Hawthorne Race Course Likely to Shutter After Auction

The future of the Hawthorne Race Course is looking grim following its bankruptcy auction.

The winning offer was the stalking horse bid, put forward by a Delaware shell company only known as ALLIMAC 2023. The winning bid totaled $90 million for the 119 acres that make up the property at 3501 South Laramie Avenue.

For now, the buyer appears to be only interested in the real estate, not operating the track. Hawthorne has races scheduled on every Sunday through October,, according to the Chicago Tribune. The Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association sent out a text message to its members, stating that the racecourse has been sold to a “nonracing entity,” and that activities would continue as planned until further notice, according to the outlet.

Attempts to save the track stretch back to last decade. In 2019, the state gave the green light for tracks around Illinois to add casinos onto race track properties. The developments were colloquially called “racinos,” and stood to inject life into the horse racing industry after years of declining interest and other gambling formats rapidly gaining popularity.

The Arlington International Racecourse closed in 2021, and Hawthorne’s attempts to grab funding to open a racino fell flat. Hawthorne also secured exclusivity to build a racino in the southern suburbs of the city, but that deal never materialized either.

Hawthorne is the last live thoroughbred race track in the Chicago area. The sale has one final step, approval from the court that presides over its bankruptcy filing, but public comments from interested parties paint a grim picture of the track’s ability to operate past the end of October.

The hearing to evaluate ALLIMAC’s bid is set for Monday. The track’s ability to move forward with its planned races is tied to the release of more than $1.1 million from a horse racing purse fund that should get the track through the season.

— Hunter Cooke