Plan For New Chicago Track Forging Ahead Despite Big Differences In Gaming Law Interpretations

An Illinois businessman with a background in both real estate development and racehorses is actively putting together an investment team to build a new $180-million Thoroughbred racino about 35 miles south of Chicago. But even a year before the first shovels might break ground, controversy is swirling because of different interpretations of the enabling gaming law that is a linchpin for the project to proceed.

Ronald Aswumb, 68, who has owned and bred Thoroughbreds and also worked as a bloodstock consultant alongside his family's chief business of building malls and condominiums, told TDN in a Mar. 22 phone interview that he is 18 months into the planning process for bringing to life a track that he envisions as Lincoln Land Downs in a village called Richton Park.

“With the closing of Arlington we felt there was quite a void in the Chicago market for horse racing, and actually in the whole state,” Aswumb said. “We've looked at different potential properties all throughout the state. It is an ambitious project, and it's important that we keep it to scale.”

The project does not yet have the public support of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association (ITHA) because of the varying interpretations of the law.

“Let's not forget that this is Illinois. And anything relative to horse racing in Illinois is complicated and cumbersome,” David McCaffrey, the executive director of the ITHA, told TDN.

“A new racino in Richton Park is living up to those past performances,” McCaffrey added.

A spokesperson for Hawthorne Race Course, the Chicago area's only remaining Thoroughbred track, responded to a request for comment with an email that stated, “This idea is so speculative that anyone actually involved in the ongoing operations of Illinois horseracing, or who is truly interested in its future, should not take it seriously.”

McCaffrey explained the ITHA's understanding of the law this way: “The statute, as it stands now, only allows for a Standardbred track. So on the part of building a new racetrack and racino, he's within the law to do so. But two things need to happen: one, they need to have permission from Hawthorne, because it's within 35 miles of Hawthorne. And two, it has to be a Standardbred track. There's been some very cursory talk about another Thoroughbred outlet somewhere, but relative to that being at Lincoln Land any time soon I think is putting the cart way before the horse.”

Aswumb chalked up the views of the ITHA and Hawthorne as being based on “misinformation.” He added that his legal team has confirmed for him that Hawthorne's 35-mile veto power applies only to a Standardbred–and not a Thoroughbred–racino, and that he believes his racino application will be lawful based on Section 56 of the Illinois Horse Racing Act and Section 7.7 of the Illinois Gambling Act passed in 2019.

“The law is actually very clear. It states that anyone that has operating control of a racetrack anywhere in the state of Illinois may apply for a casino license,” Aswumb said.

“We've spent the last six months confirming that with the Illinois Gaming Board [IGB], and they're the only ones whose opinion really matters,” Aswumb said. “We met with the executive director and the general counsel two weeks ago, and they said if we had operating control of a racetrack and had received a racing license for dates, that we would meet the standard to apply for a casino license. I've been telling the horsemen that for six months, but you can't convince anybody, I guess.”

The location Aswumb has settled on would fit a 7- to 7.5-furlong main dirt track with a turf course inside of it. A temporary casino would go up first, to be eventually replaced by a larger, more permanent version, with the eventual possibility of building out a 100-room hotel and entertainment space.

“Our location is right off Interstate 57, which is a very highly trafficked area, and even though it's suburban, it's kind of a rural setting,” Aswumb said. “It's real pastoral. We have 140 acres that we're planning on building on. It's beautiful. It overlooks about a thousand acres of farmland. We have an option [to buy] it, and actually have the ability to get more land. There's a lot there.”

Aswumb said he is not yet ready to divulge full details about his investment partners because the deal is still a work in progress.

“We're in the financing process. It's still a little proprietary,” Aswumb said. “I can't tell you exactly the names behind it, but there are several large gaming companies that really want to diversify in the Chicago market. And we've also been working with a company in Kentucky that is involved in racing. I'm hoping in the next 60 days we'll fully list who our partners are.

“The timeline is we're putting the financing process together and finalizing the group,” Aswumb said. “We have to apply by July 31 with the Illinois Racing Board (IRB) to receive any dates in 2025. There's no plan to have any extensive racing in 2025. It would more likely be to get the track ready to have a couple of days of racing toward the end of the year just to establish the racing license, because we have to establish the racing license to go before the gaming board to get the casino license. Hopefully, we'd start construction on the track early next year when the weather breaks.”

Originally, Aswumb said, his intent was to build a harness racino, and he was aware that Hawthorne had veto power over that plan.

“They declined to give us written consent, which is their legal right to do. So we started looking at other ways to get this going, and there's nothing stopping us from doing a Thoroughbred track. The statute only applies to a Standardbred track, and obviously, we've confirmed that with [the IRB and IGB],” Aswumb said.

“There's kind of been disinformation the last few years that only the existing racetracks could get a casino license,” Aswumb continued. “The project is, of course, dependent on that. You need that alternative source of revenue to make the business model work. There's no guarantee you're going to get the license–you still have to go through all the [state vetting process]. But we have been told that we would be able to apply for that, and that was the big hurdle that we needed to clear to make the project go.”

Obtaining the temporary casino license is crucial, Aswumb said.

“We would like to do a temporary casino, which you are allowed to have for three years. The plan would be maybe to have 400-500 gaming positions in a temporary facility to get revenue coming in. It's very attractive to investors if you can get revenue coming in early like that. And then the process would be to have the permanent casino in approximately 2028 to 2029,” Aswumb said.

Aswumb said he wants to buck the industry trend of existing racinos that focus on gaming first and horses second. He wants it the other way around.

“We don't have quite enough room to do a mile dirt track, but we do have a lot of room for a really nice backstretch. We're going to have state-of-the-art barns, and an equine aquatics center and backstretch housing. I personally feel that horses are in their stalls too much, and we want trainers to be able to get them out an exercised at all times of the day.”

Aswumb said he's even talked to the Chicago Bears football team, which owns the defunct Arlington International Racecourse, about relocating the sod from the old grass course to Lincoln Land Downs.

“They still have been maintaining the turf course there beautifully, and they've been very open to that idea, but we're still in the testing phase to see if it would transfer properly,” Aswumb said.

Aswumb admitted that he has had zero talks with Hawthorne about forming a Thoroughbred circuit. Nor is he even close to negotiating a contract with the ITHA.

“I wouldn't say [Hawthorne would be] very supportive of us, really,” Aswumb said. “I have talked to the horsemen. They've been supportive but weary, like 'We've heard this before' kind of thing.”

Asked what type of racing season and purse structure he envisioned, Aswumb put it this way:

“Obviously we would like some summer dates if we have a turf course. We'd like to be able to get to like $250,000 at least in daily purses. So you could do maybe 75 to 80 dates a year, maybe race three days a week six months out of the year.

“The projections are we can do $100 million a year in adjusted gross revenue when we have the full casino, and approximately 13% of that goes toward purses,” Aswumb said. “When you combine that with off-track-betting parlors [and their] projected handle, we think we could get to $15 to $20 million in purses a year. And if we could do that, I think the horsemen would be happy.”

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Chicago Bears Reverse Course, Will Not Build Stadium On Arlington Property

According to several news reports, the Chicago Bears are now planning to build a new stadium within the city limits of Chicago. The Bears purchased Arlington Park and the surrounding property from Churchill Downs Incorporated in 2021 for $197.2 million and announced plans to build a stadium there. Since the purchase, the Arlington grandstand has been torn down, but the Bears did not start the process of developing the property.

Citing a source, ESPN.com is reporting that the Bears are ready to invest $2 billion in private money into a publicly owned domed stadium and park space that would feature year-round community amenities.

“The Chicago Bears are proud to contribute over $2 billion to build a stadium and improve open spaces for all families, fans and the general public to enjoy in the City of Chicago,” Bears team president and CEO Kevin Warren said in a statement. “The future stadium of the Chicago Bears will bring a transformative opportunity to our region — boosting the economy, creating jobs, facilitating mega events and generating millions in tax revenue. We look forward to sharing more information when our plans are finalized.”

According to ESPN.com, the Bears began exploring options for a new stadium beyond Arlington Heights last summer when they announced that those plans were “at risk” as negotiations over property taxes reached a $100 million impasse.

Should the plans to build a stadium in Chicago come to fruition, it is expected that the Bears will put the Arlington property up for sale.

Dave McCaffrey, the executive director of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, was skeptical that the Bears will actually follow through on the plans to build a stadium within the city limits. He believes the announcement may be nothing more than posturing to get a better deal.

“Even though they made that announcement I don't think Arlington is dead when it comes to building a stadium there,” McCaffrey said. “There are all sorts of political games being played. I don't think the situation is as definitive as they made it sound in that announcement. They are trying to get tax breaks and public funding for a stadium, and the announcement made today is often the sort of thing people do when they are trying to get money.”

McCaffrey said he doesn't foresee any scenario where a new buyer would emerge and construct a racetrack on the site. He noted that the current laws in Illinois do not allow for a racino to be built at Arlington.

“The Bears completely destructed Arlington and all its accouterments, the water tower, the barns, the dorm rooms, the vets offices, every single piece of anything that was built is gone. It's just a piece of vacant land. The amount of money it would take to rebuild a racetrack, barns, dorm rooms and all else that goes into a racing site would be a gigantic investment.”

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With ’25 the New Target for Racinos, Optimism Accompanies ’24 Illinois Race Dates

Illinois racing is still struggling to recover from the twin blows of the 2021 closure of Arlington International Racecourse and the inability of the state's two surviving Thoroughbred venues–Hawthorne Race Course and FanDuel Sportsbook & Horse Racing–to follow through with building their proposed racinos that were legalized back in 2019.

Yet Thursday's Illinois Racing Board (IRB) meeting was conducted with a noticeably welcome tone of cautious optimism, as commissioners unanimously approved 2024 race dates against the backdrop of revamped racino construction schedules at both venues that could mean gaming revenue will finally be flowing into the state's Thoroughbred purse accounts by 2025.

Hawthorne, just outside Chicago, was granted a bump upward to 78 programs for 2024, an increase of 10 days over this year's schedule. Instead of closing on Labor Day, next year's meet will extend through mid-October.

FanDuel–which almost everyone who spoke at the meeting still refers to by its nearly century-old name, Fairmount Park–in 2024 will race a similar 62-card template as it did this season.

But the track 280 miles southwest of Hawthorne (just over the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri) will have to share Saturday racing with Hawthorne for the bulk of next year as Hawthorne attempts to build its season around night and weekend racing to avoid horses competing amid loud and intrusive construction of the racino.

Hawthorne for decades has had a decidedly blue-collar reputation. But for the past two years it has been thrust into only-game-in-Chicago leadership status after the devastating exodus of the more opulent and suburban Arlington, which was sold and is being redeveloped as the possible site for a football stadium.

Tim Carey, Hawthorne's president and general manager, did not spare superlatives when he painted a vision of the future for the track that his family has owned since 1909.

“I truly believe that Illinois horse racing is on the precipice of an incredible renaissance, that will not only uplift our local participants, but will re-establish Chicago racing to national prominence,” Carey said, adding that the plan to bring the racino to life would transform Illinois into “one of the most exciting and prosperous markets for horse racing in North America.”

Yet every time Carey referenced the long-awaited racino during the Sept. 21 meeting, he was careful to get it on the record that everything he was promising was predicated on the Illinois Gaming Board signing off on details of the deal in a timely manner.

“They, of course, still have to approve everything that we do–financing, the commencement of construction,” Carey said. “We don't have that yet. We need to provide that to them.”

Fairmount Park/FanDuel Sportsbook | T.D. Thornton

Melissa Helton, the president and general manager at FanDuel/Fairmount, estimated the same 14-month start-to-finish construction phase for her downstate track as Hawthorne's management was outlining.

“We're hoping by the end of the year to have that started,” Helton added. She didn't bring up–nor did commissioners ask her–about how construction would affect the horses at the two-days-a-week 2024 meet (Apr. 16-Nov. 16).

Chris Block, the president of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, expressed confidence in Hawthorne's plan. Perhaps as early as Sept. 22, his organization is poised to sign a two-year deal for racing there.

“The horsemen are going to have to suck it up again and start training at five in the morning to accommodate construction, and [Saturday racing] is going to be a necessity for us when we're under construction,” Block said. “We're going to need to run on Saturday and Sunday, and [Thursday] evening. So the horsemen are ready for that [and] we look forward to that. We're working together, we're going in the same direction with something that is an absolute necessity in this day and age in the Illinois horse racing industry.”

But, Block added, “I really, really, really look forward to 2025, and the operation of that casino, and the rebirth of Illinois horse racing, and a positive direction not only in breeding, but in racing.”

Hawthorne is also pledging to move forward with plans to identify and build a second racino that would eventually be the separate home of commercial Standardbred racing in greater Chicago. That would mean Thoroughbred and harness horses would no longer have to share the same venue, which is what currently keeps both breeds from year-round racing in the state.

Carey said Hawthorne will cease its 2023-24 fall/winter harness meet in time for the track to be converted for Thoroughbred training by Feb. 13.

Hawthorne's 2024 Thoroughbred meet will open Mar. 23 with Saturday and Sunday racing until June 21, when the schedule expands to three days weekly by adding Thursday evenings until the meet closes Oct. 13.

In 2023, Hawthorne originally had Saturdays on the schedule. But the IRB in April approved a request to move those Saturdays to Thursdays, with Hawthorne management advocating at the time that switching to Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays would be a better business decision handle-wise. It also eliminated the Saturday overlap with FanDuel/Fairmount, which traditionally races Tuesday afternoons and Saturday evenings.

The racino construction has changed those business parameters, and Hawthorne's 2024 request to go back to Saturdays came as a surprise to FanDuel/Fairmount.

“Today is the first day I'm hearing that they were going to pick up on Saturday,” Helton said. “The last conversation I had with [Hawthorne racing director] Jim Miller, they were keeping their schedule the same, [and] obviously it will impact how many horses we have on the field.”

Asked for his take prior to the commissioners voting 9-0 to endorse the Saturday overlap, Illinois Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association president Jim Watkins, who trains horses at both venues, said he didn't think the two tracks running on the same day (Hawthorne in the afternoon, Fairmount in the evening) would be a big deal.

“I think it's workable,” Watkins said. “The other option for Fairmount would be to go to a lesser [weekday], and that, of course, would hit us in the pocketbooks [via loss of handle revenue], and we're not in great shape.”

Yet a couple of moments later, Watkins painted a more positive picture of the current meet at FanDuel/Fairmount, which is scheduled through Nov. 18.

“The purse account is in a good position, nearly $1 million to the positive, so the horsemen are not in debt to the track,” Watkins said. “We anticipate, because of funds that have come in, that we will be able to have, for the fourth year in row, a purse increase of hopefully 10-20%.”

Watkins also noted that “we've gone to eight races a day [from the IRB-mandated seven], and if the entries stay as strong, we're anticipating possibly nine or 10 races some days. The horse population, since the closure of Hawthorne on Labor Day, we've gone from 572 to 676 with a few more stables bringing a few more in.”

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Demolition Of Arlington Grandstand Begins

Once considered among the most beautiful facilities in racing, Arlington Park met the wrecking ball Friday.

The work on the exterior portion of the track started after the Arlington Heights Building and Safety Department approved a request from the Chicago Bears for a building permit that allowed the demolition of the grandstand and other structures on the property. In February, the Bears completed its purchase of the 326-acre property from Churchill Downs, Inc. for $197.2 million. The Bears have yet to fully commit to building a new stadium on the property.

Churchill announced its plans to sell the track in February of 2021. Arlington last raced on Sept. 25, 2021.

According to the Daily Herald, the process began at 1 pm local time with a pair of excavators tearing into the southeast corner of the grandstand. About 25 minutes later, the first row of seats in that corner began to collapse. The plan, the Herald reported, is for the teardown to be done piecemeal, with crews beginning work at one end of track and finishing at the other.

It is expected that the grandstand will be fully demolished by the end of the summer and that the grandstand entrances will be gone by the end of June. At some point this fall, the offices, paddock and jockey's quarters will be demolished. The Herald reports that the Bears will pay $3.8 million to have the track demolished.

In a May 4 letter sent by Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren to the superintendents of three area school districts, the Bears official said that the demolition of the buildings would “reduce our operating cost and lower the assessed value of the land so that we can realize a realistic property tax during the predevelopment period.” The Bears are in the midst of negotiations with local schools over the amount of property taxes the football team should pay over the next two years. The Bears have said that high property taxes have put their plans to build a stadium on the Arlington site in jeopardy.

That Arlington is now in the process of being torn down is the latest chapter in a story that has been nothing but bad news for horse racing. The track opened in 1927 and was the jewel in what was then a robust Chicago racing circuit. Hawthorne is the only track left in the Chicago area.

On July 31, 1985 a fire completely destroyed the Arlington grandstand and clubhouse. Miraculously, under track owner Richard Duchossois, temporary bleachers were constructed and the GI Arlington Million was run that year on Aug. 25 in front of 35,000 fans. In need of a new grandstand, Duchossois spared no expense and built a new track from the ground up. The new Arlington opened on June 28, 1989 and was widely hailed as a marvel, one of the nicest tracks in the world. In 2002, Arlington hosted the Breeders' Cup.

Arlington appeared to have new life after casinos were legalized at Illinois racetracks. But, in a move that stunned many within the industry, Churchill Downs did not take steps to secure a casino license. It has been suggested that Churchill did not want to open a casino at Arlington because it would compete with a casino the company owns in nearby Des Plaines, Illinois.

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