meet at Arlington and expressed concern over his track’s purse account for its fall 2020 Thoroughbred season. Arlington opposed the creation of the group and in the end, at the urging of new chairman Beiser, the board agreed to take up the proposal again in May after staff had conducted a more thorough review. Any review of Illinois racing following Friday’s meeting would inevitably turn negative. The state’s racing industry was operating on shaky ground before the global pandemic. Now there is basically no ground at all.