Buried in Debt, Chicago’s Last Racetrack Is Running Out of Time

Horse racing was never really a glamorous business at Hawthorne Race Course. Built in 1891, it’s a hardscrabble, little track tucked into an industrial zone just outside Chicago, a companion venue to the more chic Arlington Park on the city’s north side.

But Arlington folded back in 2021 — a victim of the sport’s slow and steady decline — and now Hawthorne, drowning in debt and cut off from fresh financing by its bankers, is on the cusp of suffering the same fate.