Hawthorne

Cicero, Illinois is a suburb that hugs the west side of Chicago, and is home to Hawthorne Race Course. It's also the headquarters of Morton High School District 201, which serves approximately 8,000 students from Cicero and surrounding communities. Near the top of the Hawthorne stretch is a Golden Corral parking lot. From this vantage point you can clearly see horses on the track during training or racing. One morning while watching training from here, trainer Chris Block saw a group of Morton High School students gathered by a fence...

Every week, the TDN posts a roundup of the relevant Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) related rulings from around the country. Among this week's rulings, trainer Adolfo Macias has been suspended 18-months and fined $12,500 for the possession of levothyroxine, a banned substance under HISA. Levothyroxine is a synthetic thyroid hormone used to treat ailments like hypothyroidism. Due to its metabolic properties, levothyroxine is believed to aid recovery in performance horses and help weight loss. There is also a possible link between levothyroxine and equine sudden cardiac death. There is currently no detailed...

With a long-term eye on a title defense in this fall's GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint at Del Mar, Patricia's Hope LLC's Nobals (Noble Mission {GB}) has begun gearing up for his 2024 campaign. The gelded 5-year-old has posted four breezes at trainer Larry Rivelli's Hawthorne base this spring, most recently stopping the timer for four furlongs in :52.60 (50/51) May 19. "He's doing good, real good," Rivelli said. "I gave him time just for no reason. I haven't really picked out anything yet (for his return); within his next...

An Illinois businessman with a background in both real estate development and racehorses is actively putting together an investment team to build a new $180-million Thoroughbred racino about 35 miles south of Chicago. But even a year before the first shovels might break ground, controversy is swirling because of different interpretations of the enabling gaming law that is a linchpin for the project to proceed. Ronald Awsumb, 68, who has owned and bred Thoroughbreds and also worked as a bloodstock consultant alongside his family's chief business of building malls and...

After 3 1/2 decades in the saddle, Cindy Murphy knows all too well how fate lurks with every hoofbeat when you're a jockey. Occasionally though, chance and risk manifest themselves in the form of good karma on the racetrack. On Saturday night at Prairie Meadows, the rewarding circumstances of the 61-year-old jockey's 2,000th career win seemed almost too scripted to be true. Murphy's landmark victory aboard Crypto Mo (Mohaymen) in the July 8 GIII Iowa Oaks was her first lifetime graded stakes win after 18,131 lifetime mounts. It was also...

Every week, the TDN publishes a roundup of key official rulings from the primary tracks within the four major racing jurisdictions of California, New York, Florida and Kentucky. Here's a primer on how each of these jurisdictions adjudicates different offenses, what they make public (or not) and where. The TDN will also post a roundup of the relevant Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) related rulings from the same week. These will include decisions from around the country. Kentucky Track: Churchill Downs at Ellis Park Date: 06/18/2023 Licensee: Reyluis Gutierrez,...

Purses will be on the short-term rise at the tracks in Illinois, thanks to a pair of recent money recovery efforts initiated by the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association (ITHA). One increase at the current Thoroughbred meet at Hawthorne Race Course that will be effective June 15-July 15 involves an 18% across-the-board purse bump derived from a claw-back of funds related to the closure of Arlington International Racecourse. A separate initiative required passage of a bill in the Illinois Legislature on its final day of the session last month. That action...

The handle on Thursday's nine-race card at Hawthorne was $2,080,655. That may not seem like much, but at Hawthorne, which opened Mar. 5, it was a cause for celebration. It was the fourth time this year that the Chicago-area track had topped the $2-million mark in handle, something that happened just once all of last year. What's going on? The answer, says Hawthorne Racing Analyst Jim Miller, is that bettors are gravitating towards the track's 12% takeout in the win, place and show pool, an industry low. "The lower takeout...

Hawthorne Race Course will swap out Saturdays in favor of Thursdays for the upcoming June-through-Labor Day portion of its season, continuing a schedule switch that the Chicago-area track began with the current spring meet. The Illinois Racing Board (IRB) granted the change with a unanimous vote at its Apr. 20 meeting. Right now Hawthorne is racing on a Thursday-and-Sunday schedule. The changes will go into effect starting May 31, when the meet expands to three days: Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Post times are 2:30 p.m. Central. Jim Miller, Hawthorne's racing...

Despite coming off a record-handle season, Canterbury Park is proposing a 10-day schedule slice and a $45,000 average daily purse cut for 2023. The reductions were made public this week as the Minnesota track faced a Nov. 15 racing commission deadline to apply for next year's dates at the same time it is trying to extend or renegotiate an expiring agreement with the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community. Since 2012, that deal has provided purse funding in exchange for the track and horsemen not pursuing additional forms of gambling, and it...

Carolyn Wilson's Fit to Fly (West Coast), a $570,000 OBSMAR acquisition, lived up to his name with a dominant 7 1/4-length score, becoming his freshman sire (by Flatter)'s first winner. Hammered down to even-money favoritism for this debut, the bay went straight to the front and never looked back, clear at every call to win for fun over stablemate Rivzonaroll (Good Samaritan). A $155,000 FTKJUL yearling, he more than tripled that price as a juvenile after breezing in :21 flat for Eddie Woods. Fit to Fly is a half to...

Citing an inability to support three days of racing per week, Hawthorne Race Course asked for and received permission from the Illinois Racing Board (IRB) to drop the remaining five Sundays from its current Thoroughbred meet that runs through June 25. This is the first season in recent Illinois history with the scheduled-to-be-sold Arlington International Racecourse not running a summer meet, which has led to a thinned horse population this spring at Hawthorne. The Hawthorne season started Apr. 2 with just Saturday and Sunday racing. Fridays were added May 6,...