1991 A ‘Droopys’ runner is top lot at the sales for the first time. Droopys Prince changed hands for 3,000gns after winning his 663m trial at Hall Green. Coloured Linnen was led away unsold with a top bid of 7,000 guineas after clocking the fastest time of the day, 29.25.
1961 A record 180 entries are received for the opening round of the Produce Stakes at Clonmel. There is great interest in a young son of Prairie Peg, who had thrown Pigalle Wonder in a previous litter. Inexperienced compared to older pups, the 17 month old son of Hi There was available at 5-1 to win his heat. However he did so in some style in 30.19 leaving breeder Tom Murphy of Inishtioge, Co Kilkenny to price the young Prairie Flash up at £1,500. He is sold to shipping magnate Noel Purvis. Other dogs sold include Clopook (to a new young trainer, Ernie Gaskin) and Hey There Merry.
1982 Adam Jackson wins the Trainers Championship meeting at White City. The Wembley handler scores maximum points with Huberts Shade, Honourable Man, and Summerhill Fun. Final scores: 52 Adam Jackson, 46 Natalie Savva, 37 George Curtis, 29 Joe Cobbold, 26 John Honeysett, 18 John Gibbons.
1971 GRA announce that Powderhall will be their latest track to switch from stadium employed trainers to a contract system.
1950 The racing press are highly critical of the NGRC’s perceived heavy handed approach to justice following the withdrawal of trainer’s licences. Under the headline “Outside of the immediate sphere of the NGRC, anybody can like it or lump it” leading journalist Leo C Wilson defends the right of the Club to withdraw the licence of a wrong-doer. However he adds: “But where a licence is withdrawn without any reason being given, there is an implied slur on the trainers name. As the trainer is not called upon to answer any charges, he cannot defend himself, and has no redress, even though his living may be taken away from him.” Wilson’s fight for justice finally succeeds, a mere 58 years later.
2011 Yarmouth entry Ballymac Oliver starts at 300-1 in a 450 metre open at Sittingbourne. He finishes last beaten 12 lengths.
1947 British racing papers are somewhat curt about the planned American match race between its superstars Flashy Sir and Lucky Pilot. While impressed by the £2,000 prize, they baulk at the nicknames bestowed on the pair, the ‘West Flagler Cannonball’ and the ‘Petersburgh Comet’. They sniffily note “there is enough corn to keep a poultry farm going.”
1933 Bradshaw Fold reckoned to be the second most popular greyhound in Britain, behind Mick The Miller, returns to racing after a winter break. The six year old is beaten in a graded event at home track West Ham.
1991 Laurels winner Concentration has been backed to 12-1 favourite to win the English Derby. Live Contender is joint second favourite with Phantom Flahs despite owner Denis Lennon’s decision not to enter the dog. They then bet 25-1 The Other Toss, Summerhill Super, 25-1 Fearless Mustang, 33-1 Betty Boo, Marcus Magee, 40-1 Lemon King, Seafield Quest, Dempseys Whisper, Fires Of War, 50-1 Slaneyside Hare, Ballyoughter Lad. No mention of eventual winner Ballinderry Ash!
2001 Trainer Tom Foster puts in the top bid of £800 for a date with Heartbeat’s Tricia Penrose, top attraction in an RGT fund raising night at Wimbledon.
1993 35 people were arrested at Oxford Stadium following a fight after the meeting.
1928 April 28 – the NGRC is created with 43 member tracks.
1950 In front of a crowd of 30,000, Red Wind sets a new national record of 28.57 for 525 yards at White City.
2002 The NGRC announce that recent Golden Jacket winner Sundar Storm has failed a drugs test for ketoprofen and etamyphalline. At the resulting enquiry, trainer Kim Marlow is fined £1,250. This case is believed to have been the greatest single reason for the NGRC rule change which allowed the stewards to disqualify a runner who tested positive. It was introduced six months later. The repercussions would reverberate. . .
1993 The evening opening of betting shops – beyond 6.30pm – gets under way. The NGRC will collect an extra £80,000 in special licence fees. They earn around £400,000 (£114 per race) from the daytime meetings. The first two tracks on the service are Brough Park and Monmore with racing finishing a few minutes before 8pm.
1918 A litter of six pups are registered in the Greyhound Stud Book by Babylon out of Rathanna – their names were A B C D E and F.
1971 Joe Heyden, pioneer of sand racing surfaces, dies aged 65. Five years earlier, the Coventry based businessman had set out to persuade racecourse promoters that sand was a much safer surface than grass and he refused to race his open race string on turf. By the time of his death, half of the 52 NGRC tracks were either fully or partially sanded.
2004 Sheffield owner Steve Hill is cautioned as to his future behaviour following a drunken outburst, live on SKY, after his Desert Tonic had landed the Harry Holmes Memorial.
1947 Bristol trainer A H Mountford fulfils a special order from an American farmer when he sends over “a fine bitch with a bad reputation for fighting on the tracks”. The recipient Doc Mundy from Pawhuska in Oklahoma intends to use the bitch for breeding. He already has a decent sized kennel of dogs, all of whom are know fighters. The American claims “any dogs who are barred from savage fighting on the track would need little training to chase wolves” – something Mr Mundy is keen to do on his 360,000 acre farm.
1966 Bradford Greenfield is the latest stadium to be hit by dopers who appear to have broken into the stadium run kennels the previous night and nobbled several runners who ran undetected the following day.
1955 NGRC racing welcomes its newest private trainer, Joe Booth from Old Clipstone. Booth plans to operate a kennel of 12 dogs which include a hound rumoured to have been previously trained by him on the flaps, before joining Wembley’s Lesley Reynolds, English Derby winner, Pauls Fun, plus the highly rated Imperial Airways.
2014 Crayford GM Barry Stanton (62) announces that he will retire at the end of June having spent two decades at the track.
1984 The BBC Television Trophy Final over 820 metres at Wimbledon, with a first prize of £2,500, has drawn together some of the best long distance runners in training: Jo’s Gamble. Weston Prelude, Middleton Panel, Wild Surprise, Blue Shirt and Market Mover the evens favourite and track record holder for the distance. Blue Shirt led but fell at the seventh bend leaving a game Weston Prelude to side step the stricken dog, and gallop on for a famous victory. Frank Bruno presented the trophy to Mr and Mrs Vernon Collard and Oxford trainer, Arthur Hitch.
1937 New Clonmel record holder Monarch Of All is sold for a record price at an Irish sale when changing hands for 350gns at Harolds Cross sales. That would equate to roughtly £31,000 today
1987 The NGRC introduce a new rule insisting that all dogs must be inoculated in Britain before they can be registered. The move follows the revelation of a string of fraudulent Irish vaccination certificates. Agent Charles Donaghy was recently banned when it was discovered that a string of entries at Hackney sales were accompanied by inoculations supposedly signed by nonexistent vet ‘Thomas B Cane’ from Sligo
1973 Jack Goheny, a journalist with Greyhound Express, Greyhound magazine and The Sporting Life is killed in a car crash along with his wife.
2012 Wimbledon are criticised by trainers Charlie Lister and Dolores Ruth for moving the pick-up and extra 15 metres along the backstraight. Wimbledon racing manager Gary Matthews admits surprise at the sudden upset as the change took place a couple or months earlier.
1940 In Glasgow White City’s programme all persons are urged to carry a gas mask, and in the event of an air raid should take cover in the barricades and embankments nearby as “you are safer here than in the streets.”
1961 Top marathoner Chantilly Lace wins a Wimbledon marathon at 1-8fav. After the 10% betting tax and 6% promoters deduction, tote punters will get paid one shilling and 11 pence for their two shilling bet. The host track operate a rule which states that no punter should get less than their stake, so they subsidise each winning ticket by one penny. That costs them £65, which is £7 more than their take from the race.
