Hawthorne sale approved, spelling the end of horse racing in Chicago
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CHICAGO – A federal bankruptcy court judge has approved the sale of Hawthorne Race Course to a company that will cease racing operations and develop the property.
ALLIMAC 2023 LLC, an opaque, recently incorporated Delaware-based entity, is buying Hawthorne for $90 million. The sale is expected to close at the end of July. Horses and humans still residing on the Hawthorne backstretch – several hundred people and animals – must vacate the property by 4 p.m. on Aug. 31.
Judge Timothy Barnes signed the order approving the sale on Monday, pulling the curtain down on horse racing in Chicago, the third-largest city in the United States. Hawthorne sputtered to its ignominious end with a final racing program July 19. Horsemen weren’t paid purse money earned from races on that day and the two Sundays preceding it.
Hawthorne is situated in the Village of Stickney adjacent to Chicago and has been owned for more than a century by the Carey family. The track has teetered on the brink of dissolution for years, and in February filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Documents released by the court Monday list secured creditors owed well over $100 million.
Among them is W.E. O’Neil Construction, owed $7.7 million after being contracted by Hawthorne to tear down the track’s grandstand in autumn 2020. The Illinois Gaming Board that summer had preliminarily approved Hawthorne for a casino license, and this was supposed to be the first step toward building a racino that would preserve racing, both Thoroughbred and Standardbred, in Chicago. The demolition, though, ceased in 2021 owing to financial problems, never resumed, and Hawthorne declined steadily thereafter.
As part of the Monday order, W.E. O’Neill will gift $450,000 to charities associated with the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association “for the expressed purposes of assisting the Backstretch Community . . . and horses.”
ALLIMAC will purchase only the 107 acres of real estate upon which Hawthorne sits. The track intends to continue operating its 12 off-track betting parlors but can do so only until the end of 2026, when their license to operate a racetrack expires.
At the turn of the century, the Chicago metro area still had five racetracks, and the struggling industry appeared to have been thrown a lifeline when 2019 gambling-expansion legislation approved the installation of slot machines at racetracks. But Churchill Downs Inc, which owned Arlington Park, declined to open a racino and instead sold the Arlington property to the Chicago Bears.
Sportsman’s Park, Maywood Park, and Balmoral Park already were gone, and now, Hawthorne is, too.
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