Purses improved as Hawthorne meet opens

STICKNEY, Ill. – The post-Arlington era in Chicago racing has arrived. The landscape looks pretty bleak.

Hawthorne Racecourse, Chicago’s lone surviving track for Thoroughbred or Standardbred racing, commences a 34-day spring meeting Saturday. Purse money actually is decent, but horses are in short supply to start the season and those that wintered in Chicago scarcely have trained.

In better times, the Chicago season began at Sportsman’s Park, moved to Arlington for the prime summer dates, then shifted to Hawthorne for fall and winter. Now, following the Hawthorne meeting, with Arlington shuttered, northern Illinois horsemen must find new summer homes when this meet ends June 25 and Hawthorne hosts a summer harness meeting.

“The pause in the summer is the worst part of it,” said David McCaffrey, executive director of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association.

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The ITHA played a direct role in increased purses this meet, which are expected to average close to $190,000 daily, up from about $130,000 last fall. The horsemen’s group lobbied the state legislature to release to purse accounts about $5 million sitting unused in the state’s horse racing fund. Almost $2.7 million goes to Hawthorne Thoroughbred purses, which received a further boost from Arlington’s absence. Hawthorne during 2022 has accumulated all the so-called dark-time money, revenue from simulcasts collected when there’s no live racing.

Hawthorne also hosted a winter harness meeting, which meant Thoroughbreds who wintered at the track could only train in Barn 2B, which houses a one-eighth-mile jogging track.

“We didn’t open the track until Monday,” racing secretary Allen Plever said Wednesday. “I’ve never had my back to the wall like this before.”

Horses arrive daily on the Hawthorne backstretch, but Plever estimated the population at about 400 during the meet. The racing office does only have to fill two cards per week – Saturdays and Sundays – during the month of April. Three-day racing weeks commence in May and hold through meet’s end, with first post set daily at 2:50 p.m. Central. Entries should pick up through April, Plever said, but turf racing could be a long way off with winter slow to release its grip on the region.

“Normally we try to run on it by mid-April, but currently I have nothing scheduled until the weekend of April 30 and May 1,” said Plever.

Hawthorne and the ITHA are working on an arrangement to reimburse shipping costs for horsemen that leave at meet’s end in June and return for the fall-winter season. McCaffrey said some stables will head to Colonial Downs, which runs a season that fits neatly between the two Hawthorne meets. Other outfits will head to Canterbury Park, Prairie Meadows, and Indiana Grand. It’s far from ideal, and there are no guarantees the 2023 Illinois racing calendar will look different.

“We’re not sure about next year yet,” said John Walsh, Hawthorne’s assistant general manager.

Walsh did say the long-delayed Hawthorne racino is expected to get back on track in coming months. Construction on the project began during the winter of 2020 but halted that spring and has since been dormant.

A key April 28 meeting of Illinois Gaming Board could give Hawthorne the go-ahead to resume work on the casino. “We should be going forward sometime this summer,” Walsh said.

Forward would be nice. For years, Illinois racing has been sliding back.