NEWS
Arlington gets extra week for '09
Posted: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 1:13 PM
ARLINGTON PARK
Photo by Z
by Neil Milbert
Using the possibility of hosting the 2011 Breeders’ Cup as its sales pitch, Arlington Park won an extra week of early autumn racing when the Illinois Racing Board awarded 2009 dates after daylong hearings on September 15.
“We would like to run a Breeders’ Cup in the near future,” Arlington President Roy Arnold told the board. “We’re looking at 2011. By going to Columbus Day we would be [financially] able to keep the backstretch open [through Breeders’ Cup weekend].”
Arnold said because of a compromise agreement with the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, Arlington “agreed to achieve Columbus Day incrementally over a three-year period.”
Therefore, Arlington amended its original request to extend the 2009 meeting through October 12 and instead asked to race through September 30.
Hawthorne Race Course lost the week that Arlington gained. Hawthorne President Tim Carey said he supported Arlington’s bid for the Breeders’ Cup, but argued that the rival track did not need to run through Columbus Day to be the host.
“This request [for more fall dates] can be taken as an attempt to put Hawthorne out of business and that would have a devastating effect on Illinois racing,” Carey testified.
Hawthorne suffered an even bigger loss when it was shut out of harness racing dates after conducting a June 24-August 7 meeting this year. The decision came in response to a joint request by the Balmoral Park/Maywood Park ownership combine and the Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Association to significantly reduce the number of Standardbred dates in order to use dark night revenue to bolster the dwindling purse accounts.
Fairmount Park in Collinsville, Illinois, which is not legally permitted to serve as a dark host track and is in a dire financial situation, was awarded a 75-program April 7-September 26 Thoroughbred meeting.
“Fairmount’s situation is quite perilous,” board chairman Joe Sinopoli said. “If this situation continues to deteriorate, I would find it difficult to issue further dates to Fairmount.”
Sinopoli said in awarding Thoroughbred and Standardbred dates the previous two years the board acted on the assumption that legislative relief was forthcoming.
“That has proven to be counterproductive,” he said. “We cannot continue to do so.”
By a 10-0 vote. the board adopted the 2009 Thoroughbred and Standardbred schedules proposed by Sinopoli.
“If ever I would say this is not a model indefinitely into the future this definitely is the year,” the chairman said.
The 2009 Illinois Thoroughbred schedule:
Hawthorne Race Course – 112 live programs
Jan. 1-Jan. 11
March 6-April 30
Oct. 1-Dec. 31
49 dark host simulcast programs
Arlington Park – 98 live programs
*May 1-Sept. 30
106 dark host programs
Fairmount Park – 75 live programs
**April 7-Sept. 26
*Arlington will race four days weekly May 1-June 30 and Aug. 30-Sept. 30; five days weekly July 1-Aug. 29.
** Fairmount will race Tuesday afternoon and Saturday and Sunday evenings.
Neil Milbert is an Illinois-based Thoroughbred Times correspondent
