2011 A win by So Larry in a Ladbroke Spring Festival Final takes Chris Allsopp to the top of the trainer’s championship table for the first time in his career.
1954 Brighton trainer Gunner Smith sent out the winners in seven of the eight races. His two other runners dead-heated for second.
1954 Ballylanigan Tanist and Magourna Reject are Britain’s most expensive stud dogs, each stands at 35 guineas for a service – equivalent of £1,100 today.
1997 Coursing lost one of its biggest names with the death of Gordon ‘Hollypark’ Humphrey, secretary of the Swaffham and Wymondham coursing clubs.
1996 Following bad publicity, all Wembley bookies agree to lay any greyhound to a minimum of £500.
1969 Owner Pauline Wallis collects the trophy when Apache Trail lands the Catford Gold Cup. Following a quick dash by car, she is also on hand to collect the Wood Lane Trophy won by Avondhu Iron. Both dogs are trained by Paddy Milligan.
1949 Following testing at trial sessions, Walthamstow will become the first stadium to introduce a new automatic starting system.
2011 Sponsors Betfair invite a selection of legends to the Trainers Championship meeting at Wimbledon. They include Linda Mullins, Linda Jones, John McGee, Ernie Gaskin and John Honeysett
2002 Kelly Mullins becomes the third of Linda’s sons to take out an NGRC licence.
1996 Lord Kimball, resign from the BGRF and is replaced as interim chairman by Ladbrokes Berjis Daver.
1996 The 1995 Greyhound of the Year awards are presented at a lunch at Hall Green. Gary Newbon of Central Sports presents the Greyhound of the Year trophy to Betty Whelan, owner of Staplers Jo.
1972 Greyhound racing in Britain has a new governing body – the National Greyhound Racing Club Ltd. The new organisation is an amalgamation of the National Greyhound Racing Club and the National Greyhound Racing Society of Great Britain. Former NGRS secretary Fred Underhill will oversee the new operation. The former head of the ‘old’ NGRC, Lt Col. W T Forsdike will be the new senior stipendiary steward. The new organisation has four committees: ‘general’, ‘racing’, ‘liaison’ and ‘policy’. No racecourse promoters are entitled to sit on the general committee.
1996 Tony Morris prices Ernie Gaskin as a 13-8 chance to win the Trainers Championship meeting at Hackney and the favourite duly obliges. One of four Stow trainers making the short journey across East London, Gaskin lands a treble with Lemon Duchess (dht), Milwaukee Dream and Good Omen. He finishes three points clear of John Colemand with Derek Knight one point behind in third.
2010 The RGT announce that they homed a record 4,700 greyhounds in 2010.
1996 Roger Cearns is appointed as the general manager at Hackney.
1954 47 punters shared a record pay out after 30,761 units were invested in Wimbledon’s place eliminator pool. Any punter who successfully named the first or second in seven consecutive races collected £54-19-6 (equivalent to £1,633) for their two bob.
1995 The Sporting Life’s Irish correspondent “Gavin McGrath” – exclusively reveals that the re-vamped Shelbourne Park will not have a second winning line thus signalling the end to all 360 and 600 yard races.
2012 The trainers championship meeting at Parry Barr is won in impressive style by Nick Savva who was quoted at 40-1 earlier in the day and 100-1 after his first two runners had each finished last. However, Westmead Bolt (8-1) and Bubbly Swallow (5-1), two seconds, a third and a fourth to get home by three points from Charlie Lister. The Newark trainer has no runner priced bigger than 3-1 and includes six of the eight favourites. Following the meeting sponsors Betfair announce that after seven years, they will no longer support the event due to a initial boycott threat issued by five trainers. In a statement the betting exchange express their anger that they were not approached by GOBATA and only found out about the possible boycott of the televised meeting after reading a statement on the GOBATA website.
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.
Picture shows Frances Chandler with Laurels winner Polonius
