Status Quo Dates for Illinois Racing in 2015

The Illinois Racing Board has approved a 2015 racing schedule similar to the 2014 dates, with questions remaining about how purses for those dates will be funded.

 

The 2015 dates order denied Arlington International Racecourse's request to severely cut back live racing at Hawthorne Race Course and to divert to Arlington the revenue derived from simulcast operations during "dark days." Hawthorne had questioned whether it could continue to operate in such the environment offered by Arlington.

 

The IRB approved racing at Hawthorne on Jan. 1-3, then between Feb. 20 and April 26, with racing on Fridays and Saturdays in February; Friday, Saturday and Sunday in March; and Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in April.

 

Arlington was granted dates from April 27 through Sept. 30, racing three days a week in May, June, and September and four days weekly in July and August. Racing returns to Hawthorne on Oct. 1, with racing four days per week through the end of the year.

 

Arlington was granted "dark host" status—simulcast revenue—from Jan. 4-26; Hawthorne, from Jan. 27-Feb. 19. In its dates request, Arlington asked for "dark host" status from Jan. 1 through March 15 and Nov. 15 through Dec. 31.

 

Underlying the struggle is a serious financial crisis. For the past three years, Illinois tracks have been supplementing purses with a one-time pool of money from a now-expired "impact fee" tax on the state's top-grossing casinos.



That money now is exhausted, leaving a multimillion-dollar hole in operating funds. Arlington said it would generate about $6.5 million from the "dark host" simulcast operations it requested and still would need to divert about $1 million from stakes purses to offer a competitive overnight purse structure.

 

Hawthorne was forced to reduce this year's fall racing schedule because of a shortage of horses that management attributed to insufficient purses.

 

The only glimmer of hope for other revenue is legislative action—either approval for slot machines at tracks, a new casino tax, or other relief. The legislature will meet after the Nov. 4 election, a time period that is always rife with volatility.

 

Mike Campbell, president of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, said the decision to maintain a largely "status quo" schedule "for one more year" will provide breathing room to make one last-ditch effort for legislative relief.