Illinois racing has its problems. No more Arlington park, there will be only 64 race days this year and the track will be closed in midsummer. But with the 2022 season set to begin on Saturday at Hawthorne, officials at that track predict that navigating this year will be challenging but not impossible.
“How are we going to do it? I can tell you more on Wednesday when we draw the first card,” said Racing Minister Al Pever. “But I think it will be fine.”
The spring meet in Hawthorne spans 34 days and runs through June 25. When Arlington is running, the race will move there in the summer before returning to Hawthorne in the fall. That gave the riders a seven-month racing season that included 118 days last year. But Hawthorne won’t host the summer meeting because it also has to host two belt races a year. That means there won’t be a Thoroughbred race in the Chicago area for much of the summer, from June 26 until the 30-day meeting in the fall starting September 23.
The fear is that the gap in the summer will lead to an exodus out of Illinois, with riders choosing a circuit where there are more racing opportunities and they won’t have to pack in the summer.
“At the end of June, we’ll all have to leave,” said coach Mike Campbell, former president of the Illinois Thoroughbred Riders Association. “The problem we are all facing is leaving our homes. I will not live in my house here for more than four months a year. That’s a problem. Everyone is on the same boat.”
But Pever said only a handful of Illinois officials remained, and stalwarts like Larry Rivelli, who would have 80 horses at Hawthorne, remained loyal. Most have found a place to call home during the summer. The most suitable place seems to be Canterbury Park. The Minnesota track will feature 65 days of live racing, starting May 18 and ending September 17. In an effort to attract Chicago riders, Canterbury has launched a bonus package for live horses. in Illinois. A purebred starter who has raced in Illinois in 2021 or 2022 but has not previously started at Canterbury will be eligible for a $1,000 bonus in the first start of the 2022 season.
“This year is going to be a little bit different because in the past people could be here pretty much all year and now we have a couple of months where they are in limbo,” said Hawthorne Assistant General Manager John Walsh. “They can go to Canterbury, it’s a great racetrack with grass racing. When they’re done there, they might come back in the fall and I think we’ll also have some kind of reward program for the horses coming from Canterbury. I haven’t heard of too many people going to stay away. “
Campbell said he will spend the summer at Colonial Downs and knows of other coaches who will work at the Indiana Grand, Prairie Meadows and Ohio racetracks.
One of the reasons horsemen are committed to Hawthorne is that their wallets will increase significantly this year. At around $120,000 a day in 2021, the Hawthorne has among the smallest wallets in the sport. This year, the Illinois off-season bet simulator money is not shared with Arlington, and the riders have also received a one-year state subsidy. Pever says the average wallet will be around $190,000 a day this year while the wallet for special girlweight races has increased from $22,000 to $40,000.
Walsh also believes that starting later – Hawthorne usually opens about a month earlier – would help.
“We might be off to a slow start, but I think by May we’ll be 40 to 50 percent better than we were last spring,” Walsh said. “We will have more races on the pitch. According to the weather, we are sure to have some nice days in May and June. When you run in March and April, there can be rain or even snow and it is difficult for you to get onto the pitch. I think we’ll do much, much better and the signal will look better with some green grass instead of everything just grey. ”
But there will be challenges. Thoroughbreds were once able to train at Hawthorne when it closed for the winter, but since the mining meeting ran until March 20, that couldn’t be done. With the track not open for training until Monday, five days before opening, there will be some horses that are not ready to go. Pever said Monday there are 400 horses on the premises and he expects another 200 to 300 to arrive on Saturday. That may not seem like much, but Hawthorne, throughout April, will only race two days a week, on Saturdays and Sundays.
In the long run, Hawthorne will be fine. An active casino and the amount added will give a nice boost in the wallet. There’s also hope that a new harness rail will be built somewhere in Illinois, which means Hawthorne could just go back to running the Thoroughbreds.
“This meeting, it was the beginning of something,” Walsh said. “Once the casino opens, that will really invigorate things. We now have a timeline. In time, the wallets here will go through the roof. ”
