[pmayjr]

As for the decline of Midwest racing, there's positives and negatives:

Negatives- Great Lakes Downs shutting it's doors. Places like Aksarben and Sportsman's Park also closing their doors since the 90s.

Positives- Prairie Meadows. Due to Casino gaming being added, that track has flourished and has had 2 additions. I hate their field sizes, but the track is doing fine.

Canterbury- The place closed for about 5 years in the early 90s, but re-opened in '95, and has steadily earned more revenue every year. Eventhough they've failed on a number off occassions to get slots added to the track (partly due to a giant Indian Res. casion 5 miles down the road from it), they did add the largest poker/casino card game room (black jack, pai gow, etc etc) which has added a lot of $$$ to the purses. On summer nights, the place is packed, with mainly a younger demographic as well.

The Chi-town tracks at least seem to be holding their own. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I guess that at least covers "Upper Midwest" tracks.

As for Great Lakes Downs. I hope it can be resuccitated like Canterbury was in the Mid 90s. Magna might be willing to sell it for pretty cheap since they closed it (I'm assuming because they couldn't get slots put in the place?). So Let's see what new (and hopefully local) ownership can do with the place...