1971 November 27 Despite clocking the fastest time in her heat, Torbal Black (The Grand Silver-Kitshine, May 70) was a 4-1 chance to win the Puppy Oaks at Wimbledon. With a 28.10 she was preferred in the betting to Tawny Satin with 28.17, who started 13-8 favourite for the 500 yard final. The Puppy Derby winner, Torbal Black, completed the Derby-Oaks double when she showed the much better speed along the back straight to win by 1 1/4 lengths in 28.30.
2005 The BGRB launches its new five year initiative ‘Vision 2010’.
1993 Ratify sets a new 700 yard track record at Dunmore – 38.95. The dog is eventually beaten in the final of the Sean Graham 700 with trainer Seamus Graham convinced the dog has been “got at”.
2001 Seven tracks are defying the NGRC after staging meetings on the Gobarkingmad satellite channel without paying the licence fee. The seven feel that the fee is excessive: £430 per meeting plus £35 per race, compared to the flat £430 fee paid by SKY.
1962 Equitable Industrial of Scotland, pioneers of locating casinos at greyhound tracks, make a £500,000 bid for Northumbrian and Crayford Trust, which owns Crayford, Newcastle and Gateshead. The company already own the Liverpool tracks White City and Seaforth. Meanwhile the Crayford board announce that they have their own plans, to build a £250,000 ‘American style’ greyhound track, complete with casino, at Alexandra Palace.
1936 Bradshaw Fold, one of the best bitches of the pre-War era dies at owner Mr A Hughes’ kennels. She raced on 156 occasions, winning 70 times and finishing second on another 30 occasions including runners-up places in the Oaks, Cesarewitch and Derby.
1976 Go Ahead Girl (Monalee Champion-Glance Ahead, Apr 74), trained by Terry Duggan for Vic Clifford fails to win her 18th consecutive race. She is beaten in a match race by Tell You What (Black Top-Silver Vals, Jul 73) over 874 metres at Bristol. The R Batchelor owned, Ernie Wilson trained brindle won by two lengths in 55.51, some seven lengths inside the old track record. During her winning sequence, Girl had beaten Tell You What on three occasions.
1997 Toms The Best, 28.47 trialist, cramps in a graded race at Walthamstow – aiming to qualify for Supertrack – and is beaten by Jonnsen.
LORD ORFORD: FATHER OF GREYHOUND BREEDING
Even his friends agreed that Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, was a trifle unusual.
And that, in the 18th Century, a period famed for eccentrics, was saying a lot. His detractors declared bluntly that he was mad.
Posterity, however, judges the issue differently. Eccentric Lord Orford certainly was. And in his later years his mind was clouded.
But in the world of coursing and, consequently, greyhound racing, he is assured of immortality.
He was the author of the successful experiment in crossing greyhound and bulldog breeds.
In an age which produced such extravagant characters as Squire Osbaldeston and “Old Q.” Horace Walpole was their equal.
Noted as a wit and writer, he was a younger son of Sir Robert Walpole, who became Earl of Orford when that ancient title was revived.
Horace Walpole succeeded to the earldom on the death of his older brother. He inherited vast estates in Norfolk and with a fortune at his disposal settled down to enjoy life as a coursing enthusiast and greyhound breeder.
His choice of transport was startling. It consisted of a phaeton – an open four-wheeled carriage-drawn by four red deer.
Driving along the rutted road in Newmarket one day, Lord Orford found his deer running a little too fast for his liking. Worse, all his efforts to check these normally docile steeds proved unavailing.
The reason soon became all too clear.
Hearing a baying noise behind him, Orford swing round in his seat and saw a pack of beagles in full cry. Hounds belonging to a local hunt, they had picked up the scent of the deer and left the fox to his own devices.
The phaeton swayed madly as the baying grew louder and the stags flew faster.
As Orford hauled on the reins with one hand and clung to his seat with the other, his frantic steeds galloped into the only bolthole they knew – the yard of the Ram Inn. Straight through an open box-door went the deer, phaeton and peer.
Ostlers slammed the doors shut just as the advance guard of the hounds hurled themselves forward.
For years the story of the Earl and his tearaway team was told in the Suffolk countryside. And it is remembered to this day at the inn, now renamed the Rutland Arms.
Jaunty as ever, Orford returned to his 100-strong kennel of greyhounds. He was far more concerned with breeding a perfect animal for coursing than he was for his own life and limbs.
At that time there was no distinct type of British greyhound. In an age when railways were a thing of the future, the nation’s greyhounds consisted of five different types.
Each was suited to the type of country in which it was bred, and few breeders or coursers from the five areas ever met because of transport limitations.
There were the Newmarket, Wiltshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire and Scottish types.
Orford’s dogs were in the first category and were of great size and speed because of the long run-ups common in the Suffolk and Norfolk coursing country.
Since the Newmarket dog was a speedster his working qualities suffered accordingly. He tended to be flat-sided and deep-chested, with great heart and lungs. But his hips were narrow and scantily muscled.
In common with the other types of English greyhound he was rough-coated. And in Orford’s judgement the breed the breed was becoming deficient in determination – a single-hearted devotion to the chase.
He began his cross-breeding experiments with lurchers and the big rough, rather shaggy Scottish deerhound.
The results were poor, so Orford turned to the bulldog.
In the fact of early failures and the loud protestations of orthodox breeders he persisted.
He bred the crosses with greyhounds and bred out the bulldog to eliminate the short muzzle and girth while retaining the breed’s courage and tenacity.
Edward C Ash in “The Book of the Greyhound”, relates that the first cross was distinctly bulldog, rather like the old-time bull terrier.
But as more greyhounds were used each generation became more like the modern bull terrier except for the head.
Gradually the bull terrier characteristics faded and the classic greyhound features returned.
Orford obtained dogs with satin-smooth skins and the classic tails “lyke a ratte”. Moreover, at work the new greyhound proved as durable as he was fast.
It took the patient Orford seven generations to obtain what he delightedly described as greyhounds with “small ears, rat tails and skins almost without hair, together with the innate courage found in the bulldog breed that never gives in rather to die than relinquish the chase”.
Other breeders remained hostile.
Any faults in greyhounds, particularly an aggressive tendency, were blamed on the bulldog cross. And as brindled bulldogs were common, that colour was regarded as a bad sign in greyhounds and attempts were made to eliminate it.
Orford, however, was cock-a-hoop with the results of the cross.
He refused to part with a single puppy of any litter until he had tried it out on a course – in case it was one he should have retained – and finally challenged the whole world to beat his dogs.
Even Orford, insulated as he was against shocks, must have been staggered at the acceptance to his challenge.
It came from a fellow peer, Lord March, who was not even a greyhound owner and had not the slightest interest in coursing.
Lord March, heir to the Queensberry title, entered the arena purely because he was amused at Orford’s super-confidence. On the advice of a knowledgeable friend he acquired a challenger from a Berkshire enthusiast.
And in the resultant match Lord Orford’s nomination, Phenomenon, was trounced!
No setback, however, could curb the earl’s enthusiasm for dogs of his own breeding. And his many successes in the coursing field showed the soundness of his reasoning.
He would bet on anything, and once, when the coursing season was over, he wagered another peer that a drove of geese would beat the same number of turkeys in a race from Norwich to London.
Orford showed that his knowledge of fowl was equal to his prowess with greyhounds. The geese won by two days. The turkeys, true to their breed, lodged in trees each evening and refused to budge until dawn!
As Orford grew older the gloomiest prophecies of his rivals were fulfilled.
Though he went on breeding successfully in the seclusion of his estate, two attendants kept him from contact with the outer world.
One November day in 1797 his favourite Czarina was due to run against another great bitch named Marie.
The dogs were slipped and streaked after the hare. Suddenly the hoarse shouting of the crowd died away as a weird, hatless and coatless figure on horseback appeared on the scene says legend.
Horse and rider pounded up the course. Czarina won. And Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford and father of greyhound breeding, toppled from his mount – dead.
