The Windy City Pace was a
harness race for 3-year-old
Standardbred pacing horse
Harness racing is a form of horse racing in which the horses race at a specific gait (a trot or a pace). They usually pull a two-wheeled cart called a sulky, or spider, or chariot occupied by a driver. In Europe, and less frequently in Australia ...
s. It was run annually from 1983 to 2015 at
Maywood Park
Maywood Park was a horse racing venue located in Melrose Park, Illinois, United States, about 12 miles from downtown Chicago. It was used for harness racing. It had a capacity of 33,297 people and was built in 1946. The track was a half-mile ...
in
Melrose Park, Illinois, a
suburb
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...
of
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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.
The race was originally run during Maywood's spring meet but, after 1991, it was run in the fall. Elimination heats were required to determine the finalists for the main race. It was the top race of a program that also featured Maywood's other top stakes races — the Abe Lincoln, the Galt and the Cinderella.
A notable running of the Windy City was in 1987, when Bomb Rickles won the final at odds of 190-1.
In 2015 the
purse was $180,000.
Maywood park closed that year.
Windy City Pace winners
References
{{Reflist
Windy City Pace: History
Horse races in Illinois
1983 establishments in Illinois
Recurring sporting events established in 1983
Recurring sporting events disestablished in 2015