Arlington's request to card fewer races denied

CHICAGO – The Illinois Racing Board handed Arlington a defeat and a victory during a long and contentious regular monthly meeting Tuesday, voting down the track’s request to be permitted to card fewer than eight races per day but granting permission to alter longstanding rules governing how race cards are assembled.

Arlington asked the board for permission to card fewer than eight races per day, but that motion was defeated 6-5, commissioner Hugh Scates, participating in absentia by phone, casting the deciding vote. Relying solely on betting handle to fund purses this year, Arlington has been racing three-day weeks in May and June, running just eight races per card, but with four-day weeks scheduled for July and August, the track said it lacked the horse population to properly fill eight more races per week and wanted to be allowed to put forth smaller cards when it deemed necessary.

That move would have contravened a contract signed before this meet with the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association as well as the 2015 racing dates order issued last year by the IRB, both of which stipulated a minimum of eight races per card.

The ITHA vigorously opposed Arlington’s request, its representatives saying Tuesday that anything less than eight-race programs signals that a race meet no longer is viable, and that they’d prefer an across-the-board purse cut to a reduction in racing opportunities. Trainer Chris Block, an ITHA board member, said permitting fewer than eight races per day would be “another nail in the coffin” of Illinois racing.

The ITHA claims the purse account is healthy right now and that no drastic action is required, but Arlington projections show the purse account becoming overpaid – a condition the track will not accept – by meet’s end.

Arlington handle, on a per-race basis, declined 18 percent in May compared with May 2014. Field size during the period was up marginally, to 7.7 starters per race, while the track hosted 14 fewer races per week, 24 this year compared with 38 last year.

Arlington general manager Tony Petrillo said after the meeting that “everything is on the table” with regard to balancing the inflow and outflow of purse money. “We’ll sit down with horsemen and see how much of a purse cut they want,” Petrillo said.

Further cuts to an already-trimmed stakes schedule also seem likely as Arlington seeks to fill what it says will grow to be a $1.4 million purse account deficit. The ITHA said multiple times Tuesday that Arlington Million Day, which pays $2.75 million in stakes purses, creates a $2 million purse account deficit, a claim Arlington didn’t refute.

Arlington says it has been paying roughly $127,000 daily in overnight purses, a number that could drop to barely more than $100,000 after cuts. Maiden special weight races already offer a purse of only $24,000, the lowest in several decades of Arlington racing.

With Scates this time casting a deciding “yes” vote, the board went 6-5 in favor of Arlington’s request to alter longstanding rules regarding the carding of races. Claiming its racing office was hamstrung by restrictions on what races had by statute to be carded, Arlington was granted permission to assemble race cards using anything from a platter of races in the published condition book and extra or substitute races. The rule change only extends through the end of Arlington's 2015 race meeting.

The longstanding requirement to use races in the condition book that attract sufficient entries no longer applies, with horsemen left wondering how they can plan a racing schedule for their stock lacking any certainty about when a horse will actually be able to start in a given race. Arlington believes the rule change will allow it to use the largest fields possible, increasing field size and helping handle.