How Fairmount Park is trying to resurrect racing in Illinois

Collinsville, Ill.

The casino is labeled temporary, but it looks like it is here to stay.

On a muggy Tuesday afternoon when being outdoors was like standing in a steam bath with no escape, the big room beneath the Fairmount Park grandstand was a climate-controlled refuge.

The fact it has 271 machines offered one more lure for the crowd that showed up to gamble on slots and horses. Yes. The crowd.

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“If it’s not too hot, we’ll have 3,000-plus cheering fans here today,” said Jim Watkins, president of the Illinois Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association.

“My first trip here, I come on a Tuesday afternoon, and there’s 3,000 people here, which blew me away,” Fairmount’s general manager Vince Gabbert said. “Nothing that I expected.”

There are few things more exaggerated than racetrack attendance figures. But to the first-time visitor last month whose task it was to report on Fairmount’s present and future, 3,000 looked about right. And they were not just in the 12,000-square-foot casino, which opened in April. They streamed through newly built rooms and betting terminals and food-and-drink stops and, yes, even onto the track apron in the stifling 91-degree heat. The joint that turns 100 this year had that new-track smell.

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About a 15-minute drive from downtown St. Louis, Fairmount Park is a microcosm for the rise and fall of racing in Illinois. Between gallopers and trotters, there was a time when it hosted more than 200 cards a year. By 1999, the standardbreds were gone. Now with races only on Tuesdays and Saturdays, there are 55 Thoroughbred dates on the 2025 calendar.

Up north in Chicagoland, the widely perceived picture is shakier. Arlington Park was demolished, and Hawthorne’s financial struggles go hand in hand with a downturn in racing not to mention years of postponements in building an in-track casino there.

“It’s no secret the struggles that are going on in Chicago from a racing standpoint,” Gabbert said. “So I think we do have the ability to be the big kahuna in the market.”

On that score the momentum in Southern Illinois is turning. Accel Entertainment, the third-largest gaming-machine operator in America, bought Fairmount Park from St. Louis businesspersons William Stiritz and Robert Vitale last year in a $35 million stock deal. The track reverted to its original name after FanDuel had bought naming rights under old management. The casino, both temporary now and a permanent addition by 2028, are part of a promise to spend up to $95 million more to spruce up the place. There are plans to add a turf track within the next three years.

Gabbert, a former Keeneland vice president who arrived last year, and Watkins, a longtime Illinois horseman, have struck a chord working together while expressing optimism that business at Fairmount is moving in the right direction. New money from the casino is stoking the overnight purses, which have risen to about $100,000 per day. The hope is this can help resurrect the breeding business in Illinois.

“We feel we’ve planted our feet. We’ve bottomed out,” Watkins said. “Now the future is bright for us here.”

At the track’s new restaurant and bar next to the paddock, Gabbert and Watkins were interviewed separately. This oral narrative with minimal edits for clarity combines excerpted highlights from the two conversations, which may be heard in their entirety on Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod.

Vince Gabbert (left) and Jim Watkins (Ron Flatter photo)

What told you Accel Entertainment was serious about committing to Fairmount Park?

Gabbert: I visited with them several times last fall before they even closed on the deal and they were absolutely committed to running it the right way. I think they’ve seen other models that have worked well, gaming companies that have done the racing side, the Caesars of the world, the Churchills of the world. They’ve seen how it’s done right and what it can do for the overall company profile, and they were serious from the outset. They never blinked. When they came in, they didn’t have any racing folks or racing expertise within their stable of talent at the company. When I gave them my top 10 list of things that needed to be done here at the track, some of it from a capital standpoint, some of it from a personnel standpoint, they didn’t blink.

Watkins: I love Accel. Maybe it’s a little honeymoon period, but I really like their approach. ... Andy Rubenstein, the chairman of Accel, has gone to about every track from coast to coast and looked at how they do things, and he wants to model our track after some of the best. He mentions Oaklawn a lot, how they have their hotel set up and their casino. He really wants to mold and model our facility here, the permanent (casino), after that. The other thing I really love that Accel has done is they went and got a horse-racing guy to be our general manager. Vince Gabbert, with his vast experience, 13 years as the COO of Keeneland, obviously a very nice racetrack. He just brings so much to the table for the horse-racing end of things here at Fairmount Park.

This is not the big kahuna in the state, but it could be, right?

Gabbert: Absolutely.

Watkins: I hope it’s not the only track, but yes, we can be a solid player. We’re in a good venue, too, in the shadow of the (Gateway) Arch. We have quite a rich history, and that’s what I always say. We’re looking forward, but we’re embracing the previous 100 years, too, the foundation that we built on. Embracing the past and looking forward to the future.

When you came in here, Arlington had just closed. Hawthorne is struggling. How do you view the whole scene of Illinois?

Gabbert: As we have seen in Kentucky and New York and everywhere else, the sport needs help to provide the purse monies for folks to survive. That gaming subsidy is necessary. Then I think you have to look at it from a racing and breeding standpoint in Illinois. (With) the gaming piece here, working those in tandem, having a horseman’s group that’s working with us on long-term agreements and making sure that we’re managing expectations and not getting out ahead of ourselves on purse structure, that we’re building it incrementally so that you do it right. Then you start adding into the breeding program, and you the bulk of the Illinois-breds are in the southern part of the state. It’s no secret the struggles that are going on in Chicago from a racing standpoint, and so I think we do have the ability to be the big kahuna in the market, really transforming the way racing is scheduled, the way it’s seen, the breeding program underneath it in the state. We’re really just getting started, and the sky truly is the limit.

Watkins: The loss of Arlington was a stinger. It hurt, but it also put Hawthorne in an excellent position to move, and they just can’t get it put together. They can’t get what they want (an on-track casino) put together. ... For Illinois racing to completely rebound, we need a Chicagoland Thoroughbred track that’s viable and running. I hope it’s Hawthorne. If it’s not, we’ve got to move on and get somebody else that’s going to take that license and get things done so we have two venues and we’re taking advantage of the Chicagoland area.

Are you able to seize on momentum that has not been grabbed by Hawthorne in a statewide setting?

Gabbert: Yeah, absolutely. It’s in a couple ways. I think we seize on the momentum with our trainers and owners and breeders but also from a regulatory framework. We’re seizing on some of that momentum. We’re very fortunate the chairman of the (Illinois) Racing Board is a local person. Dan Beiser is extremely supportive. He’s a racing patron. As we see in some states, you have some folks that are appointed to racing boards that aren’t racing enthusiasts. We’re fortunate in Illinois, Kentucky, markets like that, that have folks invested in the business either as a patron or a gambler or an owner or a trainer. We’re fortunate with that here.

Are there enough horses? Not just for the now but going forward, because with Arlington having closed, with Chicagoland on the ropes, what’s there for a breeder?

Watkins: We need more racing days in Illinois. More racing opportunities. We’ll never be back to where we were, five days a week in the north and south, 10 horses a race. Looking at a neighboring state like Indiana, when they have plenty of state-bred races and plenty of races, and they’re running eight months out of the year over at (Horseshoe Indianapolis). If we could get eight, nine, 10 months of racing back between the two tracks two or three days a week, I think that would be good. A big part of it is rebuilding this Illinois breeding program. We’re down to just over 100 horses. We were at one time a couple decades ago at nearly 2,000. We need to rebuild the Illinois breeding program. That comes with more Illinois racing, more money.

You’re racing Tuesdays and Saturdays now. Can you get three days a week? Can you get to four days a week? Is that too ambitious?

Watkins: Realistically, and maybe I’m wrong, I think three days is probably a ceiling now for us, perhaps a fourth. If you have your Chicago track 280 miles away, we can between the two tracks get enough racing opportunities for Illinois horsemen. ... In discussions I’ve had with the Chicago horsemen, I don’t like the idea that we’re running overlapping meets. To me it’s ludicrous. I’ve expressed my displeasure about it. The argument from Chicago was “we always ran an overlap when we had Arlington.” But at that time, Arlington had turf horses, Poly (synthetic-track) horses and better horses. ... Now we’re basically the same horse pool to a large extent, and we don’t need to be running overlapping schedules. It’s a point of emphasis for me between now and the September dates meeting to get that changed. I have two or three different options. We were planning on sitting down following the Illinois Racing Board meeting (July 17) and get ahead of this and not wait until that September dates meeting and start trying to hurriedly make a poor decision.

Gabbert: Ideally, I’d love to create a circuit, whether it’s in-state or regionally. I’d love to compress the race dates and go three days a week but have a shorter season. It’s hard on horsemen two days a week for seven months. It’s not an easy schedule. I’d love to compress it so that we’re giving more opportunities for fans early in the season and then loop in Hawthorne or Canterbury or Prairie Meadows and create more of that circuit. Until we get the horse population where we need it in the state, there’s no reason for us to run on top of each other like we do with Hawthorne right now. They’ve got about 500 horses on their backside. We’ve got about 720. We’ve already kind of flipped that.

Can you work with Hawthorne?

Gabbert: Yeah, absolutely. ... My counterpart at Hawthorne (gaming CEO Kevin Kline) is a friend of mine that worked and opened the Caesars facility in Cincinnati. When I was at Keeneland, we owned Turfway Park 50-50 with Caesars. He and I actually formed a great relationship through that 17 years ago. Kevin’s a friend, and they’ve got a great racing office. Their folks up there are really smart guys. They know their stuff, so yeah, I think we can absolutely work with Hawthorne. They’ve got a separate horseman’s group (the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association) up north. ... They’ve got a good horseman’s group up there, and our two groups get along. We’ve already started a lot of conversations on overlap and how we work together on race day, so, yeah, we can absolutely work with Hawthorne, and I think it’s essential that we do. Not only can we, but we need to. It makes life easier on the racing board for us to work together and come hand in hand with requests and things that we want.

This isn’t a case of Fairmount wanting Hawthorne or for that matter Chicagoland to go away?

Watkins: Oh, absolutely not. We can’t race enough days here probably to sustain what we want to in Illinois, and we need that market in Illinois, especially for people like myself, Illinois breeders. We need that market and that extra venue to run our horses.

Gabbert: I don’t think it’s good for the business, for the industry as a whole, for Hawthorne to go away. I think it would be great for the horsemen if Hawthorne is able to put together their structure to be able to launch their racino. But no, I think a healthy Hawthorne makes Fairmount healthier as well, because if the state’s doing well, a rising tide lifts all boats. If we can continue to work together and work on race dates and have facilities both north and south, then it’s good for the sport. Hawthorne has a tremendous amount of handle that they can bring just because of the population that’s there, and so we’re seeing an uptick on betting on our product, at Hawthorne and their (off-track betting) network. I think it’s important for the long term for the business for Hawthorne to be healthy and for us to be healthy as well down here.

Accel wouldn’t be looking to buy Hawthorne, would it?

Gabbert: I don’t think that there’s an opportunity that they wouldn’t look at, whether it’s in the Illinois market or anywhere else.

I better not forget to ask you about computer-assisted wagering and where you and Fairmount Park stand on those players under this regime.

Gabbert: I understand why some folks and some tracks provide limitations on the computer-assisted wagering. For a track like us, it’s almost essential to have them in the pools.

Even though the pools are small enough, they can really move them.

Gabbert: They can. You know, the benefit here is historically our field size has been so small that it was nothing previously to see a horse 3-5 or 1-5 on the toteboard. At the risk of running off patrons that are on track, I didn’t feel that same risk here by letting the computer guys in, because I’m growing field size. ... I want the computer guys betting this product, because I want them to see the value of it. I want gamblers to see the value of it. Yes, it absolutely helps my handle. Yes, the margins are smaller. But at the end of the day, you’ve still got to handicap, and you’ve still got to know which horses to bet. We’ve had plenty of 8-1s and 12-1s on top, and we’ve had several 24-1 underlays hitting the board, so there’s still value to be had even with putting those folks in the pools. I don’t think that we have the same risk here of running off the wagering public that other tracks might.

But as you grow, would you consider limitations not unlike what (the New York Racing Association) does in terms of cutting it off at a certain point with minutes left to post?

Gabbert: I would consider it. I don’t know that it’s necessary. I don’t know how much effect it ends up having at the end of the day. Rather than limiting who gets into my pools, as long as there’s integrity in the pool, and as long as we’re maintaining that integrity, to me that’s the most important thing. Our focus ought to be on other stuff. What other wagering products can I offer (like) fixed odds? How else can I put on the show? What can I do from a technology standpoint to make the product more appealing and to help grow the product that way? Then other stuff with take care of itself.

Turf course?

Gabbert: Hopefully. I’d love within three years to have a turf course here. ... That’s my goal. We actually put in a new toteboard, and I moved the toteboard back far enough that I wouldn’t have to move it again. I’ve got enough width for two full running lanes on a turf course inside the dirt track.

Horse racing as a whole is not a bull market. It is a declining market. But around here it seems upbeat. Is it accurate to say that?

Watkins: I would say that. And I would agree with you also that horse racing coast to coast is on a decline. The horse population is down. We’re fighting a rebuild nationally. Here in Illinois we’re really fighting a rebuild, and this decline has been happening over decades. So the rebuild is going to take a little bit of time as well, but we feel we’ve planted our feet, we’ve bottomed out, and now the future is bright for us here.