Demolition started today. Sad.

That was my home base. We ran second in the Maywood Pace in 1998. And won the race in 2001:

http://www.worldclasstrotting.com/RaceS ... odPace.htm

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

The batting cages across the street on 1st Avenue are somehow still there (though not in use). My dad used to take me there 40 years ago.

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DH article today about Arlington’s grim future.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Link?

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

THE FUTURE OF ARLINGTON PARK moved closer to the brink of uncertainty Thursday with confirmation that Dick Duchossois is retiring from the board of directors of parent company Churchill Downs Inc.

Duchossois, 97, has been on the board since he merged his racetrack with Churchill Downs in 2000. Son Craig Duchossois, 74, did not stand for re-election to the CDI board last spring.

Duchossois will remain chairman emeritus at AP with “an office for life.”

The announcement was made by Bill Carstanjen, CDI’s wizardly CEO, during a quarterly investors call.

Carstanjen also reported that CDI’s share of the Rivers Casino in Des Plaines has increased from 50.1 percent to “close to 62 percent.” The purchase — originally announced last fall — may be approved today at a meeting of the Illinois Gaming Board.

Duchossois has continued to show remarkable vitality. Last season, he made a visible concession to age by using a cane once owned by his mother.

The Duchossois family reportedly has made hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years by selling much of its CDI stock. A share sold for $23.27 at the time of the merger; it peaked close to $320 per-share last year before a 3-for-1 split effected in January.

Master behind it all has been Carstanjen — the 50-year-old golden boy pried away from Jack Welch and General Electric in 2005. His end-around in linking to facile Illinois power Neil Bluhm and the Des Plaines/Rivers operation was seen as a mating of two entities with significant synergies toward maximizing profits in the rabid Chicago-area gaming market.

Those synergies may not extend to a long future for live Thoroughbred racing at Arlington. Under Carstanjen, CDI’s upwardness is clearly pinned to polishing its trademark Kentucky Derby week in Louisville and expansion of casino, online and sports gaming interests.

As is, according to area commercial real estate experts, the Arlington complex would likely fetch $100-120 million as a teardown. The oval would be worth more if a thoroughbred racing “angel” were to descend.

Said Frank Calabrese, the winningest race owner of AP’s new millennium and a significant Churchill stockholder since 1995: “Mr. D is a class act. But in any events moving forward, my money’s on Carstanjen. He’s simply a brilliant guy. And anyone who is still in horse racing is an idiot. Carstanjen keeps seeing the future before it happens and he’s made a lot of shareholders a lot of money.”

A critical tell will be whether Carstanjen brings in new energies atop the AP totem. If he doesn’t, the track will remain diminished by the sort of numbing repetitions that plagued Bill Murray’s weather forecaster in “Groundhog Day.”

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Interesting. Is that Des Plaines/Rivers operation the same "Rivers" casino here in Pittsburgh?

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Elections have consequences.

I believe so. I see your rivers logo on cubs/pirates games and it is the same as the one here.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

Yeah. I should look into it because here in western PA there is a lot of casino and horse track shenanigans.

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Elections have consequences.

Yeah, unlike in Illinois tracks in Pennsylvania handle hardly anything and the horsemen are surviving on slots welfare. Parx may be the worst track in the world.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Rozner is the biggest advocate of slots welfare. He writes about it at least per year. It’s sad that horse racing is less popular, but there are so many other ways to gamble away your money legally now.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Really? Slots welfare has ruined the game. Eventually the state legislatures wake up and start wondering why some guy with an eighth grade education just took $500,000 of taxpayer money back to California with him.

Once the slots tracks all die, you'll have a racing renaissance. It will just be a smaller world than it currently is. There's a market for racing in New York and Chicago. If you have the product, tracks will handle. But if you're an owner, why are you going to race in Chicago for $7500 when you can take the same horse and go for $50,000 at a slots track where nobody actually bets on horses? So you end up with a bunch of tracks racing shitty five horse fields.

Also, the track operators think the gambler is an idiot (and he often is). But it's hard to convince someone to bet a sport with 30% takeout when they can bet football or basketball at 10% vig.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don