To Discuss the Mess at Hawthorne, Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s President Chris Block Joined the TDN Writers’ Room Podcast Presented by Keeneland

[Wandering Eyes]

These are not easy times for Illinois horsemen, who have already lost Arlington Park and may soon see the area's remaining Thoroughbred track go under. After the Illinois Racing Board, citing financial instability, which included the bouncing of checks, pulled the plug on the track's Standardbred meet in January, there's no telling whether or not a reeling Hawthorne will be able to open its doors when the Thoroughbred meet is supposed to start March 29. Chris Block, the president of the local horsemen's group, is fighting the good fight to keep the track alive, but he admits he has no idea what to expect when it comes to Hawthorne's future or even if the track will be able to open in March.

To shed some light on what's going on in Illinois, Block joined this week's TDN Writers' Room Podcast Presented by Keeneland. He was the Gainesway Guest of the Week.

The frustrating part of this is that Hawthorne, which is now facing severe financial problems, was granted a license to build a casino way back in 2019. Five years later, there's no casino and very little, if any, progress has been made toward building one or finding a partner to help run one. Obviously, if a casino had joined hands with Hawthorne in an expedited manner none of this would be happening. So, where is the casino?

“(Hawthorne President and General Manager) Tim Carey started what I think was the process of moving forward because he demolished three quarters of the grandstand and set it up for construction,” Block said.  “And then it was my understanding there was more than one funding mechanism for that. One of the major funding mechanisms fell through. Everything came to a standstill. I wouldn't ask you to come to Hawthorne because it's not anywhere near the type of place to watch a race. By tearing down the grandstand, it has made it impossible to watch a race there. It's not a very fan-friendly situation. So with that, this has gone on now for five years thereafter. They use COVID as an excuse, which I understood at the time, but they've had plenty of chances to recover from that. Then Tim Carey hired on Kevin Kline after the passage of the bill in 2019 to be his casino guru, if you will. That's what they called him, a casino guru. And I have not seen anything that makes him a guru in my mind because they've passed on what I understand are deals that could have come together to partner with another company.”

The delays have caused a number of problems, especially when it now appears that Carey family has gone deeply into debt by trying to keep the track operating and recently lost a line of credit from a bank that was keeping the place afloat. That's why purse checks to harness horsemen have been bouncing.

“I believe what's happened here is that the Carey family, and, specifically, Tim Carey and his staff there, have relied on some funding from a bank to help keep the racing going, both on the Thoroughbred side and the harness side over the last five years,” Block said. “And during that process, they have been trying to get what they think is the perfect deal with a partner to have funding for a racino construction at Hawthorne. The perfect deal has never come according to them. And they've gotten themselves backed into a corner now and up against the wall where they're going to have no choice but to do something or Hawthorne won't exist.”

There is so much that is uncertain right now. Will they open on March 29? If they do, will the meet be run to its conclusion or will Hawthorne again run out of money? For good reason, Chicago-area horsemen are stressed, and don't know what to do.

“As we stand right now, we have hundreds of horsemen that are on edge, both on the harness side and the Thoroughbred side,” Block said. “A lot of horsemen have had their checks bounce. There are horsemen who put money into the horseman's bookkeeper account just to claim horses. That wasn't even purse earned money, and they can't get to it. And these are all people, hardworking horsemen, that are in need of that revenue to sustain and continue going forward. So I guess if there's any silver lining on the Thoroughbred side, I'm glad the IRB suspended their license during the harness meet. I feel for the harness horsemen. But right now, I don't want to get our horsemen on that backstretch until I know for sure that the Carey family can keep the track going forward in 2026. And until we find that information out, we won't have an answer. I'm advising all our horsemen, unfortunately, to have a backup plan in case by, let's say, February 25th or March 1st, that we don't have anything positive to report because time is running out for our guys to make decisions on where they need to go.”

Block said that John Walsh, the general manager of Hawthorne, has now been involved in the project of finding a casino partner. Block expressed his respect for Walsh and took note when Walsh said he was optimistic that something could be worked out in a timely manner that would save the Hawthorne Thoroughbred meet.

“They need to make a deal,” Block said. “And that's been our mantra from the Horsemen's Association, just make a deal. Okay. You don't have the opportunity to sit back and wait for the pristine deal. You have to make a deal or otherwise you're going to lose this.”

There were three “Fastest Horses of the Week” this week. They were GIII Holy Bull S. winner Nearly (Not This Time); Louisiana-bred and Fair Grounds allowance winner Synthetic (Midshipman); and Quatrocento (War Front), the winner of the GIII Tampa Bay Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs. All three earned 98 Beyer figures. The “Fastest Horse of the Week” segment is sponsored by WinStar Farm, which stands the promising sire Cogburn.

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the PHBA, 1/ST TV, the KTOB and West Point Thoroughbreds, Randy Moss, Bill Finley and Zoe Cadman discussed the reshuffling of the deck among the nation's top 3-year-olds colts during a week when the Juvenile champion Ted Noffey (Into Mischief) was declared off the Derby trail  only to be replaced on the NTRA's Top 10 3-year-old list by his stablemate in the Todd Pletcher barn, Nearly, the impressive Holy Bull winner. The team also discussed Florent Geroux's move to California and the latest news CAW rules that will be instituted this week by NYRA. The podcast concluded with an examination of the four races that will be run this weekend that will award points for the GI Kentucky Derby.

For the Writers' Room Podcast video, click here, and for the audio version click here.

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