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The ITHA played a lot into the decline in the product but let’s not forget that recapture played a big role in this. Not only is it non standard in the industry, it became yet another way for Hawthorne to side with the horsemen while AP threw the many of its temper tantrums. On the other hand, AP legitimately tried multiple times to make the horsemen that routinely shipped their horses out of state to run to run where they trained.....and we aren’t talking about shipping out for stakes races. AP still has the best training track in the Midwest and it was exploited at AP’s expense so horses can ship to CBY, IND, and PRM to get the slots purses. They’ll all feel the ripple effect of this
At the end of the day, Illinois Racing is better without CDI and worse without AP. The horsemen are going to be sorely disappointed when HAW’s casino complex isn’t putting the amount of money into the purse account as expected because if we aren’t already over saturated with gaming in Illinois, we will be when Chicago works out whatever dysfunction is causing a casino to not be open there yet. I already probably drive by 1,000 slot machines on my trip to Hawthorne and it’s only 10 minutes away
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