When Thomas McCauley, a key commissioner on the Illinois Racing Board, resigned his position last week, it left both an ideological and functional hole in the Racing Board just days before the body's annual racing dates award meeting. 

McCauley's had been the loudest and most persistent voice on the Board over the last couple years, and it was he who was chosen to mediate sticky contract negotiations earlier this year between the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association and Arlington International Racecourse. But beyond his prominent role on the board, McCauley was the body's sixth member. The Board has operated at less than full commissioner staffing -- nine -- for years now, but needs six members to form a quorum and hold a meeting at which actions can be taken. 

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker remedied that situation this past Monday, Sept. 14, when he appointed Lesley Sandberg to become the board's sixth member. Sandberg, of Barrington - which is situated just northwest of Arlington and is adjacent to Barrington Hills, home of Arlington chairman emeritus Dick Duchossois -- was president and CEO of Permatron Corporation, a privately owned Chicago-area air filtration business. 

Duchossois Capital Management, the Duchossois family's private investment group, partnered with another entity and acquired Permatron in 2017.

The dates award meeting, which begins a 11 a.m. Central, could turn contentious. Arlington, owned by Churchill Downs Inc., was slow to reopen this summer following a blanket industry shut-down because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. CDI CEO Bill Carstanjen during a shareholder conference call this summer also made pointed comments regarding Arlington's future, essentially saying the land on which the track sits eventually will be sold for development and that the racetrack there had no viable future. 

CDI and Arlington have publicly committed to racing through 2021. Arlington requested a standard racing schedule for next year running from early May through September. Hawthorne, which plans to build an on-track casino -- an opportunity CDI declined in 2019 -- applied for it's regular Thoroughbred dates in late-winter / spring, and again in fall and early winter. 

Daniel Beiser is the IRB chairman but was appointed to the board only about a year ago with nearly no racing exposure. The other board members are Leslie Breuer, Marcus Davis, Charles MacKelvie, and Benjamin Reyes. Arlene Mulder, who once was the mayer of Arlington Heights and stood firmly in Arlington's corner in all Racing Board business, was not reappointed to the board when her term recently expired.