Hazel Park Raceway  Hazel Park Raceway, located in Hazel Park, Michigan, in the metropolitan Detroit area, was a horse race track. From 1949 it offered live thoroughbred racing every Friday and Saturday night May through mid-September, and also offered harness racing. Beginning in 1996, it offered simulcast wagering seven days a week all year long on thoroughbred and harness races from across the US and Canada. Admission and parking were free. For a period, this was the only track in Michigan to offer live thoroughbred racing. The track opened in 1949 for Thoroughbred flat racing. In 1953 a harness racing season was added. After 1985, only Standardbred harness racing events were run here until 2014, when Thoroughbred racing was revived. The track was sold and closed in April 2018, leaving Northville Downs as the only horse racing track in Michigan. It closed in 2019. A developer intended to use the Hazel Park site to build an Amazon distribution center. Under the ownership of Bernard Hartman and Herbert Tyner, owners of Hartman and Tyner Inc., in 2009 Hazel Park generated roughly $550,000 in revenue for the City of Hazel Park. In the late 1940s a group of auto racing enthusiasts purchased 140 acres of landfill property on the Southwest corner of 10 Mile Road and Dequindre Road to build an auto racing track in Hazel Park. Construction began on the 5/8-mile track, but it was halted because of financial troubles with the project. A successful area businessman with a love for horse racing purchased the property from the defunct auto racing enterprise. Samuel "Dayton" Matkin, a race car driver, had suggested that the track could be converted to horse racing. (Matkin, one of the founders of the course, would serve at various times as Racing Official, Timer, and Barn Superintendent.) In the early summer of 1949, with the race track already in place, the Hazel Park Raceway worked to convert the facility to a horse racing venue, and constructed stables and related facilities. Hazel Park Raceway opened its doors on August 17, 1949 with its first thoroughbred meet. The first harness meet was held in the spring of 1953. The track was maintained as a dual-breed facility (Thoroughbred and Standardbred) from 1949 through 1984. From 1985 to May 2014, Hazel Park ran only live harness racing events. In 1996 the state legislature passed a law to authorize three casinos in Detroit. It also approved expanding betting opportunities at tracks, by authorizing betting for simulcast events.