Hawthorne backstretch to stay open until at least Aug. 31; future racing in doubt

CHICAGO – A federal bankruptcy court judge continued a Monday hearing regarding Hawthorne Race Course until Wednesday afternoon, but even without resolution of the case, there’s no doubt where this is headed.

Allimac, a company that plans to tear down the track and develop the property, will take possession of Hawthorne at some point this year, and there will be no more than one further day of horse racing in Chicago – if not forever, than at least for the foreseeable future.

Allimac’s stalking horse bid to buy the property never received a challenge in Hawthorne’s bankruptcy proceedings, and with no reason not to let Allimac’s $90 million bid go forward, Monday’s long hearing focused on how and when ownership and stewardship of the land upon which Hawthorne sits would change hands.

At the crux of the issue are about 500 people still housed on the Hawthorne backstretch and the horses still stabled at the track.

Illinois state legislators issued a press release Monday morning urging any new owners not to hastily remove the people and animals from the property, and an attorney for Allimac indicated that the company, while it has no interest in conducting racing, would be willing to maintain the property in its current state until sometime in late summer or autumn. Monday’s hearing resulted in a pledge to keep the Hawthorne backstretch open until at least Aug. 31.

The hearing will be continued at 1 p.m. Central on Wednesday.

Hawthorne raced on Sunday, July 19, and has another program scheduled for July 26, but horsemen haven’t been paid purses for race cards on July 5 and July 12 and obviously won’t run again next weekend without the assurance of purse funds being distributed. The court has yet to determine how it will allocate money to pay off Hawthorne’s creditors, including horsemen who are owed purse money, as well as track employees.

Representatives of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association had floated a plan to use reserves in an Illinois state fund meant to subsidize purses in order to keep the Hawthorne meet going into the autumn, but that proposal appears to be dead.

So, too, is Chicago racing, once a hub for both Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds. Gone are Washington Park, Balmoral Park, Sportsman’s Park, Maywood Park, and the grand Arlington Park, which Churchill Downs Inc. closed in 2021 after declining to refashion the northwest suburban track as a racino.

Hawthorne, which sits adjacent to Chicago proper, on the southwest side of the city, has been the last Chicago track standing since Arlington fell, and seven years ago received official approval to install slot machines at the track.

Owned since the early 20th century by the Carey family, it’s every decision subject to approval from a sprawling, ineffective ownership assemblage, Hawthorne just could not make it happen.

Hawthorne razed a large portion of its grandstand in 2019, making way for the construction of a casino that never began. Hawthorne president and general manager Tim Carey every few months would trot out a new timeline for the coming casino, and even after Hawthorne filed for bankruptcy in February, Carey continued insisting Hawthorne would find a gaming partner to keep racing going and keep Hawthorne alive.

The rest of the details will be ironed out Wednesday afternoon in a federal courtroom. Racing people already know all they need to know, the writing that’s been on the wall for years: The Chicago circuit is finished.

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