Arlington Summer Racing in Peril, No Agreement Reached
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Photo: Anne M. Eberhardt
The statue of John Henry defeating The Bart at Arlington International Racecourse
Two days of face-to-face negotiations between Arlington International Racecourse and the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association ended June 7 without a deal, imperiling Arlington's already long-delayed season.
The Illinois Racing Board deferred a decision June 5 on how to structure the second half of the Chicago-area racing year and organized the weekend meetings in hopes a deal could be worked out. Commissioner Thomas McCauley moderated the meetings.
The start of the season was postponed from May 1 due to COVID-19 restrictions. When those were eased, allowing racing to continue without spectators, Arlington president Tony Petrillo told the Racing Board that the track would not schedule a start date until spectators were allowed.
The track reversed that decision at the June 5 meeting.
That left the contract with horsemen as the outstanding issue. Illinois law requires tracks to have a contract in place, and Arlington cannot recall its furloughed employees, open for training, or schedule a start date without an agreement in place. The IRB recessed the June 5 meeting to June 8, hoping enforced negotiations would produce an agreement.
The ITHA has asked that Arlington sign a one-year contract, schedule at least a 30-day race meeting without stakes races, and open its backstretch 30 days before racing starts.
"They have agreed to all that," ITHA executive director David McCaffrey said after talks broke down. "They won't agree to it unless there's a second year attached to it. That's where it all gets garbled."
Absent an agreement, the ITHA asked the Racing Board to reallocate "dark day" simulcast earnings from Arlington to Hawthorne to help fund a late-season race meet at the Stickney, Ill., track. That decision could come at the June 8 meeting.
Petrillo said if the "dark day" money is taken away, "our OTBs will close and the jobs of hundreds of people there and at Arlington will be in jeopardy. I would hope not. We have negotiated in good faith."
"I don't know how it's going to go," McCaffrey said. "I do know we tried very, very hard."
"It's frustrating," Petrillo said.