“Even Dick Duchossois, now 99 years old, has made peace with the track’s sale. Arlington Park’s phoenixlike ascent following the 1985 fire never would have happened without Duchossois’ resolve. The Barrington Hills billionaire and former principal owner of the track insisted that year’s Arlington Million would be held, just 26 days after the blaze. A photo that hangs in Arlington’s grandstand shows tractors readying the track for the Million, while rubble still smoldered nearby. Written on the photo: ‘Quit? Hell NO!’”
Somehow, Arlington Park survived the inferno in 1985 that reduced one of America’s revered horse racing venues to 21,000 tons of blackened rubble. Just three weeks later, hastily constructed bleachers and betting operations welcomed the running of the annual Arlington Million.
By 1989, a rebuilt and renamed Arlington International Racecourse had risen from the ashes more spectacular than before. Track announcer Phil Georgeff’s call, “Here they come, spinning out of the turn!” once again bellowed across the grandstand.
That was then. Today, Arlington faces the peril of casino competition. It’s a reality that the near-century-old bastion of Midwest horse racing likely won’t survive.
Arlington’s up for sale. Illinois expanded gambling in 2019 to allow horse racing venues to add casino operations, but Arlington’s owners, Churchill Downs Inc., called “financially untenable” a state measure that would require the track to pay extra taxes on gaming revenues to fund horse racing purses, if Churchill pursued a casino there.
Officials in Arlington Heights, a suburb that for decades has seen the racetrack as integral to its identity, have said they’re ready to move on from the “sport of kings.”
“We already have our planning department working on what we could do to encourage something that could put this unique property to its highest and best use,” Arlington Heights Mayor Tom Hayes said last month.
Read the complete Chicago Tribune editorial here.
I am saddened that Arlington Park Race Track will be sold. It’s one of the best race tracks in the Country and perhaps the best from a spectator view point.
Churchill Downs, Inc., has shown no interest in the track since taking majority ownership. Repairs and investments were not happening. Big horse people, I say that facetiously, at Churchill Downs corporation could care less about horses here or the people that work there or the agricultural industry that supplies it. Sorry, but you won’t convince me that this track couldn’t do well with a casino to help bring it alive again. Let’s talk the real reason that Churchill doesn’t want gambling here….they own Rivers Casino and don’t want the competition! It’s ridiculous of them to think that a casino in Arlington Heights would draw away from Rivers Casino. I don’t go to Rivers Casino, but I would to to Arlington Heights!