The official house answer you received is kind of humorous and indeed Dick Duchossois deserves to be honored for everything he had done at Arlington Park. But there may be a simpler answer.
In 1981 Arlington offered the first thoroughbred race with a purse of $1,000,000 and so they named it the Arlington Million. The name has been slightly changed over the years [i.e. the Budwiser Arlington Million], but it always included the word "Million" due to its purse. Now that they have cut the purse from $1,000,000 to $600,000 they really couldn't continue to refer to the race as the "Million". Glad they came up with a recognition of Mr. D as the track that he created fades into the sunset.
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