Churchill Downs Inc. won’t seek 2022 Illinois racing dates

The Illinois Racing Board’s application period for 2022 Illinois racing dates closed Friday with nothing submitted by Arlington International Racecourse or its parent company, Churchill Downs Inc.

Barring an entirely unforeseen development there will be no racing at Arlington next year. And unless CDI accepts a bid on the Arlington property from a development group intent on continuing racing at the suburban Chicago site, Arlington will shut its doors forever at the end of the 2021 season.

CDI months ago announced it planned to sell the huge Arlington parcel to developers and opened the property to bids earlier this year. The bidding window closed in June, but CDI so far has offered no hints about a winning bid. One bidding entity, with former Arlington president Roy Arnold functioning as a spokesman, announced its intention to split the property into parcels and continue racing, with a reduced footprint, at the venue. The Chicago Bears professional football team also placed a bid with the intention of moving away from their home stadium in downtown Chicago, Soldier Field.

Illinois, once a vital center in North American racing, with four Thoroughbred tracks in the Chicago area alone, will be down to just two racecourses in 2022. Hawthorne Racecourse applied for 365 days of Thoroughbred racing and, operating as Suburban Downs, for 365 days of Standardbred racing. Fairmount Park in downstate Illinois, which runs a Thoroughbred meet, applied for 150 days, from March 12 through Nov 20. The exact dates of 2022 race meetings will be determined at the Racing Board at its annual dates awards meeting later this summer.

Hawthorne traditionally has raced winter-spring and fall-winter Thoroughbred meets, hosting harness races during the summer when Arlington is open. Hawthorne has planned to take advantage of gambling expansion legislation that was signed into law during 2019 and open an ontrack casino, but construction work on that project slowed to a crawl late this winter.

CDI declined to apply for a casino license when the opportunity arose two summers ago, a signal to many in the Illinois racing community that Arlington’s days were numbered. CDI owns a majority stake in Rivers Casino, located only about a dozen miles east of Arlington.

With no 2022 racing at Arlington, CDI’s account-wagering company, TwinSpires, either would have to cease operations in Illinois next year or partner with one of the state’s two remaining racetracks.