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CDI Reportedly Asks for ’22 Illinois Dates Application

The Week in Review, by T.D. Thornton

Two months before Arlington International Racecourse is scheduled to run what is feared to be the historic track's final race, Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI), the gaming corporation that owns the up-for-sale landmark, has reportedly requested an application for 2022 race dates from the Illinois Racing Board.

But as columnist Jim O'Donnell of the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago put it in his Friday scoop of this story, “What the carnivorous CDI will do with the application remains to be seen.”

With a July 30 deadline looming to apply for next year's dates, this pull-the-papers move could just end up being a gambit to make sure CDI has various contingencies lined up.

Requesting an application doesn't mean a track owner has to actually file for dates.

Nor does it mean CDI intends to file for dates at Arlington. The corporation could be eyeballing some other still-secret Illinois location.

Nevertheless, this news is likely to kindle hope (perhaps of the false variety) that Arlington could survive the wrecking ball–at least for another few race meets while CDI reaps the benefits of entitlements related to live racing licensure, like off-track betting and advance-deposit wagering.

O'Donnell also notes that CDI could also be using the move as a ploy to replenish its “depleted goodwill” with regulators and elected officials in Illinois. This could come in the form of using another season or two at Arlington as an olive branch while simultaneously pursuing bigger-picture casino endeavors at two lucrative locations where CDI wants to expand its gaming footprint in and near Chicago.

It was last July 30 that Bill Carstanjen, the chief executive officer of CDI, first outlined the corporation's desire to rid itself of Chicago's premier Thoroughbred venue. In February, CDI put the 326-acre property up for sale. It has since attracted four known bidders, only one of whom has publicly disclosed an interest in keeping Arlington operational as a Thoroughbred track.

TDN emailed Arlington's president Tony Petrillo on Saturday to ask if either Arlington or CDI actually intended to file a 2022 dates application. No response was received prior to Sunday's deadline for this column.

Carstanjen also was silent when asked by the Daily Herald to explain what was going on.

For the latest rundown in this ongoing saga, it's best to absorb O'Donnell's full column here.

But the two biggest points that O'Donnell brings up relative to continued racing in Illinois are:

1.) The possibility that CDI could be planning to either run a race meet itself, or partner with and/or enter into some sort of lease arrangement with a new owner (because large-parcel developments such as this take years to happen, such as when CDI sold Hollywood Park in 2006, and racing continued there under different management until 2013).

2.) What will Hawthorne Race Course do? O'Donnell reported that Arlington's rival racetrack 35 miles to the south is “preparing two dates applications predicated upon what Churchill does. If CDI or a nominee request a summer Thoroughbred meet, [Hawthorne] will simply repeat their spring-and-fall Thoroughbreds of 2021, bookending a midyear [Standardbred] season. If CDI completely exits the 2022 Illinois racing frame, Hawthorne will apply to run a summer Thoroughbred season with harness racing in the spring and fall.”

Fundraiser for Fallen Rider

Crooked River Roundup in central Oregon is about as far off the horse racing grid as you can get in America. Yet racegoers there passed the hat to raise a reported $3,500 July 14 upon learning they had witnessed the death of jockey Eduardo Gutierrez-Sosa in the first race of the meet when his mount collided with the inner rail and flipped the 29-year-old rider headfirst into the infield.

According to published reports, racetrackers gave another $16,000 the next night to help Gutierrez-Sosa's widow and three children (ages four, eight and one in high school). The outpouring of aid continued via donation bins in the betting area over the weekend.

The fundraising effort has now gone digital, with this GoFundMe page to help pay for funeral costs having already brought in another $18,000 as of Sunday afternoon.

Gutierrez-Sosa rode both Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses, primarily on the mixed-meet circuit in the Pacific Northwest. The Mexican native who was a longtime Oregon resident was remembered by friends in this televised KTVZ tribute as an always-smiling family man who was easily identified on horseback for his distinctively pink riding attire.

The Quarter Horse that Gutierrez-Sosa rode in his final race, Godfather Advice (who walked off the track after the accident), was a 2-year-old Quarter Horse maiden trained by his wife, Rosa Rodriguez. According to members of the backstretch community, Rodriguez was standing at trackside after saddling her horse to watch the running of the race.

“She was on the race track when it happened,” Jennifer Abraham told KTVZ. “My heart breaks for Rosa that that's her last time with him. I hope she cherishes the memories they had together.”

Crooked River Roundup (aka Prineville Turf Club) annually hosts a four-date, under-the-lights meet on the four-track Oregon summer fairs circuit. It was questionable whether the racing there would even continue there this year after the track was forced to cancel its meet in 2020 because of the pandemic.

There was also some sentiment about canceling the rest of the meet after Wednesday's accident. But after abandoning the July 14 card following the second race, the decision was made to continue racing as scheduled Thursday through Saturday in honor of Gutierrez-Sosa.

“It's hard for some of us,” Dustie Crystal, one of his backstretch friends, told KTVZ. “Some of us [just wanted] to go home and not have the rest of the race meet. But we all know that, Sosa being the person he is, he'd want us to stay.”

When racing resumed Thursday night, KTVZ reported that the entire jockey colony was wearing some form of pink to honor Gutierrez-Sosa.

“It's hard to describe, but I feel like I lost my brother,” jockey Jose Figueroa told KTVZ. “We're going to ride for him.”

Nebraska the New Wild West?

No fewer than five new racetracks were proposed at last Friday's Nebraska Racing and Gaming Commission meeting. According to published reports, no action was taken on any of the applications, which were triggered by the passage of a trio of ballot initiatives last year that authorized casinos at licensed horse race tracks.

The gold rush-like flurry of proposals were tied to new locations in Bellevue, York, Norfolk, North Platte and Gering. According to the Sioux City Journal, the most lucrative sites are considered to be in the eastern part of the state near the Iowa border.

A standing-room crowd at that July 16 meeting generated plenty of opposition from Thoroughbred horsemen, who fear that a sudden glut of racing venues will only water down Nebraska's recently resurgent racing product.

According to the Journal, Lynne McNally, the executive vice president of the Horsemen's Benevolent and Protection Association, said that new tracks in places like Bellevue and York “will gut the purse structure.”

The Norfolk Daily News reported that Garald Wollesen, president of the NHBPA, said at the meeting that, “Building up casinos should build up the racing industry, not line the pockets of others.”

Robert Moser Jr., the former president of the NHBPA, testified that if both the Bellevue and York proposals are approved, it would put four tracks within 100 miles of each other on the eastern edge of the state. According to the Journal, he said that the only place in the country where that exists is in New York, in an area with 20 million people.

Nebraska has six racetracks that are currently eligible for racino licensure. Fonner Park in Grand Island races the only extended Thoroughbred season, with other limited Thoroughbred dates at Omaha, Lincoln and Columbus. Quarter Horse mini-meets occur at South Sioux City and Hastings.

Major purse upswing at Timonium

At last Thursday's Maryland Racing Commission meeting, officials from the Maryland State Fair in Timonium told commissioners that purses at the Aug. 27-Sept. 6 race meet would be level with what Thoroughbreds race for at Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course.

The surge in daily average purses from $175,000 last season to a hefty $287,000 in 2021 will represent the highest amounts ever offered at the five-furlong fairgrounds track with the distinctively banked turns.

Although late summer is the most competitive time on the calendar for racing in the mid-Atlantic region, Timonium should benefit from an expected equine population boost this season from the 600 horses that have been stabled on the grounds since late spring because of the closure of the stable area at Laurel, which

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Presque Isle Files Suit Against Pennsylvania HBPA To Block Arbitration Over ADW Revenue Dispute

An ongoing legal dispute between Presque Isle Downs and the Pennsylvania Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association saw a new development last week when PID filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the PAHBPA's “unsupported allegations” from going to arbitration, reports the Thoroughbred Daily News.

The dispute centers around revenue-sharing of advanced deposit wagering dollars, which is laid out in a Live Racing Agreement between the PAHBPA and PID. PAHBPA has two complaints: first, that PID's parent company Churchill Downs, Inc. is breaching the Live Racing Agreement by promoting its own ADW to on-track patrons, then not treating those wagers with the same return to the purse account as on-track wagers; and second, that the source market fee (from ADW bets made by in-state residents) agreed to by PID with CDI is too low compared to industry standards.

“PAHBPA's asserted allegations of breach are nothing more than a money grab without legal merit,” the PID's latest complaint contends. “Rather than raising questions as to PID's compliance with the terms of the Live Racing Agreement, PAHBPA's asserted allegations are an attempt to renegotiate through arbitration a long standing contractual provision, that with the benefit of hindsight and changed circumstances, they now disfavor. In essence, PAHBPA alleges that the source market fee received by PID from the collateral agreement is too low.”

Read more at the Thoroughbred Daily News.

The post Presque Isle Files Suit Against Pennsylvania HBPA To Block Arbitration Over ADW Revenue Dispute appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Eight Wins Already in ’21–And It’s Only June

The Week in Review, by T.D. Thornton

We're not even at the midpoint of 2021, and one North American Thoroughbred is already taking aim at a ninth win on the season.

For perspective, the eight wins racked up so far this year by Arizona-based Six Ninety One (Congrats) are equal to the number of victories achieved by the four horses who co-led the continent during the entirety of 2020.

Such a fast start through the first 5 1/2 months puts Six Ninety One on a trajectory to blast past what has evolved as the standard for wins in a calendar year. Over the last decade, that number has ranged between eight and 12 wins annually.

You have to go back to 2011 to find the last exception. That was the explosively aberrational year Rapid Redux ran the table with a 19-for-19 record, largely by pillaging the starter-allowance ranks throughout the mid-Atlantic region.

Six Ninety One, at age nine, is also a starter-allowance stalwart, as are a good number of horses who routinely dominate the continent's most-wins category.

While it can be argued that these horses are able to pad their records by being eligible for soft conditions against thin competition while shielded from being claimed (if those starter races fill), it's still no small feat to amass eight trips to the winner's circle (with one second and a third), like Six Ninety One has done from 11 starts so far this year. In fact, it's even more of a challenge for the less physically gifted horses who populate the lower end of the claiming structure.

Six Ninety One was bred in Kentucky by Edwin and Melissa Anthony. He sold for $75,000 at KEESEP in 2013, then hammered for $59,000 at OBSOPN eight months later. Jim Thares, who bought the gelding at the Ocala auction, campaigned Six Ninety One between 2014 and 2019, earning four wins in Minnesota and Arizona before losing him via claim for $6,250 in the midst of a seven-race losing streak.

A speed-on-the-lead specialist over short distances, Six Ninety One's first-off-claim connections tried him in an 870-yard Quarter Horse dash at Arizona Downs in June 2019, which he won by 10 1/2 lengths. He then won at that same distance at Arapahoe Park, but didn't score again until 2020 when stretched back out to five furlongs against Thoroughbreds.

After a five-month break, Six Ninety One started off 2021 with five wins in eight sprints at Turf Paradise. He was claimed twice between February and April, for $3,000 and $6,250.

Current trainer Alfredo Asprino owns the gelding in partnership with Jesus Vielma, and they've kept Six Ninety One in optional-claiming and starter spots where he has not been offered for sale. He's now won three straight for those connections, and six consecutive starts since March.

Six Ninety One is entered Tuesday in the sixth race at Arizona Downs. He's favored at 3-5 on the morning line to get win number nine on the season. The gelding meets the starter eligibility by virtue of running in a $2,500 claimer last summer in Colorado.

Can Horses & Bears co-exist?

The Daily Herald of suburban Chicago ran two stories Saturday that are worth reading if you're following the Arlington International Racecourse sale by Churchill Downs Inc. (CDI), which reportedly closed its opening bid process last week. You can click through to find both articles here (then scroll down).

The first, a column by Jim O'Donnell, underscores that beyond the money involved, last Thursday's announcement that the Chicago Bears football team has submitted a bid for the 326-acre property to build a new stadium could have significant political appeal for the gaming corporation because “CDI needs to cash out of Arlington 'clean.'”

By that O'Donnell means that CDI will attempt to deflect the ill will of shutting down a nearly century-old historic landmark by delivering to the community “a global-class sports/entertainment facility and lush adjacent residential development.”

O'Donnell explained it like this: “There is already an issue of 'trustworthiness' between the more clearheaded citizens of Illinois and the Kentucky-based corporation. That directly stems from CDI's somewhat stunning decision to not add a full casino at [Arlington] two years ago after close to 20 years of lobbying for such enabling legislation.”

O'Donnell then alluded to the two Thoroughbred tracks CDI has already shuttered in the past decade (Hollywood Park and Calder Race Course), noting how regulators in other states are growing increasingly leery of CDI as a suitable steward to preserve the sport of racing.

“That question of CDI's 'trustworthiness' in Illinois could bleed over not only to its future gaming licensing in [Illinois] but also into other jurisdictions,” O'Donnell wrote.

The second Herald article, by Christopher Placek, noted that the bid for Arlington that was submitted last Tuesday by the track's former president, Roy Arnold, in partnership with a consortium of developers and investors, calls for the track's grandstand to remain in place, while a mid-size arena for a minor-league hockey team is constructed as part of a 60-acre entertainment district alongside a 300-unit housing development and 60 acres of industrial space.

But after the headline-dominating announcement by the Bears (these are the only two bids that have been publicly disclosed), Arlington Heights mayor Tom Hayes endorsed the idea of combining the two projects. He acknowledged, though, that there are challenges to building a football stadium and horse track together on the same property within his village, because some of the racing infrastructure might have to be relocated.

“In a perfect world, you'd have–and you do have–enough land to do it,” Hayes told the Herald. “The only question is would you have to at least partially tear down or reconfigure the existing grandstand … That's my only concern about trying to do both. I don't know if you could do it given the existing location.”

Hayes told the Herald that the industry-standard size for a National Football League stadium and associated parking is 160 acres. Placek wrote that Arlington's track, stables and parking come to about 125 acres. “That would leave some 40 acres on the massive site” for other purposes, he wrote–which may or may not be enough to fit in the other aspects of the desired mixed-use development.

The trustees of the Arlington Heights Village are expected to vote Monday night on zoning changes that would expressly prohibit certain uses on the property, like adult businesses, kiddie theme parks, or warehouses.

Baffert judge has 'court' experience…

The federal lawsuit that trainer Bob Baffert filed last Monday against the New York Racing Association in an effort to get his banishment there reversed on the basis that it allegedly violates his right to due process got assigned to a judge who is no stranger to handling sports-scandal cases.

Carol Bagley Amon, a Senior United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, is the judge who in 2008 sentenced former National Basketball Association referee Tim Donaghy to 15 months in prison for his admitted role in fixing the outcomes of pro hoops games he officiated.

Selective mastery…

Can you name the jockey who currently leads the continent with a hefty 41% winning percentage among all riders who have had at least 50 mounts this year?

Here's a hint: He's 57 years old and is a master of riding selectively and exclusively at Finger Lakes.

The answer is John R. Davila, Jr., with a 26-14-7 record from 63 rides. That 75% in-the-money strike rate also grabs your attention.

Davila, who began riding at Finger Lakes in 1982, is the track's all-time winningest jockey. He rides first call for trainer Chris Englehart, the track's all-time winningest trainer. They'll partner on three horses at Finger Lakes on Tuesday.

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This Side Up: The One Thing to Envy Most at Ascot

It is as true to say that Americans and Europeans are united by an ocean as divided by one. And while horsemen are often considered insular, their transatlantic engagement–fluctuating but perennial–means that they always have things to learn from one another.

In recent times, contrary to European prejudice, it is the Americans who have been more willing to leave their comfort zone. Whereas not even Coolmore have lately been rolling the dice on the dirt at the Breeders' Cup, American raiders have increasingly enriched the pageant of Royal Ascot. And while doing so won't generally involve a formal switch of surface, just tell that to Tepin (Bernstein) after she won over a straight mile of mud.

But while they say that travel broadens the mind, both camps must remain wary of hasty judgements in what remain relatively fleeting encounters.

When they see Wesley Ward's runners blazing away in front, for instance, the locals don't simply perceive differences in the education of horses. Instead they feel vindicated in a vexing misapprehension that Americans breed for one-dimensional speed.

As they say in England: “Give a dog a bad name and hang him.” The paradox is that speed, nowadays, is actually the obsession of Europe's commercial breeders–and American programs are increasingly tapping into that. Yet while doing so is yielding big results, both at Ascot and in a weaker turf program at home, it arguably risks exposing the speed-carrying American Thoroughbred to precisely those deficiencies that have diluted the Classic gene pool in Europe.

But that, by now, is doubtless a wearily familiar complaint. So perhaps a more pertinent reflection on Ascot week, this year, relates to the setting itself. For the grandstand, majestic even when not yet revitalized by full capacity, actually owes something to a less obvious cross-pollination.

When the Ascot team looked around the world for inspiration, one of the places that made the deepest impression was Arlington Park. Here, they felt, was a facility that maximized respect for both participants pivotal to the sustainability of our sport: the racehorse, and the fan.

Make no mistake, Arlington was long viewed–both in its reconstruction and operation–as one of America's exemplary contributions to the global turf. In staging the first seven-figure race in 1981, with the express hope of nourishing overseas competition, Arlington pioneered a path for the Breeders' Cup and, indeed, for the Royal Ascot of the modern era. And these formative experiences, for the international sport, were replicated on a more intimate scale. As one of many Europeans to have first fallen in love with the American turf in Chicago, I'm delighted that our host in those halcyon days, Richard L. Duchossois, is being suitably honored in his 100th year by the renaming of the Million (its purse instructively deflated) as the Mister D. S. And I'm devastated that this global flagship for prioritizing public engagement with the sport should now stand on the brink of wilful scuttling.

We know that a serious offer has been tabled for the track's redemption. But we also know, now, that the Bears are really in the game. And, regardless, even the highest offer would not necessarily suffice to prevent the sellers from stifling competition to their nearby casino or any other investments they may plan for this neighborhood.

It's silly to call this greed. Churchills Downs Inc. Is no more (nor less) heartless than any other big corporation whose one and only purpose is to make money for its stockholders. Despite custody of the iconic twin spires, their only interest in sporting heritage will be in its commercialization.

I'm often assured by people who would know that CDI has people of the right caliber to ensure the prosperity of such racetracks as do fit into their plans. But with so many jewels of the American turf at the mercy of the ruthless functioning of capitalism, whether at CDI or elsewhere, then the real challenge to emulate Britain is not in breeding grass sprinters. It's whether racetrack ownership can somehow become stewardship.

The Queen and her heirs aren't going to be selling Ascot for condos and malls any time soon. Epsom and Newmarket, similarly, are owned by Jockey Club Racecourses. Obviously the model isn't invulnerable, as the past travails of NYRA demonstrate. In principle, however, putting all profits back into the business should always create a product that will commercially outperform the soulless gaming factories.

For while corporate analysts renounce racetracks as “legacy business”, with dinosaur demographics, the example of Ascot might suggest a couple of alternative thoughts. One is that conserving and investing in something that can't be measured on the balance sheet–heritage–can actually help to make a racetrack viable; that “legacy” can itself be “business”. The other is that if private track operators won't buy into that theory, then can horsemen devise a way to prove it themselves?

Not easy. But was it easy to overcome vested interests for the modern industry's game-changing communal achievement, the Breeders' Cup? When the stakes are this high, we have a duty to future generations at least to be able to say that we tried. And it's not as though our community is lacking people of adequate resource, whether in finance or brains. Obviously Ascot's ownership is a fortuitous historical boon, but a Jockey Club subsidiary had to buy Epsom, for instance, from rival bidders on the open market in 1994.

CDI wouldn't be in the game at all, remember, if they didn't think that money can be made by racetracks in the right setting and market. So if you can imagine a scenario of constant reinvestment, without a nickel payable in dividends, then who knows? Perhaps that might even relieve the sport of an undignified dependency on gambling addicts.

In the quality of the racing experience, Ascot and Arlington both deliver magnificently. But that secures only one of their contrasting business models against predation.

As it stands, horsemen and fans are sick to their stomachs at the idea of Arlington going the way of Hollywood Park and Calder. We can only hope that somehow the political equations might yet tilt CDI towards the rescue bid. But we know one thing for sure. However things play out at Arlington, this won't be the last time a storied racetrack is put up for sale. With so few players in the game, it's hard to be confident that any of them won't just pick up the ball and go home. We need to find a way to persuade them at least to sell us the ball first.

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