It is unfortunate, but hardly tragic, that Arlington International Racecourse, one of the nation’s finest thoroughbred racing facilities, will not be running again next summer.
It is also a business decision, however painful, that track owner Richard Duchossois apparently had to make. Quite simply, the gambling marketplace in northeastern Illinois has turned away from track-side parimutuel betting and toward the faster, flashier action on board the region’s riverboat casinos.
One can bemoan the shift. Thoroughbred racing at the level Duchossois presented it is one of the more elegant pageants in sport.
But business is business, and Duchossois says he was forced to shut down this summer to avoid growing losses caused by competition from riverboat casinos, especially the Grand Victoria in nearby Elgin.
Last week, after announcing they would not seek 1999 racing dates, Arlington officials hinted broadly that it’s now up to the General Assembly to do something to make the 10-year-old racing palace viable once again. Relief could take the form of a tax cut or, more likely, permission to install lucrative slot machines under the grandstands at Arlington and, perhaps, the state’s other horse tracks. Some speculate this permission might be part of an overall gambling expansion bill in the fall veto session. . .after the governor’s race has been decided.
That may or may not be advisable, depending on the specifics, including, importantly, how many more riverboat licenses would have to be issued in order for Duchossois to get his. Evidence is mounting, after all, that the gaming marketplace hereabouts is nearing saturation.
One positive to come out of Arlington’s troubles has been the long-overdue consolidation of Cook County’s other two thoroughbred venues. Hawthorne Race Course and Sportsman’s Park–next-door neighbors on South Laramie Avenue–have reached a one-year shared facilities agreement in which Sportsman’s will run next year’s spring/summer meeting at Hawthorne. If that agreement can be extended beyond 1999, it would free Sportsman’s to reconfigure as a CART auto-racing venue–something the Chicago region does not have and for which there is growing demand.
Ultimately it is that dual strategy–consolidation and new product development–that will save thoroughbred horse racing in northeastern Illinois. No government subsidy can, or should, solve the problems of a shrinking fan base and casino competition. But a little ingenuity just might.
