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IL HBPA Withholds Consent for TwinSpires to be in State

Edited Press Release

The organization representing owners and trainers at FanDuel Sportsbook and Horse Racing (formerly known as Fairmount Park) is withholding consent for the TwinSpires betting platform to accept wagers from Illinois residents.

The board of the Illinois Horsemen's Benevolent & Protective Association cites the closure of suburban Chicago's industry icon Arlington Park by Churchill Downs Inc., TwinSpires' parent corporation, as a prime motivation for withholding consent. With CDI not owning a functioning racetrack in Illinois in 2022, TwinSpires must under state law have a contract with another duly licensed track to conduct business in the state starting Jan. 1. The only remaining Prairie State horse tracks are FanDuel and Chicagoland's Hawthorne Race Course, with CDI seeking approval through the FanDuel track.

Illinois law also gives horsemen consent rights before an advance-deposit wagering (ADW) platform can enter into a relationship with an Illinois track to conduct business in the state.

Illinois HBPA president Jim Watkins said his organization's board believes the issue is of the magnitude that it should go before the Illinois Racing Board. The IRB has scheduled a hearing Dec. 16 at 10 a.m. Central via WebEx. The racing regulators have the power to overrule the horsemen's veto if they believe the horsemen's action was unreasonable, he said.

“That's where we're at now,” Watkins said. “We just felt this was an issue the racing board should be able to weigh in on, whether TwinSpires continues to be allowed to operate in Illinois. That's a big reason we withheld our consent.”

Watkins said the horsemen are upset not just that CDI shut down Arlington Park but then would not sell to ownership wishing to maintain racing at the 94-year-old track. CDI is the majority owner of Rivers Casino Des Plaines, located 10 miles from Arlington Park. The company has an agreement to sell the Arlington Park property to pro football's Chicago Bears for a reported $197 million.

“CDI wants their cake and to eat it, too: 'We're not willing to be involved in the racing, but we want to still utilize our ADW powers in Illinois,'” Watkins said.

Watkins said the Illinois HBPA also “wants to bring light to a flawed system” under which online betting platforms operate. Watkins said that the ADWs make the lion's share of the net proceeds at the expense of horsemen's purse accounts and brick-and-mortar tracks and simulcasting facilities, even as the online technology siphons off the majority of bettors.

“This is where the system is really flawed,” he said. “It's an agreement between three parties. In Illinois, the track and the ADW provider negotiate the contract, and the third–the horsemen–is just the consenter. There are so many questions left unanswered. Obviously with the increased numbers of people using ADWs, the horsemen and the tracks get so much less of that it could spell doom for us. The framers of these ADWs intended for it to basically be a third to the provider, a third to the track and a third to the horsemen. But they take out fees up front, and those fees are unspecified in purpose and amount. What is an ADW fee? What does that mean? The racetracks don't ask the ADW to pay their security payroll and the electric bill. And the horsemen don't ask the ADW company to pay the feed bill and hay bill and straw bill.”

The Illinois HBPA signed a one-year contract with TVG to operate in Illinois, Watkins said. FanDuel, part of the corporate enterprise that operates the TVG racing channel and betting platform, is the southern Illinois track's equity partner to operate the sports book. While the company is not a partner in the racetrack, it received branding and naming rights as part of a contract that includes the long-term sponsorship of the St. Louis Derby, worth $250,000 in 2021.

Click here for previous TDN story on CDI's request for IRB approval.

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50th Annual American Farrier’s Association Expo To Be Held In Texas

The American Farrier's Association (AFA) is pleased to announce the return of our 50th Annual Convention to Arlington, Texas, Nov. 8-12, at the Arlington Expo Center.

As the only nationwide event of its kind and scale, the AFA Convention brings farriers, veterinarians, suppliers, horse owners and students together for four days of education, competition, certification, hands-on learning and networking, as well as a robust MarketPlace that includes many of the top suppliers and manufacturers in the equine industry.

Beginning on Monday, Nov. 8, our 50th Annual Convention will feature guest lecturers who are the top of their fields in the farrier, blacksmith and veterinarian professions. Including 20 hour-long session in just four days, attendees will be able to learn from renowned speakers on a variety of hoof-care related topics.

In addition to lectures, AFA Convention guests will be able to participate in hands-on learning demonstrations with our qualified certification instructors, start their journey towards farrier certification with our Examiners and Testers, visit top-of-the-line suppliers and exhibitors in our MarketPlace, network with people from all over the world, and watch the best farriers in the industry compete in our 2021 National Forging & Horseshoeing Competition.

The National Forging & Horseshoeing Competition will take place from Nov. 9 through Nov. 11, featuring over 100 farriers competing in the Open, Intermediate and 2-Person Draft Classes, and culminating in the Capewell North American Challenge Cup Live Shoeing Finals on Nov. 11 from 11:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. It is following this competition that the members of the 2022 American Farriers Team will be named. These outstanding competitors will then represent the United States at competitions all over the world, but most notably at the International Team Horseshoeing Competition at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, England, in October 2022.

“We are excited to be returning to Arlington for our 50th year to showcase the rich history of our association in a location that has proven to be popular with our attendees and vendors. We look forward to highlighting our past success and looking toward the future during this special 50-year celebration,” said AFA executive director, Martha Jones. “We welcome anyone in the Arlington area to attend—even if it's only for just one day—to watch and learn from the top farriers and veterinarians in the world, and to better understand why using a qualified farrier matters for the welfare of your horse.”

More information on the AFA Convention, including the full schedule of speakers, events, registration and competition classes, can be found on our website.

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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘This Filly Really Did Save My Little Brother’

When nothing was going according to plan and it seemed like everything around him was falling apart, Austin Thurman bought a racehorse.

“This filly really did save my little brother,” explained his sister, Lizzie. “He'd always seen how the horses brought joy to my mom and dad. To us growing up, that's always what made them happy, and he saw 'Ellie' and just had to have her.

“You know how you have that horse, that one horse? This is his horse.”

When “Ellie,” racing under the registered name English, broke her maiden on Sept. 16 at Arlington Park with Lizzie in the saddle, Austin could barely contain his excitement. He was proud of the filly, of course, but it also felt like everything in his life was finally coming back together.

“I'm super lucky; blessed, I guess you could say,” said Austin, 22. “She's brought our whole family together. Lizzie's boyfriend helped break her, dad (co-owner Kelly) shoes her, mom (trainer Rhonda) rubs her down every day.

“She's given us back that spark, and now I've got 17 horses here (at Fairmount Park). We've got mares in foal at the farm, young horses… Since she won, I've got another guy bringing us two more horses to train.”

Though the Thurman family has been involved in Illinois racing for over 30 years, Austin didn't grow up in the game. Instead, he spent the majority of his free time in high school working toward becoming an all-state wrestler, with dreams of earning a college scholarship.

That all changed when he broke his neck at age 16. Austin shattered his C6 and C7 vertebrae, and underwent surgery to place four screws and a spacer in his neck.

“It's crazy, but I'm able to ride the pony every day,” Austin said. “The doctors didn't even think I would be able to do that, but I only lost about 10 percent of my mobility.”

Nonetheless, his wrestling career was over. Austin made the best of his situation, and after recovering began flipping cars to pay for his first two years of college. He was studying for a finance degree and had gotten an internship working 38 hours a week for One Main Financial.

It was a solid job, a good potential career, but Austin wasn't happy.

“I was just miserable; it wasn't what I wanted to do,” he said. “When I was in class every day, I was thinking about what I could be doing when I got out of class.”

Austin had started helping his parents around the racetrack in his spare time. Since expanded gaming became legal in Illinois in 2019, the racing industry was beginning to show signs of hope and regrowth. His mother, Rhonda, then a full-time manager at WalMart, reinstated her trainer's license that year, and along with her husband began conditioning a couple horses at the family farm in Collinsville, Ill.

Austin got more involved with the horses, and also helped a woman named Dawn Martin a few days each week. When Martin told Austin she wanted to sell a couple horses, everything clicked in his mind. He suddenly knew what he wanted.

“I had this week where everything wasn't going right with the job and school,” Austin said. “I dropped out of school, quit my job, and bought this filly. I just walked out, and didn't go back.

“I called my dad and asked if he wanted to look at some 2-year-olds Dawn had. English looked like Cox's Ferrara, a filly we had a long time ago. I knew that horse was a runner. We decided to sleep on it. At the time, the project vehicle I was working on was an old Chevy pickup. My dad was in on it with me, so the next day we sold the truck and then went and bought the horse. It all happened in the same week.”

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Austin and his father brought “Ellie” home to the farm, and set about starting the English Channel filly under saddle. Lizzie, who'd always wanted to be a jockey and had been working with the family racing stock every day since she was old enough to hold a pitchfork, was the first one on her back.

When Lizzie broke her leg at the track, her boyfriend Javier Diego stepped up to finish getting English ready to race. The filly made her debut at Keeneland in October, but wasn't quite ready mentally and finished at the rear of the field.

Undeterred, Austin and Lizzie worked with her over the winter.

“Austin and I have always said that I'm gonna be the trainer and he's gonna be the owner,” said Lizzie, laughing. “We're best friends, like a year and a half apart. He's my little big brother. Everyone always thought we were twins.”

When they brought English back to the races in March of 2020, she rewarded their efforts with a second-place finish in a maiden special weight at Fairmount Park.

Then COVID-19 hit.

“The only places you could run were Will Rogers Downs or Fonner Park,” Austin recalled. “I hauled her down to Will Rogers a couple of times, and she ran well enough.”

Luck fell the wrong way again in the summer of 2020 when a barn fire at the Thurman farm killed three yearlings and destroyed multiple vehicles and most of their equipment. The racing stock was at Fairmount Park at the time, thankfully, but the fire was still a huge hit, both emotionally and financially.

Through the rest of the year, Austin hauled English around the Midwest to run her about once a month. She kept running well, hitting the board fairly often but never quite getting the job done.

“She's been pretty honest with me,” said Lizzie, who's piloted English for most of her starts. “She's always trying, and right there, but the racing gods were never with us.”

When 2021 rolled around, the Thurman family was fully invested in horse racing once again. They had mares in foal for the first time in years, and once again sent horses to Fairmount Park, now Fanduel Sportsbook and Horse Racing, with Austin at the helm as assistant trainer.

Lizzie, meanwhile, took a job riding for trainer Steve Asmussen in Indiana along with her boyfriend. Still, every time English ran, Lizzie came back to meet her brother in the paddock wearing the family silks.

The Thurman family at Fairmount Park

The Thurmans got their first win since 2017 in August of 2021, when Rejoice an Be Glad hit the winner's circle at Fairmount, but Lizzie wasn't able to ride that day. When English followed suit about a month later at Arlington, getting it done in her 19th career start, Lizzie was in the saddle.

“It was my first win for Mom and Dad, and at Arlington,” Lizzie said. “I've won one other race there, but always wanted to win one for mom and dad there. It hit home a little more.”

Reflecting on that winner's circle moment, Austin could hardly contain his pride in his filly.

“Every time she runs, we thought she was going to win,” he said. “She'd been knocking on the door, but finally got it done. She's like my 1200-lb dog, and she just never quits trying for me.”

Lizzie echoed her brother's sentiments about English.

“She is a very sassy drama queen but we all love her,” she said. “It's funny because she's so full of herself, and it's just Austin's horse.

“She gave us that little bit of hope when we needed it, you know? She's a cool little filly.”

For Austin, English's win represents success beyond just the racetrack. He enjoys getting up in the mornings, spends all his free time at the barn with his horses, and is as hands-on as possible with 17 head under his care. He rides the pony to the track every day to watch his horses train, learning as much as possible from his parents along the way, and he truly can't imagine doing anything else with his life.

The Thurman family has since added another victory to their 2021 tally, building momentum for the future. Austin truly seems to have found his calling, thanks in large part to “Ellie.”

“You just can't make it up,” Austin said, laughing. “We're just the little guy with a few horses in Illinois, but we're in the winner's circle.”

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No Racing At Arlington In 2022; Hawthorne To Offer Six Months Of Thoroughbred Dates

Since Churchill Downs declined to apply for race dates at Arlington Park in 2022, the Illinois Racing Board was not able to assign Arlington dates at it's Thursday meeting, reports the Daily Racing Form. Arlington's final day of racing is scheduled for this Saturday, and though CDI has not made a final decision on the sale of the racetrack, it remains unlikely that live racing will ever return to the Arlington Heights neighborhood.

Hawthorne, the other Chicago area track, will host six months of Thoroughbred dates next year. In total, the number of Thoroughbred race dates in the Chicago area will decline from 124 in 2021 to 76 in 2022.

The schedule is as follows: January through March will offer harness competition, then Thoroughbred racing in April through June. Harness race will resume July through the middle of September, and the Thoroughbred season resumes Sept. 23 through the end of the year.

“That schedule that was put together has a lot of horsemen frustrated,” trainer and Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association board member Chris Block told DRF. “I know all the negatives, but there's no other way around it to allow both breeds to have some sort of schedule. It's the best we can do right now.”

The other dates assigned at Thursday's IRB meeting include a 61-day meet at Fairmount Park in Collinsville, Ill., recently rebranded Fanduel Sportsbook and Horse Racing.