Derby List Last 200 Messages

[PETER PELTIER via Derby]

Hi Terry,

You may not recall that you and I used to spar in the mid 1990’s over the AP vs HAW situation - who should get what dates; or whether AP vs HAW's fan experience was better; etc. We lived through those times together - you eventually from afar and I just 10 minutes away from AP. Though we disagreed on several of the issues that we felt infected the IL TB industry, I respected your opinions. I retired in 2007, and from that time forward, instead of just weekends I went to AP pretty much every day until they “closed for good” last Saturday. I view myself as pretty knowledgeable on most things AP, certainly from a daily observer's viewpoint.

Your summary of the AP / IL TB history and current situation is pretty much spot on as usual. Over the past 4-5 years I’ve become a very strong anti-CDI advocate. To be sure, the IL politicians did no favors for the IL TB’s until it was too late for a CDI owned AP. We could spend plenty of time and calories discussing and distributing blame, but in the end, I put more of the blame on CDI. (By the way I did not include AP - most, if not all of the middle management and AP employees clearly cared about the track and its fans. They did their best until the end. The tears were genuine and flowed freely that last day. “Puppet” Petrillo, the AP GM is a far different matter. Anything he did was at the behest Louisville. Any decisions that were attributed to AP Management, were coming from Louisville, KY. Really, no need to waste time on him, he’ll become a Corporate casualty now that he’s of no use to CDI.

The point I’d like to make is that CDI like most Corporations use maximizing their bottom line to justify their actions. They hide behind the “we have an obligation to our shareholders to maximize profits”. They ignore that some Corporations do include acting as partners within their community, or at least supporting the industry in which they operate. CDI never has, unless it’s in Louisville, KY. They behave as a carpet bagging succubus in any other State. Ironically I, and many of my racetrack companions in the final months, wanted any solution that did NOT include CDI ownership, including if it meant no more AP. That’s very difficult for me to say as I grew up with and love Arlington Park. In IL, CDI has pretty much acted in a consistent adversarial manner with the other IL tracks, the horsemen, the politicians and even lately the fans. In this final year, CDI put limits on attendance to a max of 7,000 despite routinely selling out all of the “available” seats, using the excuse "they couldn’t get enough help” - I knew at least a dozen former employees that applied for AP jobs this summer that were denied because “there were no available jobs". Note that the Cubs and White Sox had no limits on their attendance this year. CDI also raised AP's already pricey ticket prices by a factor of 2x or more (and all attendees had to purchase tickets in advance for assigned seats with no same day walk ups allowed) . For example, seats at tables at an outdoor AP bar/cafe that several of us usually frequented were raised from $10 to $40 per seat and the entire table had to be purchased = $160. They also eliminated Sunday racing for the entire meet, even though that was AP's most popular and best attended day. They decided to use the Wednesday prior to Labor Day weekend (which wasn’t a typical weekly race day and which had very few attendees) for racing on Labor Day. I could continue to rant on with many more examples, but my point is that by the last day many of us were disgusted with a CDI owned AP and wished it a merciful end rather than continue the misery, much like you suggest Terry. CDI is dead to me. By any measure, CDI's efforts this past year were anti AP and anti loyal racing fan during the final season. They also acted as though they wanted to scoop up every last nickel before they departed IL racing.

Being a life-long leaning optimist, I’d like to believe some profit minded entity would look at this past season’s numbers favorably despite the negativity and neglect from CDI - AP’s attendance on most days was surprisingly near or at “ capacity”. The mutuel handle as reported by the DRF was much stronger than the prior two years. All of this occurred while the customer experience was minimized by CDI. The AP 360 acre property can handle both a Bears stadium and the current AP. There was at least one finalist in the AP bidding that would have kept AP in place and accommodate the Bears. Alas, CDI indicated early on that no bids would be accepted from entities that would continue on with AP. 

During this past year I have exhorted anyone who claims to be an AP fan, or not a fan of CD to drop everything related to CDI other than their remaining "orphan” racetrack(s) - eg FG. Personally, I dropped my Twinspires account and stopped wagering on CD races 2+ years ago (there are plenty of good alternatives). I have never, and won’t ever enter their Rivers Casino (there are plenty of good alternatives in IL). If AP’s closing, and how CDI engineered it isn’t that big of a deal to someone, I respect their decision to ignore my plea. But if you do care, stick it to this anti-TB racing entity. It’s likely too late to save AP, but if you ever cared about AP it will hopefully ease some of the pain as it has for me. I understand it’s mostly symbolic, but I feel better by my decision.

One last point, I didn’t mention D Duchessois in any of the above. That’s intentional. I lost all respect for that phony SOB several years ago. As you mentioned Terry, he made many hundreds of millions on his CDI stock, and though he’s no longer the majority shareholder he still owns several hundred million $ of CDI stock under a number of his personal or family entities. He’s a fraud of the worst kind. Throughout the last year of the AP meeting we were subjected to a daily, repetitious prerecorded 5 minute studio produced video from him essentially saying "I tried my best, thank you” to the attendees”, blah, blah blah. It was a comical, clearly disingenuous piece that most AP attendees paid little or no attention to, and if they did, reacted to it with insults or groans. When CDI/DD/Petrillo in this final AP year decided to rename the iconic Arlington Million to something like the Ducchessois Stakes, and the venerable Secretariat Stakes to the Bruce D after his son, every racing fan that that I know was disgusted with the change. Many were hoping DD would show up to be “honored" - he would have been met with resounding boos. He never once came to AP this past year, usually a daily occurrence. Maybe he was too embarrassed by his transparent actions to show up even once. I will say that he man just turned 100 and is reported to have heath issues, preferring to spend his time on his yacht, so that may explain his absence. I find it so ironic that the man who early on was heralded by the racing industry for his “contributions” including the rebuild of the marvelous facility that is AP, is now somewhat ignored and very soon will be forgotten.  If he had invested some of his hundreds of millions into the racing at AP and been less adversarial in his dealings, he would have been remembered positively. Instead, his marvelous facility will be demolished and he will be forgotten quickly, certainly not remembered as anything other than another rich dude who put making more $ over something he claimed to hold dear. Karma is a bitch Dick.

Pete


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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. final final final demise of Arlington Park (Terry Bjork)
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> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2021 22:57:45 -0600
> From: Terry Bjork <tlbjork@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "derby@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <derby@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Derby] final final final demise of Arlington Park
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> 
> In the time I have been on the Derby List, starting 1994, Arlington Park was going to close several times. First in 1995, but then didn't, and then did close after 1997.
> 
> It reopened in 2000 after being rescued by Illinois government intervention in 1999, only to be sold immediately by DD to Churchill Downs only a month into that 2000 meet. Then the racing-oriented CDI of Tom Meeker morphed into the new casino oriented CDI that it is today, and it has been all downhill for poor Arlington Park. (Though Mr. Duchossois made out quite well with all that CHDN stock.)
> 
> Now it's finally finally finally gone, reportedly sold by CDI to the Chicago Bears instead of any other racing entity. CDI has a majority interest in a nearby casino and, according to many people, didn't want to sell to a horse racing interest that might exercise the casino option that Illinois lawmakers recently gave the tracks.
> 
> Those first two times it was supposedly closing I felt real bad, but this time it's primarily a big eh and so what relief it's finally over, after all the drama and misery inflicted on Illinois racing in general plus fans and horsemen, by Arlington ownership and management over the past 25 years. Yeah I will miss the track as such, but nothing else associated with it.
> 
> Bloodhorse has a short obituary.
> 
> https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/253565/somber-feel-as-arlington-hits-the-finish-line
> 
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> End of Derby Digest, Vol 15, Issue 81
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