'On life support': How Illinois' horse racing industry is trying to survive after Arlington's closure

The entry of Two Phil's into Saturday's Kentucky Derby may have been a bright spot in an otherwise bleak landscape for the Illinois horse racing industry.

The 3-year-old colt trained for the premier race at Hawthorne Race Course in Southwest suburban Stickney, where North Barrington's Larry Rivelli relocated his stables after Arlington Park met its finish line in 2021. Two Phil's, though, was bred in Kentucky, and the horse has run all of its races outside Illinois.

Closure of the grand racing palace in Arlington Heights only accelerated the industry's decline in Illinois, where there are now fewer equines being bred on downstate farms, many have left to race in other states, and a long-anticipated racino project at Hawthorne - the lone remaining Chicago-area track where both thoroughbreds and standardbreds now race - is stalled amid financing woes.

In March, Tim Carey, Hawthorne's president and CEO, pleaded with state lawmakers to preserve his track's veto power over the opening of any new harness track within 35 miles, amid a new consortium's proposal for just that in Richton Park.

Carey's testimony before the Senate executive committee plainly stated the condition of his 114-year-old family business.

"2022 was our worst year ever. Even though Arlington Park went away and we had 365 days, it was our worst year ever," Carey said. "Because we flipped the track four times, because we're out there working for both the thoroughbred guys and the harness guys."

"Horse racing loses money," Carey declared. "We're losing millions a year keeping this agribusiness - horse racing - viable. ... We stepped up. Arlington's not around. Maywood and Balmoral's not around. Sportsman's Park isn't around. And so we're trying to build a racing industry."

Hawthorne's quest to construct a second track for standardbreds to move to in the South suburbs is second on its priority list, amid the pending $400 million redevelopment of its current facility into a racing, casino and entertainment venue.

Teardown of an old parking garage, and a gut job of the aging grandstand's seats and glass, started in late 2020 and is now finished. That paves the way for Hawthorne's second level to become a gambling floor with the slots and table games granted under the 2019 state gambling expansion bill.

That's what everyone in the industry - racetrack executives, horse owners, trainers and breeders - has been hoping for. Revenues from the casino games would be funneled into the purse accounts of horsemen and help them compete with other states that have adopted that model long ago, they contend.

But four years since the legislation was signed into law, Hawthorne still doesn't have the financing to make its racino a reality.

"Almost four years ago, people who care about racing thought that the gaming bill had a path in it that would essentially save racing in Illinois, because I think it's fair to say horse racing - both breeds - is on life support right now in our state," said state Sen. Bill Cunningham, a Chicago Democrat who is the Senate's point on gambling issues. "I don't know how much longer it has to last."

Kevin Kline, the track's CEO of gaming, told the Illinois Gaming Board in March that a year ago officials were reevaluating the construction budget as the war in Ukraine began, inflation accelerated, the supply chain was disrupted and interest rates rose.

After funds are secured and a 14-month construction schedule commences, Carey believes the racino could open by the end of 2024.

Chris Block, president of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, said there is still hope - albeit waning - among the 2,500 thoroughbred owners and trainers he represents that the racino will get up and running. Many are being careful about how much they invest into the industry right now, he said.

Since the closure of Arlington, a number of local owners and trainers have migrated to Indiana to enter their horses in races, with a few also in Ohio and Kentucky, Block said. This year, the horse stock at the Hawthorne backstretch is 815, down from 1,000 at Arlington.

They're racing 68 live days, compared to more than 100 when both tracks were in operation.

The combined purse account at Arlington and Hawthorne was $19 million in 2019. Now, the horsemen are running for $12 million.

Block, an owner-trainer whose family also has one of the largest thoroughbred breeding operations in the state, now makes the trip from his Elk Grove Village home to Hawthorne each day.

Even after the last Arlington race in September 2021 and subsequent sale of the 326-acre property to the Chicago Bears, some horsemen held out hope that the racetrack could be saved. Although believing it to be "an extreme long shot," Block reached out to new Bears President Kevin Warren earlier this year to gauge his interest in a possible sports entertainment district that would be anchored by a new football stadium and existing racetrack.

Block never got a call back. Then news broke last week that the Bears plan to begin demolition of the six-story grandstand and other structures on site in the coming weeks.

Though the loss of Arlington was "devastating," Block said his hopes remain at Hawthorne.

"There's a dark cloud right now over it. There's no question about it," Block said. "But there's no reason why we can't wake up some morning and the overcast skies are gone and the sun is shining. And that will come in the form of a racino at Hawthorne. Without question, that's what we have to have. In order for survival, it's plain and simple, that has to happen."