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Old 10-01-2015, 12:48 PM
-BT- -BT- is offline
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Default IRB Approves Racing Consolidation Plan - adios Maywood and Balmoral

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-raci...olidation-plan

Quote:
The Illinois Racing Board Sept. 29 voted to consolidate all 2016 Chicago-area racing at Arlington International Racecourse and Hawthorne Race Course, averting potential draconian cuts at both those tracks.

The decision shuts out Balmoral Park and Maywood Park, the harness tracks being operated under bankruptcy protection by the Johnston family, reallocating all harness dates to Hawthorne.
the baron of balmoral is not going to be happy about this.....

-bt-
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  #2  
Old 10-06-2015, 05:38 AM
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Kasept Kasept is offline
Steve Byk
 
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Illinois Racing Board approves 2016 racing dates
By Marcus Hersh

CHICAGO – Arlington and Hawthorne’s proposal to coordinate racing schedules and amicably divide revenue from hosting simulcasts on dark days in 2016 was unanimously approved by the Illinois Racing Board in the IRB’s annual racing dates awards meeting Tuesday in Chicago.

In a rare show of unity, Hawthorne and Arlington made their dates-request proposal together before the board, which approved a return of harness racing to Hawthorne for the first time since 2008. That move allowed the Arlington-Hawthorne pact to cohere, but left Balmoral and Maywood, longtime fixtures in the regional and national harness racing scene, without any racing dates in 2016.

Hawthorne will race two Thoroughbred cards at the start of January, concluding its fall-winter 2015 meet, and then remove the Thoroughbred surface and ready its track for a harness meet that runs Jan. 6 through Feb. 6, racing five days per week. Hawthorne’s winter-spring Thoroughbred meet commences March 7, with racing two days per week, and then expands to three-day race weeks in April.

The Arlington meet begins May 1 with three-day weeks until July, continues with four-day weeks in July and August, and concludes with three-day weeks in September. Hawthorne then picks up Thoroughbred racing for the rest of the year after hosting a five-night-per-week harness meet running from May 6 through Sept. 25.

There will be 21 fewer Thoroughbred racing days in Chicago in 2016 than 2015; Arlington’s meet is down from 77 to 74 days, while Hawthorne races only 65 Thoroughbred dates compared with 83 this year. Hawthorne’s purse structure will remain static, but the agreement is meant to allow Arlington to boost purses at its 2016 meet. In addition to added dark-host money earned in the winter, dark-host days during March at Hawthorne will generate purse money for the Arlington meet as part of the deal between the two typically battling parties.

Arlington paid historically low purses in 2015, averaging about $122,000 per day including stakes. General manager Tony Petrillo said projected purses for the 2016 meet are $225,000 including stakes. Petrillo said Arlington also hoped to restore three graded stakes – the Washington Park, Chicago Handicap, and the Arlington Oaks – that were cut from the 2015 stakes schedule.

The 2016 schedule is a one-year arrangement that could be altered the following season. Racing interests in Illinois still are fervently pursuing legislation that would permit casino gambling at racetracks.

Petrillo said the 2016 schedule would allow Arlington to stabilize its sagging product: Field size and handle both were down at the 2015 meet that ended this past Saturday and have been trending sharply downward for several years. But Petrillo said the schedule was far from a cure for the general ill-health of Illinois racing.

Downstate Fairmount Park was granted a 42-day meet from May 3 through Sept. 5, down from 54 days in 2015. Fairmount will start about six weeks later than it did in 2015 and will no longer have overlapping dates with Hawthorne in the spring.

Commissioner Kathy Byrne asked Petrillo and Arlington chairman Dick Duchossois if the show of unity this year would lead to the Illinois Derby at Hawthorne becoming part of the Kentucky Derby qualifying system, but neither directly addressed the question. Arlington is owned by Churchill Downs Inc., and the Illinois Derby has conspicuously been left off the series of races that award qualifying points to aspiring Derby horses.

The Johnston family, the longtime owners of the two Chicago-area harness tracks Balmoral and Maywood, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to protect themselves against an $80 million judgment against John Johnston, president of both tracks, rendered last December. Four Illinois riverboat casinos filed the racketeering suit that alleged Johnston and former governor Rod Blagojevich conspired to implement an impact-fee law that took a percentage of gross receipts from several area casinos and directed them to the struggling Illinois racing industry.

Representatives of Balmoral and Maywood said at the meeting that denial of 2015 dates would lead to the liquidation of the tracks. The Johnstons have hoped to sell Balmoral and Maywood using the possibility of expanded gambling in the state as a lure.

Hawthorne, racing as Suburban Downs, most recently hosted harness racing during the summer of 2008. The winter meet in 2016 will require Hawthorne to change racing surfaces in both January and February, but Hawthorne president Tim Carey said that process can be completed in three days. The Thoroughbred racing cushion is laid atop the track that is used for harness racing.

Both Standardbreds and Thoroughbreds will stable at Hawthorne in January and February, but the track will be closed for Thoroughbred training during the harness meet. Thoroughbreds wintered at Hawthorne can be tack-walked in barns during the time without training, but then will have only one month on the racetrack to ready for the meet that begins in March after the winter harness meet concludes.
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Old 10-06-2015, 05:41 AM
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Above is Marcus' report from last week.. Bet a lot of simo at Maywood when working regularly in Melrose Park. Very difficult situation in Chicago.
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Old 10-09-2015, 01:25 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by -BT- View Post
http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-raci...olidation-plan



the baron of balmoral is not going to be happy about this.....

-bt-
I miss The Baron. Helluva guy.
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