1947 Newspaper article: “First midweek meeting to be run near London since the ban made hot work for the Excise Officers at Loring’s Farm, Barnet, last Monday evening. Entertainment tax stamps had been provided for only 400 gate takings and when the meeting started, nearly 1,000 people had paid to see it. Admission was two shillings a head. Nearly 100 cars were parked at two shillings a time and 25 bookmakers opened up for the eight races that were run. Programmes were sold out early. Many police, in uniforms, and plain clothes, attended and police cars and speed cops had to control traffic. This “tipping” meeting was held without a licence as it was the first of eight which the law allows for betting in any year. I understand that promoter D F Carter is considering further promotions. Racing was close and betting was very open for this type of meeting. Six dogs per race departed from proper traps with the usual colours painted in front. It was a 300 yards track, U-shaped. The lure was a football bladder painted white. Mr Carter acted as judge.”
1947 Wimbledon raise the Laurels first prize to £600 (index linked to £21,600) and introduce a perpetual trophy that has been presented ever since. It will be won for the first time by Clapton entry Rimmells Black. The prize will be a small consolation for trainer/businessman Stan Biss who was left devastated by a fire at his Waltham Cross farm with destroyed a building and mushroom crop worth £2,500.
1976 July 30 Salford stadium, which began racing in 1927, closes after being bought by the Salford Corporation for an estimated £130,000. It will be developed for housing. There are now only 48 NGRC tracks still trading.
2010 Owner Mike McKenna decides that his 2009 Irish Derby winner College Causeway will not return to defend his title. He has covered over 120 bitches since his victory.
1988 Farncombe Black (Soda Fountain-Grove Black) completes a ten-timer for trainer Ernie Gaskin in the Scurry Gold Cup Final. He is followed over the line by kennelmate Lissadell Tiger
1934 On the same day that film Wild Boy, featuring Mick The Miller, was released in Britain, Dark Hazard was released on the American market. It stars Edward G Robinson and appears a little ‘darker’ than its British equivalent, albeit Kinematograph Weekly refers to “a good all-round performance by a box-office star, fascinating sporting angle, pleasing sentiment, crisp humour and flawless atmosphere”. The storyline reads “Buck Turner (Robinson), a gambler, opn marrying Marge Mayhew, a small-town girl, abandons his habits and takes a steady job. Later, chance leads him to employment at a dog-racing track, and his ambition is to own Dark Hazard, a dog with a great future. The meeting of old faces and the return of his gambling habits, ultimately cause Marge to go back to her narrow people (What people ?? – Ed) and when Buck does join her, he finds her in love with a former suitor. Following this he buys Dark Hazard, who has been injured, for a mere song, and nurses him back to recovery. Dark Hazard repays him by proving invincible, and wealth compensates him for his unhappy and rather foolish excursion into matrimony.
Incredibly, there is yet another greyhound film reviewed in the same edition of Kinematograph Weekly, though without a release date. Called ‘The Outcast’ it stars well know comedian of the time Leslie Fuller. The canine star does not get a name credit, but is “worthy of mention, for it combines speed with some of the showmanship of Rin Tin Tin.” As for the storyline, it reads: “Bill Porter and Jim Truman, comedians, are tricked out of their money by Ted Morton, an unscrupulous theatrical manager, and become bookies at a dog track, only to be fleeced again by Morton and his gang. Truman is put into a job by his wife, but Bill loses all his possessions with the exception of a greyhound named The Outcast. He suffers dire poverty and eventually goes to Brixton, wrongly charged with bag snatching. The Outcast, however, is meanwhile trained by Truman and turns out to be a winner. Morton, who has wriggled into the dog racing racket by making overtures to Eve Baxter, a woman owner, attempts to prevent The Outcast running in a big race. But Bill makes a lucky escape from prison and brings the dog to the starting line. The Outcast wins, brings wealth to Bill and enables him to clear his name and expose the unscrupulous Morton.” The weekly concludes, “Although the ending breaks every law established by the Greyhound Association, it is engineered with a strong sense of humour which makes for riotous fooling.”
1983 Hay Maker Mack, the dog whose record for the Derby distance would never be broken, retires to stud after breaking a hock in the Essex Vase.
1987 The breeding of the Sussex Puppy Cup winner leads to some head scratching by breeders. Ramtogue Dasher is by ‘Lauragh Six or Outer Mission’ out of Ramtogue Witch. (In fact, although most press reports list Dasher as being by Lauragh Six, the Irish stud book registers that mating as producing 0 pups but attributes them as being by Outer Mission).
1967 In an attempt to demonstrate the marathon runners do not really finish as strongly as they are sometimes perceived to, the Wimbledon stewards produce figures for marathon specialist Miss Taft. The completes the first 60 yards, from the start to the winning line 27.2 mph, the next full circuit (440yds) at 37.8mph and the final circuit, up the 940 yards, at 34.2mph.
1947 Eastville (Bristol) have altered conditions for an event they introduced a year earlier. The Western Two Year Old Stakes, will include the word ‘Produce’ in its title. As its names implies, the new event will be restricted to pups entered at various stages of their lives and entries are restricted to litters born in specific counties in the West Country and Wales. From the 105 litters originally entered, 23 greyhounds go to traps for the first round. The winner and breeder will collect two trophies and a cash total of £850 (index linked to £30,118).
2010 Champion trainer Mark Wallis leaves Harlow to run graded dogs at Yarmouth. He cites the move as being for the sake of recently schooled pups who will be introduced to racing on the Swaffham, rather than the Bramich hare.
1983 Owner and breeder Dilys Steels was so confident in the ability of youngster Glatton Grange (Mulcair Rocket-Pencil Slim, Sep 81) that she paid the £200 late entry fee for acceptance in the first Breeders Forum Produce Stakes at Harringay. Her faith was rewarded when the Ken Linzell trained 8-11f duly obliged in 28.68 with a £7,000 first prize as a reward.
2011 Stipendiary steward Duncan Gibson is unveiled as the GBGB’s new manager of welfare and integrity services replacing Peter Laurie.
1987 Independent Bolton scrap minor open races soon after introducing them. GM Bill Williams is furious after one of the first is won by more than 12 lengths with the other five runners failing to record grading time.
1937 Brave Don is believed to be the first greyhound sent over to Britain from Ireland by air. According to White City trainer L Reynolds, “the dog did not show the slightest concern during the flight from Dublin to Croydon.” He adds: “In the past the long tedious journey by boat and train often puts the dogs right back in their training and necessitated several weeks rest before they could be prepared for racing in England. When brought over by air, it is almost possible, but for registration formalities and the necessary trials, to run the dogs on the same day.”
1986 Wimbledon’s old track lighting is being sent to Lifford, to replace the lights previously passed on with the closure of West Ham.
1946 Having won his semi final by 16 lengths, unbeaten Brighter Days (1-3f) wins the Western Two Year Old Produce Stakes Final at Eastville by a mere 14 lengths. The rest of the field were returned at 6-1, 7-1, 50-1, 50-1, 50-1.
1965 American promoters are experimenting with a new plastic spray-on racing surface called “the circuit”. It is waterproof and in winter, ice “can be simply broken up and swept away.” How good is it? “as though racing on velvet or a Persian rug.”
1971 The Essex Vase final includes Derby winner Dolores Rocket. At even money, she wins by 10½ lengths in a never-to-be-beaten track record of 36.06.
2010 Arsonists wipe out the derelict VIP Bar at Portsmouth which closed earlier in the year.
1992 Popular Scottish agent Bobby Jack dies of a heart attack at Cork Sales aged 56.
1988 Bristol trainer Mary Babe has her licence withdrawn indefinitely after stewards visited her Cardiff kennel and found neither the trainer or any of her BAGS runners present.
1946 Fifteen people, including four policemen, are injured at Harringay Stadium following a small riot. It followed the decision of the local stewards not to declare a no-race when a dog fought. Police reported extensive fire damage though it did not damage the hare mechanism and no racing is lost.
