Illinois 2019 dates requests similar to this year's racing schedule

CHICAGO - If the applications filed with the Illinois Racing Board by Illinois racetracks for 2019 racing dates are a guide – and they almost certainly are – the state’s racing schedule next year will look almost exactly like those in 2017 and 2018.

Arlington applied for the same schedule as it was awarded for 2018 - 71 live days and 215 host days. Hawthorne’s application is for 52 racing programs and 150 host days compared to the 55 live dates and 150 host days the IRB granted the Chicago-area track for 2018. The 52 live programs this year are down from 59 last year and 55 during 2018 at Hawthorne.

Host days include live-racing days as well as dark-host days, which are dark days on which the host track derives most of the revenue generated by simulcast wagering.

Hawthorne, operating as Suburban Downs, also applied for 71 harness-racing programs in 2019, down considerably from the 112 racing days it will host in 2018. Hawthorne is the last venue in Illinois besides the Illinois State Fair that conducts Standardbred racing. Hawthorne is the host track for harness racing the entire year.

Hawthorne ran a winter Standardbred meet in 2018 but didn’t apply for such a meeting next year. Hawthorne scrambled to convert its racing surface from Standardbred to Thoroughbred between the winter harness meet and the spring Thoroughbred meet this year, but with no winter harness racing, Hawthorne requested to start its spring meet on March 6, 24 days earlier than in 2018.

Fairmount Park in downstate Illinois, as has become standard, applied for 150 dates between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31. When the IRB convenes for its dates-award meeting on Sept. 18 the actual details of the Fairmount meet will be hashed out. Fairmount was awarded 41 days in 2017 and 2018.