Sportsman’s Park and Hawthorne Race Course will stop conducting harness racing next year to divide the thoroughbred spoils Dick Duchossois created when he decided to shut down his Arlington International Racecourse.
With Arlington’s future in limbo, the Illinois Racing Board conducted hearings for 1998 dates Friday and rubber-stamped the joint agreement reached by the four remaining Chicago-area tracks and the collective bargaining agents of thoroughbred and harness horsemen.
“We’re determined to make Illinois a top racing state in the U.S.,” said board chairman Gene Lamb. “Today was a step in that direction.”
The schedule downsized considerably with 363 harness programs in 1998 compared with 500 this year and 234 thoroughbred programs against 273 in 1997.
The 1998 thoroughbred season will begin two weeks later and end a month earlier than the 1997 model. Sportsman’s will have its meeting from March 1 through June 30 and Hawthorne’s season will be from July 1-Nov. 28. Each track will present six programs weekly with Thursday serving as the dark day.
Balmoral Park and Maywood Park will become the only harness tracks in the area. Both will operate year-around with Balmoral racing Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday nights and Maywood racing Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday nights.
“Our basic instincts are to resist change,” said Billy Johnston, who runs the current Sportsman’s harness meeting and heads the hierarchy at Balmoral and Maywood. “But our instincts for survival tell us that when things around us change dramatically we must change. We can’t precisely predict the future but we can play the cards we are dealt today the smartest and best way we can.”
Sportsman’s has conducted harness racing since 1948, two years after pari-mutuel betting on the sport was legalized in Illinois. Traditionally, the Sportsman’s meeting is second nationally only to the Meadowlands.
Johnston said Sportsman’s American National series of classic harness races and its Super Night for Illinois-bred pacers that has become the main event in Chicago harness racing will be moved to Balmoral.
The Bidwill family controls thoroughbred racing at Sportsman’s and the Carey family owns and operates Hawthorne.
After trying unsuccessfully for many years, Hawthorne finally received harness dates in 1970, and evolved into one of the sports’ premier winter racing facilities.
“I’m sick about losing the standardbred dates,” said Hawthorne president Tom Carey. “Anytime you start from nothing and build something very successful there’s a lot of emotion.
“But I was persuaded there wasn’t any other schedule that could be agreed upon and it wasn’t unreasonable. Take the big picture and I’m fine.”
Ed Duffy, chief operating officer of Sportsman’s thoroughbred meeting, made the schedule proposal. It had the approval of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and the Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Association in addition to the blessings of the track owners.
“We wanted to do two things,” said Duffy. “First, keep it simple for the sake of the fans and secondly, find a way to raise purses.”
Primarily because of a buildup in full-card simulcast revenue under the new arrangement and the absence of Arlington’s lucrative stakes schedule, Duffy envisions a substantial increase in average overnight thoroughbred purses on the Chicago circuit. Daily overnight thoroughbred purses are projected at $200,000, an increase of $62,000 a day.
Although Arlington is out of sight on the 1998 Illinois racing map it’s not out of mind. Many believe Duchossois will try to get Arlington back in action in 2000 when there is a new governor while some think he will decide to return in 1999.
Lamb aknowledged the uncertainty when he said: “There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that this is a one-year schedule. It’s nothing more or less than that.”
In the opinion of Duffy, who was Arlington’s president before taking his current job at Sportsman’s, Duchossois will “close forever.”
