1972 The NGRC is born – technically it is NGRC Ltd – an amalgamation of the National Greyhound Racing Club and the National Greyhound Racing Society. The first senior steward is the Earl Of Westmorland. The new organisation comprise of four committees: ‘General, ‘Racing’, Policy’ and ‘Liaison’. The latter represents the first official recognition of the Greyhound Trainers Association and Breeders
1962 Sallys Chat the top puppy of 1961 is found dead in trainer Tony Dennis’ kennel. Among his wins were in the Futurity, the Christmas Puppy Cup, the Futurity, the Yorkshire Puppy Derby and the North Of England Puppy Derby. The 12-1 third favourite for the English Derby died of enteritis.
1959 Romford introduce the Jackpot. It is nothing to do with tote betting, but a competition to encourage open race entries to the track. They begin by putting £100 into the pot and increasing it by £5 per week. Any owner is entitled to pay £5 nominating their dog to break the track record in any race and claim the Jackpot. The prize fund soon escalates.
1970 GRA introduce contract training at its tracks for the first time. Private trainers ‘Bammy’ Bamford and Ron Saunders have their first graded runners at Belle Vue and Manchester White City respectively. If successful, the company plan to introduce contract trainers at all 11 of their tracks. They also promise to increase prize money as each track adopts the new system.
1947 Eastville (Bristol) report that their entire kennel strength of 137 dogs are sound with none on the sick list. The news wasn’t as good at West Ham- three of the six trainers were in bed with flu.
1962 Waterloo Cup winner Best Champagne will be paraded at the forthcoming awards night at the Dorchester Hotel. The last Waterloo winner invited to the big night was Champagne’s sire Holystone Elf who somewhat disgraced himself after spotting a white fox fur around a lady’s neck. . . .
1953 Noreen Collin has relinquished her job as a Walthamstow trainer. Her post at High Warren, Theydon Manor, Epping, will be taken by Tom Reilly. The kennel, which includes many runners owned by Mrs Frances Chandler, is loaded with stars including Polonius, Kind Comrade, Melampus and Magourna Reject. The most exciting recent arrival is Glittering Look, the fastest dog ever to race at Cork.
1966 Longford track seemed unlikely to re-open following its winter break when its owner, Thomas Packenham, the heir of Lord Longford, refused to renew the lease. However, he relents and the site is sold to Longford Sports Ltd, a group of local enthusiasts who then apply to Bord na gCon for funds to purchase a tote.
1984 March 12 West Country independent Brean shuts down.
1947 An amendment to the rules of racing now requires the owner of any ‘resting’ bitch who comes into season while in his/her care, must inform the NGRC who will arrange to have details recorded in the identity book.
1993 Yarmouth need a metal detector to find a handful of tin tacks that had been thrown onto the track between the third and fourth bends. Racing manager Dick Keable believes there is a connection with an incident where motor oil was smeared on the window of his pet shop. He believes the incident “is probably not greyhound related but may be connected with a domestic incident involving a permit trained greyhound.”
1969 March 5 Bradford’s Greenfield Stadium hold their last meeting. The track has been sold for ‘industrial development.’
1983 Ministry of Agriculture scientists reached a remarkable conclusion as to the deaths of a number of pups at Norah McEllistrim’s range at Burhill. Parvovirus was originally predicted, until the boffins found a form of salmonella poisoning that had not been detected in Britain for more than five years. They concluded that the most likely form of contact was from bird droppings deposited by bird migrating from Norway to the Antarctic.
1996 Following bad publicity, all Wembley bookies agree to lay any greyhound to a minimum of £500.
1953 Sir Louis Greig, KVE, CVO and chairman of the Greyhound Racing Society died following a long illness. His motto for greyhound racing was “face it, realise it and administer it cleanly”
1970 Because of a rabies outbreak in Ireland, a ban on the import of British greyhounds is place, and there is good news for the British Breeders for a limited period. They can have the services of prolific open race winner of 1968-69 Shady Begonia (w f d Pigalle Wonder- Castle Swan, May 66) who was due to take up stud duties before the ban. Owned by Robert Dinning and trained at Brough Park by Norman Oliver, he took more than £6,000 prizemoney winning the BBC Trophy, the Regency, The Cock O’ The North and many other opens as well as reaching two classic finals, the Derby and Cesarewitch. He also ran in two St Leger semi-finals as well as a further Cesarewitch semi.
2008 Catunda Harry was crowned as the 2007 Irish Greyhound of the Year. Trained by Owen McKenna and owned by Larry O’Rourke, the son of Elite State won the Irish Laurels and Waterford Masters and became the first greyhound ever to break 28.00 for 525 yards in Ireland. The Bitch of the Year title went to Ms Firecracker, the top sprinter award went to Johnny Gatillo, and the marathon award went to Droopys Ike.
1983 Cradley Heath trainer Ken Reynolds reveals that Pelham Mons Hill, who has won three of his last five races at the track, is completely deaf.
1993 A promotion run by Ladbrokes shops in the region saw 1,100 customers attend a meeting at Belle Vue. Many arrived on the specially chartered coaches – 10 single deck vehicles and two double-deckers.
1977 March 5 Crayford stage a benevolent meeting in aid of the Mayor of Bexley, the highlight is the four way Ladbroke sponsored Challenge Stayers Stakes over 650 metres. It brings together trap1 Bangor Boon, trap 3 Bonzo, trap 4 Sindys Flame and trap 6 Snowhill King. Sindys Flame 4-5 favourite justified her position with a strong run on the outside to overtake Dave Drinkwater’s Snowhill King close to home and win by a length in 40.81 with Bonzo (2-1) back in third
1981 The TV Trophy at Perry Barr proves a great advert for British breeding. The £2,000 final, which features four home grown greyhounds, goes to the Joe Cobbold bred and trained Decoy Boom (Westmead County-Ka Boom). The consolation final, which is won 38 spots quicker than the main event, goes to another East Anglian bred bitch, the Gordon Bailey trained Linkside Liquor (Westmead Champ-Derby Liquor)
2008 Rachel Corden is appointed as a BGRB director to replace the retiring Charles Chandler. Much to the irritation of the GTA, which is currently midway though its elections, BGRB chairman Lord Lipsey appoints Brian Clemenson onto the board as the trainers representative.
1996 Following bad publicity, all Wembley bookies agree to lay any greyhound to a minimum of £500.
1949 The racing press begin a campaign to encourage tracks to seed wide runners and notify punters that they are doing so. The Greyhound Express report “Of London’s 18 tracks, ten claim to seed wide runners, and an eleventh seeds them but omits to publish the fact on the racecard. At this track however, as at some others, no secret is made to the press of the identity of dogs classified as wide runners; indeed three of them add a refinement to the Club’s requirements by printing a ‘W’ or star against such dogs on their racecards.”
1961 Bord na gCon take over the licensing of track trainers and the employment of control stewards from the Irish Coursing Club.
1983 Nick and Natalie were 10 outsiders when they won the 1983 Trainers Championship meeting at White City. Not only did they win it by 15 points, the kennel no.1 Special Account was unavailable due to injury. The winners were Westmead Alva, Kris Is Back and Cannondale.
1993 Champion trainer John McGee is fined £1,500 and Geoff De Mulder £1,000 in stewards enquiries. The McGee case was for the detection of anti-inflammatory drug flunixin after Winsor Vic had won the Midland Flat. De Mulder’s case involved a bronchial-dilator found in the samples of sprinter Ballyard Curtis. 24 hours later McGee is fined a further £300 for a flunixin positive on Grand Prix finalist Winsor Abbey. Harry Williams is fined £500 and Norman Johnson £300 both for anti bacterial drugs.
2006 The NGRC announce the panel who will sit on its appeals board. It is headed by two QCs, Peter Cadman and David Phillips plus Andrew Chalk, David Hunt, Andrew McKenzie, Goeffrey Whitlow, Ronald Woodworth and Richard Woolf.
1972 The GRA Stakes final over 880 yards at London White City, worth £500 and challenge trophy to the winner, goes to privately-owned and trained R A Young’s The Marchioness (Faithful Hope-Trojan Silver, Aug 68). The odds on chance takes the race after a titanic battle with Doon Spectre 51.37.
1959 Narrogar Ann, winner of the 1946 English Derby, dies just short of her 13th birthday. British bred Ann was by Waterloo Cup winner Dutton Swordfish out of Eclipse winner Winnie Of Berrow. As a dam, Ann’s progeny included Endless Gossip winner of the 1952 English Derby and later a hugely successful sire in the USA. She also threw Waterloo Cup runner-up Eton Graduate.
1965 GRA announce a series of swathing cutbacks starting with the sacking of five trainers: Harry Buck (White City), Dick Clarke, Albert Jonas (Stamford Bridge) and Eric Hiscock, Jack Cooper (Harringay). The plan is that six of the remaining Northaw trainers will supply both Harringay and White City while another four will train for Stamford Bridge. Harry Back is the most experienced of all the handlers having started working for the company at Belle Vue in 1926 before joining White City in 1938. In addition to the trainers, two advertising executives are also dismissed.
2007 A crowd of over 8,000 saw Flying Stanley (Kiowa Sweet Trey-Flying Rimes, Jan 05) land the $500,000 to winner Derby Lane Million. Vince Berland’s brindle got home by four and a half lengths in 30.39 for the fife eighths course.
1950 March 14 The first meeting at Thurles is held. A huge crowd from as far away as Cork and Dublin came to view the new track. The seven race programme conducted by Major D Lennon went off without any problems and Miss M K O’Brien had the honour of winning the opener. Her Branch Line won the first race over 525 yards by a length, the even money favourite recorded 31.30.
1974 Irish grader Ron And Pat went to traps with the two most recent times of 32.99 and 31.30 on his card. Backed to odds on favourite, he won by 13 lengths at Harolds Cross in 29.86
1981 A ‘jobsworth’ in the VAT office in Hartlepool orders the local track to charge VAT on the entry fees paid by owners to enter dogs in races. It is later rescinded
1996 Following bad publicity, all Wembley bookies agree to lay any greyhound to a minimum of £500.
1961 Places in Wimbledon’s annual veterans contests are so keenly contested that the management restrict the race to seven year olds. The oldest six dogs entered will be accepted provided that they have contested more than 100 races. No fears for the first choice, Rallystone Supreme who is six months away from his eighth birthday. The Park Royal runner, who is contesting his 304th race, leads up but finishes second.
1959 The Sporting Life celebrates its 100th year of publication.
