Hawthorne cancels following storm

CHICAGO - Hawthorne canceled racing for the second day in a row, Friday's card falling victim to winter storm that swept into Chicago on Thursday night and continued into Friday.

Training was halted at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday morning after heavy rain hit the area Wednesday night. Hawthorne assistant general manager Jim Miller said track maintenance crews planned to use Thursday afternoon to squeeze as much water from the track as possible before snow began falling Thursday night. That said, Thursday, while windy, turned out to be a mild, dry day, and racing certainly could have been conducted had track officials so decided. But Miller said he hoped Thursday's cancellation had more to do with preserving racing this weekend than the actual conditions Thursday afternoon. Had the track taken snow, then frozen, there was a danger the surface would have been rendered unusable Saturday and Sunday.

Hawthorne said the track would be open for training from 6 to 9 on Saturday morning. Races lost to cancellations will be brought back as "extras" on future cards, and Hawthorne has pledged to card additional races to compensate for those lost to the weather. A 10-race card - one more race than normal - was put together for Saturday.