Illinois finally decides to make 2026 calendar look like 2025

After more than two hours of contentious and sometimes emotional testimony Thursday, the Illinois Racing Board unanimously approved a 2026 Thoroughbred schedule that looks almost exactly like 2025.

Management and horsemen from Hawthorne and Fairmount Park who had been critical of one another’s 12 different calendar proposals finally hammered out their compromise during a 1 1/2-hour lunch break during an IRB meeting in Chicago.

“My support would be for what’s going on right now in 2025,” said trainer Chris Block, president of the Hawthorn-based Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association. “Two days a week at Fairmount Park. Two days a week at Hawthorn. It’s working. I mean we’re filling seven-, eight-, nine-race cards.”

After testifying separately before the lunch break, Hawthorne president and CEO Tim Carey and Fairmount Park general manager Vince Gabbert appeared together to present the final plan, which includes 120 Thoroughbred racing dates next year.

“I do so a little bit begrudgingly, but in the interest of harmony and trying to work through knowing that we’ve got bigger fish to fry and bigger opportunities to try to accomplish together, Fairmount wants to amend our submission to run two days a week from April 14 to the end of October, similar to our 2025 calendar,” Gabbert said.

“We’d do the same thing,” Carey said. “We’d like to keep the 2025 schedule, two days a week Sunday and Thursdays so that we can assure that we have the appropriate days for harness racing (in the late fall and winter) that are so critical to this industry as well.”

Hawthorne will have 65 Thoroughbred dates in 2026, three fewer than this year. Its afternoon programs will run March 29-Nov. 1, again Sundays and Thursdays, with the post time at 3:40 p.m. EDT. Unlike last fall, Hawthorne did not ask for Monday dates, which eventually were scrubbed this year for a lack of horses.

Fairmount Park will increase its calendar from 56 to 57 days in 2026 with a minimum of seven races on each card. The April 14-Oct. 27 meet will maintain the current Tuesday and Saturday schedule with a post time of 2:30 p.m. EDT.

Suburban Downs, the harness-racing program run at Hawthorn, will have 34 dates next year on Saturday and Sunday nights Jan. 3-Feb. 15 and then Nov. 6-Dec. 27. Fridays will be added Nov. 6-28. The first post will be at 8:10 p.m. EST.

IRB commissioners approved the plan by a 9-0 vote.

Carey, Gabbert and horsemen’s leaders took turns before lunch making cases for and taking critical shots against the various calendar proposals, all of which were painted in broad brushstrokes without any specifics being offered to the public. Horse Racing Nation repeatedly asked for those details in the days and weeks before the meeting and during Thursday’s meeting break. All those requests were denied or ignored.

“We have worked through 12 different schedules with Fairmount to develop complementary schedules that provide the most benefits for the horsemen,” Carey said in describing two months of negotiations between Hawthorne, Fairmount Park, the ITHA and the Illinois Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, which is based at Fairmount.

One version of the 2026 calendar even proposed five days a week of racing between the two tracks in August only to have that rebuffed by all sides.

“The state can’t support five days a week,” Gabbert said. “One of us has to back up on those days.”

That led commissioner Marc Laino to wonder if such a schedule would have turned into a showdown between Hawthorne and Fairmount next summer.

“Are we looking at a game of chicken as to which organization licensee is going to have to come in here and vacate days to accommodate a reasonable schedule of four days a week?” Laino asked.

As has been the case at so many IRB meetings, a long-delayed track casino promised by Hawthorne management was discussed yet again with no let-up in the push to get it built and start the flow of money into Illinois’s cash-strapped racing industry.

“We had an internal issue to Hawthorne that we weren’t able to overcome with our investor,” Carey said. “We unfortunately had to go back out to the market. We have done that. We’re committed to doing this project. We are in a very, very good position again this year. We anticipate that we will be able to make an announcement at some time in the fourth quarter in terms of where we are with the project. We anticipate that if we announce in the fourth quarter, we would be open by the fourth quarter of 2027.”

A harness-racing leader called out Carey for failing to live up to more than five years of promises to build the casino.

“Recently, Hawthorne sought a working-capital loan just to pay obligations,” Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Association president Jeff Davis told the commissioners. “They paid their taxes yesterday before this race-date hearing, because without doing so, they would not qualify for an organization license from you.”

Carey confirmed that a bridge loan from Signature Bank comes due next month, and he expressed confidence it would be paid and renewed.

After being praised by Laino for providing backstretch families free housing and for overpaying into the purse budget, Carey talked about how tough it has been for his family to make ends meet in its 115-year ownership of the track, especially after Hawthorne could not pay bills required to keep simulcasting afloat for this year’s Triple Crown.

“We have taken a hit,” Carey said as he got choked up. “Marc, I really do appreciate those comments. Can I tell you? It’s tough. It’s tough. It’s tough running this business, and I had great meetings these last couple of weeks with the horsemen recognizing we owe money. We as a business are trying to hang in there. We’re not publicly traded. I believe in the industry, and it’s tough. It’s tough to run this business day to day.”