Chicago-area horse racing died in July when Hawthorne Race Course shut down, and it’s sadly ironic that its passing came 40 years after Arlington Park held the richest and most prestigious meeting in Illinois racing history.
Known as the International Festival of Racing, this 13-day extravaganza was held from Aug. 19-Sept. 1, 1986, in a country fair setting with tents and temporary bleachers.
Graded races — known in Europe as group races — are those at the highest level, and the Festival had 13 of them — six Grade I, four Grade II and three Grade III. There also were four major races restricted to Illinois-breds.
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Total purses exceeded $5 million for a daily average of approximately $385,000, unprecedented in Illinois at the time and surpassed only once since then in 2002 when Arlington was the host track for the Breeders’ Cup.
It was a meeting the likes of which had never been seen anywhere in the world.
“Except for the Breeders’ Cup (that was inaugurated in 1984 as a single-day event) there never has been a meeting like this,” said Nick Clark, president of the International Racing Bureau, an organization based in Newmarket, England, that worked for Arlington and other tracks throughout the world in luring foreign horses.
“Royal Ascot (in England) has a festival, but there is only one Group I race as opposed to six here. Melbourne and Tokyo also have festivals in conjunction with their major races in Australia and Japan, but their meetings don’t compare to this.”
Arlington’s average daily attendance during the Festival was 17,819, and an average of $2,383,052 was bet each day on track and at the simulcast locations in the metropolitan area: Sportsman’s Park, Maywood Park and Balmoral Park. At the time there were no simulcasts to or from out-of-state tracks.
The International Festival of Racing was inspired by “the Miracle Million” of the previous August that was held in a similar setting 26 days after one of the biggest fires in Cook County history completely destroyed the clubhouse and grandstand.
Inspired by the success of “the Miracle Million,” Arlington’s majority owner, the late Dick Duchossois, decided he wanted a pocketful of miracles in 1986, holding a minimeeting modeled after the short festivals in England and France, to keep his track in the international limelight.
“It is essential to have a world-class track in the Midwest,” said Duchossois, who bought out his partners, Ralph Ross, Joe Joyce and Sheldon Robbins, in February 1986. “European racing is conducted on the grass, and Arlington has one of the best grass courses in North America.
‘We are here to showcase why thoroughbred racing is the second-largest spectator sport in the world. It’s a tremendous responsibility and a tremendous challenge. We welcome that responsibility and that challenge.”
In addition to racing on the grass course and the main track, there were diverse concession stands, giving fans a miniature Taste of Chicago.
The main event was the Arlington Million, which was the world’s first million-dollar race when it was inaugurated in 1981 by Joyce when he was running the track for Madison Square Garden.
Fittingly, the 1986 event proved to be a milestone Million. The 6-year-old mare Estrapade — owned by Allen Paulston, trained by Charlie Whittingham and ridden by Fernando Toro — is the only female winner in the history of the race that was later also contested at Woodbine in Toronto in 1988, Churchill Downs in 2022 and since then at the Churchill Downs, Inc., satellite Colonial Downs in Virginia.
And Estrapade’s 5-length margin of victory in the 1¼-mile race in which she outran 13 opponents still stands as the record winning margin. (“Miracle Million” winner Teleprompter, of England, finished seventh.)
“She has struck the greatest blow for women’s lib in the world,” jested Whittingham, her California-based Hall of Fame trainer.
The Tribune’s Million Day coverage was comparable to that which the Bears currently receive on game day— there were two writers, two columnists and a photographer at Arlington.
“It was my first full year on the beat,” said retired Tribune reporter/handicapper Dave Surico. “For a person who was still relatively new to racing, I think I comprehended that the quality of racing combined with the atmosphere made this a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
The Festival attracted top trainers and jockeys from both coasts and Canada and some noteworthy Europeans.
Another member of the filly and mare division in the limelight was Top Corsage. Canada’s Sandy Hawley was in the saddle when the 3-year-old filly won the Grade III Pucker Up Stakes at 1 1/16 miles on the grass Aug. 20, and Californa-based Gary Stevens rode her Aug. 28 when she won the 1 1/8-mile Arlington Oaks on the dirt.
The biggest upset of the Festival came on opening day in the Grade I Arlington Classic when 35-1 long shot Sumptuous paid $73.20 to win bettors in the crowd of 14,104.
Duchossois had added reason to celebrate the success of his Festival when Explosive Darling, an Illinois-bred he owned and bred at his Hill ‘N Dale Farm in Barrington Hills, won the Grade II Stars and Stripes Handicap, a tradition-rich race on the turf course. Explosive Darlington was trained by local fixture Lou Goldfine and ridden by longtime Arlington-based jockey Earlie Fires, who went on to be inducted into the horse racing Hall of Fame.
Arlington regular Pat Day, with 23 winners in 82 races, and Hawley, with 23 in 79, tied for the jockey championship, while Carl Nafzger was the leading trainer, with six winners in 18 attempts. All three went on to become members of the Hall of Fame.
Day was voted the outstanding jockey in North America in 1986; Estrapade was selected the year’s champion female grass horse; and Smile, winner of the Grade III Equipoise Mile at the Festival, was chosen as the top sprinter.
The 13-day Festival was so successful that it prompted Duchossois to apply for a conventional 91-day meeting with the temporary bleachers and tents in 1987, and the Illinois Racing Board granted his request.
After announcing plans to rebuild the track as part of an equestrian complex in the Lake County village of Old Mill Creek near the Wisconsin border and transform Arlington’s 325 acres into a business, cultural, recreational and residential complex, Duchossois changed his mind.
He didn’t apply for any dates in 1988 and moved the Million to Woodbine while the track was being rebuilt at its location in Arlington Heights.
When the lavish new tradition-rich track was reopened on June 28, 1989, it was hailed as a masterpiece work. Architectural Digest called it “the world’s most beautiful racetrack.”
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Duchossois closed Arlington in 1998 and 1989 to pressure the legislature for tax breaks. He reopened in 2000 and shortly thereafter merged with Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI), becoming the parent company’s biggest shareholder.
At first it looked like a good move — as attested by CDI being instrumental in getting Arlington the 2002 Breeders’ Cup — but as the years progressed Duchossois began reducing his holdings for estate-planning purposes and playing a much reduced role in running his beloved track.
In 2019, CDI acquired a controlling interest in the nearby Rivers Casino in Des Plaines and decided to sell Arlington to wipe out gambling competition. The property was sold to the Bears with the stipulation that there be no casino gambling, horse racing or sports wagering at the site, and the NFL team has torn down the palatial track to reduce its taxes on the property on which it is considering building a stadium.
Arlington’s final meeting was held in 2021, and CDI announced it was “honoring” Duchossois by renaming the Million the Mr. D. Stakes.
Actually, it was an insult rather than an honor. The purse was reduced to $600,000, producing the weakest field in the history of what was the world’s richest race when it debuted in 1981.
Meanwhile, many events have been inaugurated overseas with purses that make the Million’s purse look like chump change. The Everest in Sydney is the world’s richest grass race with a $20 million purse, and the Saudi Cup in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, offers the same amount, making it the world’s richest dirt race. In the U.S. the Breeders’ Cup is a now a two-day event and last year lured 49 internationals from 12 countries.
But according to Bob Kieckhofer, a correspondent for The Blood-Horse, who has traveled to multiple countries to cover international races, Duchossois’ legacy should not be forgotten.
“Certainly, Dick was a pioneer in international racing,” he said. “Just looking at the list of races at the 1986 Festival is a sad reminder of how far we fell in Illinois.”
Neil Milbert is a freelance writer who covered horse racing and other sports during his 40-year career with the baiduhai.