The race was won by Patriot Spirit as the business hoped for a turnaround of fortune.
Although the 60th running of the Illinois Derby was not at all like the race in its heyday, the fact that Hawthorne Race Course hosted the $200,000 competition on April 21 offered some promise to the long-suffering state racing establishment.
If not for the race's name and its symbolic return to the schedule, it very well may have gone unnoticed. Patriot Spirit prevailed over four challengers and was last seen placing third in the Hutcheson Stakes at Gulfstream Park.
Even though the field's calibre fell short of previous records, two of the competitors—Real Men Violin and Les Gris—were early Triple Crown nominees, and several others were stakes-oriented.
As a point of reference, Brendan Walsh's horse Multiplier won the race the last time it was held in 2017. In 2015, it was Whiskey Ticket, with Martin Pedroza up for trainer Bob Baffert and his Watson-Pegram-Wellman ownership triumvirate.
War Emblem won the Illinois Derby in 2002 and proceeded to win the Preakness Stakes (G1) and Kentucky Derby (G1).
The race has been held at three tracks in the Chicago area, covered a wide range of distances, and experienced several breaks. However, it has outlasted two of its host locations, Sportsman's Park and Aurora Downs and its 2024 renewal gives the business a glimmer of hope.
Hawthorne, the only remaining track in the Chicago region, has been alternating its season between harness meetings and Thoroughbred since Churchill Downs Inc. shut down Arlington International Racecourse following the 2021 season. The track's hereditary owners, the Carey family, have battled to keep it alive despite bearing six-figure expenditures for track reconstruction with every breed change and year-round maintenance of backstretch facilities for staff and horses.
The fortunes of Illinois racing won't be turned around by the reintroduction of the Illinois Derby. It will take four years for Hawthorne president Tim Carey to eventually arrange finance for an on-track casino, as that would be necessary for a real turnaround. Key to survival is also a new harness racino in the south Chicago suburbs, approved by gaming-expansion legislation in 2019.
However, in Illinois racing, any indication of life is good news.
"The return of the Illinois Derby to Illinois racing in 2024 is a good thing," stated Chris Block, president of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, whose family operation, Team Block, has long been a mainstay of the state's industry.
"Hopefully it will once again become a permanent fixture on the spring stakes program at Hawthorne going into the future. And, hopefully, with a higher purse coming from supplemental money coming from its racino soon."