Illinois Racing Board to Review 2020 Season

The Illinois Racing Board has scheduled a special meeting for June 5 to reconsider how, when, and where the Thoroughbred racing season might start—a season increasingly likely to go forward without the Arlington Million (G1T).

Under the microscope is Arlington International Racecourse. The state's showpiece track had been scheduled to open May 1, but that plan, like much else in the industry, was derailed by state-mandated restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although those protocols have been eased, allowing racing without spectators, Arlington officials said throughout May they could not open without fans in the grandstand.

Sources say that position has changed and that Arlington will seek approval at the special meeting to run a 30-day meeting in August without spectators, unless the state's guidelines change to permit them.

The likelihood of Arlington's stakes races being run, including the Million, the Beverly D. Stakes (G1T) for fillies and mares, and the Secretariat Stakes (G1T) for 3-year-olds, has been declining as weeks go by.

The 2019 Beverly D. was run for $600,000 and the Secretariat for $500,000. Arlington had not announced this year's purse structure or the remainder of its stakes schedule before the shutdown.

The Million was not run in 1998 or 1999 during a shutdown of the track. It was contested at Woodbine in 1988 while Arlington built its iconic cantilevered-roof grandstand in the aftermath of a disastrous 1985 fire.

Much of the attraction of the races, Illinois' only grade 1 events, hinges on international participation. The deadline for nominations passed long ago, and European trainers with interest in the race found no one to accept nominations as parent company Churchill Downs Inc. furloughed most of Arlington's employees. With Europe and the U.K. scrambling to recover from COVID-19 shutdowns, too, horses who might have been targeted to Arlington have been pointed elsewhere.

Money earmarked for the grade 1 events and other stakes could instead help fund overnight purses, sources said. That plan would supplement revenue from "dark day" simulcasting and earnings generated during the live meeting.

At an IRB meeting, Hawthorne president Tim Carey said if Arlington doesn't agree to resume racing, it should not be entitled to accrue purse money from "dark day" simulcast wagering. He suggested that revenue be redirected to Hawthorne to help fund its late-season Thoroughbred meeting.

Even if Arlington's plan is approved by the board, the situation is fraught with other considerations and rivalries, including the lack of a legally required contract between Arlington and the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association. Hawthorne continues to stable several hundred Thoroughbreds in its barn area, pending the opening of the Arlington backstretch.

The chaos wrought by COVID-19 compounded an already tough year for Illinois Thoroughbred horsemen. In a "normal" year, Hawthorne would have staged Thoroughbred racing during the late winter and early spring, leading into the Arlington meet.

This year, Hawthorne, with the approval of the ITHA, declined to apply for early year dates, planning to use that time to build out a new casino and sports-betting facility. That plan counted on the Illinois Gaming Board approving licenses by the end of 2019, as seemingly mandated by the state's new gaming legislation. The IGB, however, has taken no action on licenses, so construction has been delayed indefinitely.