Latest meet continues downward trend

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – It’s important when discussing racing seasons at a given track not to compare apples and oranges, and the 2015 Arlington meet was indeed different from its predecessors. Race weeks in May, June, and September were three days, shorter than ever before, and the 624 races run during the meet represented a drop of 210 from 2014.

Yet it’s still hard to look at one very raw number and, even accounting for apples to oranges, not feel like the sky is falling on Illinois racing: Gross handle on races at Arlington has dropped nearly 50 percent in just two years.

During its 2013 meet, Arlington handled a total of $264,813,852, but this year, that number was just $140,758,071, a 47 percent decline. Handle is down 34 percent just since last season, when gross handle was $213,418,428.

So, even while purse expenditures and overhead fell this year because of reduced dates and races, the truth of the matter is that the shrinking total pool of betting handle in North America has been flowing away from Arlington, widely hailed as one of the great racing venues in North America.

In the strictest apples-to-apples sense – a per-race basis – betting this year fell 11.8 percent from $255,897 in 2014 to an average of $225,574 for the 624 races held on 77 race days this meeting. Average daily handle – again, negatively affected this year by eight-race cards, smaller than in the past – was down 23.8 percent from $2,397,960 per day in 2014 to $1,828,026.

Purses were lower than at any time in recent history at the start of the meet and were cut by 10 percent in late June. On many race days, Arlington paid out less than $100,000 in prize money. That can’t compete with other tracks in the region that offer purses enhanced by casino revenue, and field size at Arlington fell accordingly, from 7.63 starters per race in 2014 to 7.18 starters per race this year. Polytrack races during the 2015 meet averaged 6.81 starters per race. Favorites won 37 percent of races this year after hitting at a 35 percent clip in 2014. There were 221 turf races in 2015 – many at a lower class level than ever seen on the Arlington grass – compared with 277 in 2014.

Arlington general manager Tony Petrillo has said on multiple occasions that Illinois racing can’t continue on this path, and the numbers from this summer bear this view out. The annual Illinois Racing Board meeting to award dates for 2016 will take place Tuesday in Chicago, and if nothing else, Arlington will seek to accumulate more purse money for 2016 by attaining additional winter dark-host dates during which simulcast betting boosts the purse account. Hope for legislative approval of expanded gambling in Illinois, which would bring slot machines to tracks, has dimmed as the Illinois state government continues to be gridlocked into autumn over a host of seemingly intractable issues.

The meet was good to jockey Jose Valdivia Jr., trainer Larry Rivelli, and owner Vince Foglia’s Patricia’s Hope LLC, respectively the leading jockey, trainer, and owner during the season. Valdivia spent his first meet at Arlington, and after a modest start, he kicked into high gear this summer with help from agent Steve Leving. Rivelli started fast, finished fast, and ran away with the training title, scoring 72 winners. His busiest client was Foglia, who locked down his first Arlington owner’s title with a blazing run through August and September.