Fire sweeps through old Balmoral Park racetrack facilities in Crete, Illinois

A fire at the vacant old Balmoral Park racetrack in Crete, Illinois, sent smoke billowing over several south Chicago suburbs Sunday morning.

Around 6:30 a.m., flames raced through the structures on the old racetrack grounds. Fire departments from several suburbs, as well as Northwest Indiana, were called in to help.

Balmoral Park dates back to 1926, when it opened as Lincoln Fields. The racetrack hosted both thoroughbred and harness races over the years.

A fire also damaged the grandstand at the racetrack during renovations in 1952, forcing the races for the 1952-53 season to move to Hawthorne Race Course in Stickney. Balmoral in turn picked up some races in 1986 after a fire destroyed the grandstand at Arlington Park in Arlington Heights the summer before.

Balmoral Park was hosting only harness racing when it closed at the end of 2015. The property was purchased the following year by Horse Shows In The Sun as a hunter-jumper horse show venue, but this only lasted a few years and the property has stood vacant ever since, reports noted.