Racing Integrity
The lockdown does strange things. I’ve been out of greyhound racing for 30 years but still follow the sport avidly on a daily basis but up till present circumstances arose have been a somewhat irregular visitor to your website. Now its a daily must.
The NGRC’s most northerly outpost was not Dens Park, Dundee but Garthdee or Holburn Stadium, Aberdeen which staged its last meeting on 4th October 1969 bizarrely just as the North Sea oil and gas boom which brought huge prosperity to Aberdeen was kicking off. The last race over 570 yards was won by blue dog called Le Swanee (should have been Le Swansong) and the feature race, a 400 yard handicap final was won by the oldest dog on the card an April 1963 whelp called Procyon at 7-2. On this occasion there were no reports of a riot.
I’ve been racing from Par Moor Stadium in Cornwall to Dens Park but sadly never made it to Aberdeen.
Keep up the good work,
Ross Searle, Ex Racing Manager Shawfield, Cleveland Park, Hull and Sunderland.
Open racing
I’ve been reading about the possible re-introduction of greyhound racing in the UK. This ought to have cheered me up – along with all owners of racing greyhounds and others with an interest in the sport. However, what I’ve read has had the opposite effect. I’m currently involved with 4 open-class hounds and several pups and have been an owner of dogs ranging in standard from A8 to Cat 1 winners.
Although I have enjoyed some success at the ‘top end’ of the sport I’ve certainly put a lot more in than received back in prize money. The potential rewards are a lot less now than were on offer 10 to 15 years ago but we still splash out thousands in the hope of reaching a Cat 1 final or even winning the big one.
Reading around the current situation makes me feel that owners are being completely overlooked (putting it politely) and it’s assumed that we will keep paying kennel bills for months to come whilst the bookmakers start to get their coffers replenished in the very near future.
I know that many greyhound owners are extremely frustrated with what appears to be in the process of being proposed and intend to ‘walk away’ from this wonderful sport. This will definitely happen if open racers continue to be treated as second-class in relation to their graded compatriots. It appears to me that we’ll be left with something akin to football with no Premier League or motor racing with no Formula 1.
GBGB please reconsider.
Steve Cragg
Michael Gibson letter
Great to read Michael’s letter though I must correct him on one point I took over as head lad in Jimmy Jowett’s kennel after Michael in 1956. We had a lot of top dogs at that time winning the Oaks with Antarctica the Grand National with Fodda Champion plus many others.
I was head man for two years, leaving to join Tony Dennis at his private kennel in Kent where we had the top dog at that time Kilcaskin Kern, who is never talked about these days. When I left Jimmy Jowett, Stan Gudgin from Hackney took my place.
Does Michael remember the trainer’s at Clapton at that time? They were Archie Witcher, Tom Smith, Gordon Nicholson, Jack Snowball and Clare Orton (who told us he walked Mick The Miller at his father’s kennel as a schoolboy) Paddy McEvoy along with Adam Jackson as his head man and a great friend of mine. Happy days ! Am the same age as Michael I wonder how many of the old Clapton crowd are still around.
Stan Wright
