CHICAGO – The Illinois Racing Board awarded 2021 racing dates Wednesday to the state’s three remaining racing venues during its annual dates awards meeting. The schedule follows the established parameters of the modern era in Illinois, with Fairmount Park outside Saint Louis scattering about 50 racing days from the end of April through early September, and the Chicago Thoroughbred season divided between Hawthorne in the spring and fall and Arlington during the summer. Now, the hope is that the assigned schedule sticks. While Arlington has a contract covering the 2021 racing season with the local representative horsemen’s group, the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, and has pledged to race through 2021, comments made on a shareholder conference call in July by Bill Carstanjen, CEO of Arlington’s parent company, Churchill Downs Inc., have raised concerns with local racing stakeholders. Carstanjen said barring major change Arlington’s days as a racing venue were numbered, and that CDI did not necessarily have to conduct racing next year at Arlington. Carstanjen’s remarks followed CDI’s decision not to pursue an Arlington casino license when the opportunity arose during the summer of 2019, as well as Arlington’s initial reluctance to conduct spectator-free racing this summer. Arlington finally relented on that point – and eventually was permitted to allow limited attendance this month – but a protracted contract dispute with the ITHA pushed the 2020 meet opening back until late July. During Wednesday’s meeting, IRB chairman Daniel Beiser asked Tony Petrillo, Arlington's presidemt, for clarification on Carstanjen’s remarks. Petrillo replied that Arlington intended to conduct a 2021 race meet and that Carstanjen, when he spoke in July, wasn’t aware that Arlington and Hawthorne had a two-year agreement, spanning 2020 and 2021, governing their racing dates applications. Beiser pressed Petrillo to seek written confirmation from CDI regarding next year’s racing season, and Petrillo agreed to attempt to procure such an affirmation when Arlington officially accepted its dates awards. David McCaffrey, executive director of the ITHA, asked the board to go further and add a condition to the dates order stipulating that Arlington only could receive the recapture money owed them in 2021 after they had run the meet assigned them. Recapture is the Illinois-unique provision adopted decades ago upon introduction of full-card simulcasting to compensate track operators for betting handle shifting from local to out of state product. :: Want to get your Past Performances for free? Click to learn more. After a formula is applied to annual handle, millions of dollars get deducted from the purse account. The IRB’s attorney testified Wednesday that such an order relating to recapture wasn’t permitted by law, but McCaffery claimed, with evidence, that the board had inserted recapture-related stipulations in past orders, such as in 2011 when awarding harness racing dates to Maywood Park and Balmoral Park. Beiser said the board could take up the ITHA’s request during the January meeting when recapture gets certified. Arlington in the end was awarded a 68-day meet, with a commitment to have at least eight races per day, spanning April 30 through Sept. 30. Racing weeks range from two days early and late in the meet to four days during July and part of August. Arlington’s abbreviated 2020 meet is being run stakes-free to dedicate limited purse money to overnight races, but Petrillo said Arlington plans to host stakes races again in 2021. Hawthorne gets 50 Thoroughbred racing days in 2021 with its spring meet running from March 6 through April 25 and the fall season from Oct. 1 through year’s end. Hawthorne will race either two or three days per week. Fairmount’s 53-day season starts April 27 and ends Sept. 6 with racing either two or three days per week. During summer, Hawthorne, racing as Suburban Downs, conducts the state’s lone remaining Standardbred meeting. The IRB is supposed to have nine commissioners, but it has been years since all the seats were filled, and for several days, between commissioner Thomas McCauley’s resignation last week and the appointment Sept. 14 of new commissioner Lesley Sandberg, the IRB had only five members, one too few for a quorum. McCauley's voice had been the loudest and most persistent on the Board over the last couple years, and it was he who was chosen to mediate sticky contract negotiations earlier this year between Arlington and the ITHA. Sandberg, of Barrington - which is situated just northwest of Arlington and is adjacent to Barrington Hills, home of Arlington chairman emeritus Dick Duchossois - was president and CEO of Permatron Corporation, a privately owned Chicago-area air filtration business. Duchossois Capital Management, the Duchossois family's private investment group, partnered with another entity and acquired Permatron in 2017. In another board action, Hawthorne was granted a request to change its December racing schedule this year, substituting Sunday cards for Thursdays. Hawthorne has begun construction work to modify its facility to house a sports book and a casino, and said changing race days this winter would expedite the project. The ITHA said it supported that move. Fairmount also plans to open a sportsbook and casino once the Illinois Gaming Board grants final approval.