Legislation pushes horse racing/slots in Richton Park

A bill is slowly making its way through the Illinois General Assembly that would allow a racetrack with up to 1,200 slot machines to be built at Richton Park.

Did I just write that?

In Richton Park?

Late last month, the Illinois Senate passed, by a vote of 49-8, a bill that would pave the way for the start of construction on just such a facility, a sports hall that Richton Park Mayor Rick Reinbold said could be built along the Sauk Trail-Laraway Road just east of Harlem Avenue.

Hold onto your wallet, sports fans. We’re still in Illinois, and according to Sen. Patrick Joyce, who along with state Rep. Anthony DeLuca are two of the bill’s eight co-sponsors, there are speed bumps that could delay or even kill the plan.

The biggest hurdle is Stickney-based Hawthorne Racetrack, which is the oldest family-owned racetrack in North America. It has the power, by law, to stop the development of any other horse tracks within a 35-mile radius of its location in Stickney.

For the record, the village of Richton Park is just 24 miles south of Stickney as the crow flies.

Last year, the Illinois Senate passed a bill eliminating this provision by January 2026, but when the House approved the bill this session, it made some changes that now must be approved again by the Senate.

Two key differences passed by the House were eliminating Hawthorne’s veto over the construction of another racetrack and limiting Hawthorne to one horse racing meeting per year. The House must now approve the amended bill when it meets next year before it goes to Gov. JB Pritzker for approval.

If Hawthorne’s ban on a nearby track is removed, the Illinois Racing Board could issue a license for a new track with a “limit” of no more than 1,200 slots on the site. For the record, Wind Creek Casino in Homewood has more than 1,400 slot machines.

There are many gaps between the legislative plans and the final results, but if the bill faces opposition in the House next year, “we may have to start from scratch,” Joyce says.

Besides the possibility of a trotting track in the south suburbs, there is a similar bill the Senate must also approve for a race track in Macon, Illinois, about 10 miles south of Decatur.

The horse racing industry has a long and turbulent history in the south suburbs. For 89 years, from 1926 to 2015, Lincoln Fields, later renamed Balmoral Park, located near Crete, was the site of thoroughbred and standard-bred racing. Perhaps the most famous horse to race at the track was 1941 Triple Crown winner Whirlaway, who in June 1940 won his first race at age 2 at the track.

In 2015, a U.S. Court of Appeals judge fined the owners of Balmoral and Maywood Park in Melrose Park $77.8 million as restitution to casinos in Joliet, Elgin and Auroa, following a “pay-to-play” scheme involving the tracks’ contributions to then-Governor Rod Blagojavich.

Both titles quickly filed for bankruptcy.

Balmoral opened two years later as a horse show arena and held a few shows, but as of 2020 the facility was for sale. The price was $4 million. There were no takers.

Homewood was the site of Washington Park Racetrack from 1926 until February 1977, when a fire destroyed the grandstand and bankrupted the facility. In its heyday, it was a favored mid-summer stop for thoroughbreds. Perhaps his greatest event was the match race on August 31, 1955, in which Nashua defeated Swaps for a purse of $100,000, which is equivalent to $1,208,865 in today’s world.

Meanwhile, Reinbold hopes that things will go well in his village these days as part of another plan to improve his village’s financial situation.

About two years ago, we commented on his request for the Chicago Bears to consider his community as the site for a new stadium. Everyone knew it was a pipe dream and some thought it was an unnecessary promotion.

Given the apparent lack of enthusiasm in Chicago for almost anything happening south of City Hall, I thought that instead of asking “why,” we should say “why not.”

Jerry Shnay is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.