2011 December 9 The Racing Post TV Channel is launched.
1994 Chairman Paddy Milligan informs the NGRC/BGRB that the GTA is no longer prepared to run the annual awards evening. Milligan states that numbers had fallen from 700 to 350 guests (@ £45) and that was expected to fall further with the introduction of Sunday racing in January.
1946 Leading owner Mrs Meizen is asked to remove all her greyhounds from West Ham. The Hertfordshire housewife is married to a bookmaker which contravenes the track’s ownership policy. Wembley have a similar rule.
1972 John Coleman departs the Romford kennels at Ockendon for his new appointment at Wembley. Romford recently took on three new trainers: Terry Duggan, Ken Usher and Dave Oswald.
2002 Gary Cathern relinquishes his trainers licence two months after being granted a contract at Crayford. He blames financial difficulties.
1955 Henry Parsons, who trains the entire racing strength at Crayford reveals the reason that he only employs kennelgirls at the stadium: “they are more conscientious than men”. Unusually for the time, Parsons also reveals that the company policy is that all the stadium owned dogs are re-homed at the end of their careers “unless it’s a question of incurable disease.” Indeed one ex-racer escaped from his new home and found his way back to the stadium kennels on two separate occasions. Parsons reached agreement with the dog’s new owners that if the incident was repeated for a third time, he should be allowed to remain at the stadium for the rest of his days. He did and has remained at the kennels ever since.
2002 Nottingham eject a racegoer who is heard squeezing a squeaky toy prior to the start of a race.
1931 Conscious of avoiding new prohibitive legislation, the National Greyhound Racing Society let it be known that they are “declining to countenance Sunday racing” – the status of which is not clear, but is expected to be firmly outlawed in Parliament in the new year. Meanwhile some flapping tracks have taken advantage only for two to be prosecuted. Following a meeting at St Albans, 22 people were each fined three shillings and fourpence for offences committed under legislation introduced by King Charles II some 300 years earlier.
2012 Runaway Turbo was not destined to win the KAB Maiden Derby at Henlow. The Kelly Findlay trained runner had been leading a heat which was stopped in the interests of safety. He had won the re-run, only for it to be discovered that he was ineligible to race as he wasn’t qualified having only contested one three-runner trial.
1961 The bookmakers organisation the National Sporting League advise all members to withhold payment on an unusual open race at Dagenham. Things start to go strangely when one of the runners Dance That Girl (w be) was pronounced in-season and was taken home by the kennel hand. A track official was told that ‘the white bitch’ was in season, and he mistakenly withdrew the favourite Esmond Belle (w f) who was also sent home. The bookies then offered even money about two of the four remaining runners, followed by 8-1 Dees Fawnie and 40-1 Prego. Things started to get interesting after Prego, who had been beaten a distance and 18 length in her previous two races, came through the field to win. It was then announced that a string of bets had been struck off-course in dozens of the newly legalised betting shops. The League eventually conclude that they can find no evidence of race fixing and advise members to pay out.
2002 Dransfield Invitation winner McCarthys Duke disgraces himself when fighting in the Essex Vase semi finals.
1952 Newspaper report: “London Underground saved many people a needless journey to Wimbledon last Friday by putting up a blackboard notice at stations saying that the meeting was cancelled.” In fact only two meetings took place in the Captial over the entire weekend due to fog.
1982 Furious BOLA representatives demand a meeting with the NGRC to discuss betting coups following a win for former Irish open racer Air Commander in an A5 race at Hackney. There was a massive off-course punt with bookies in Scotland and Ireland though the dog returned at 9-2 on course. In his next outing, he clocked 29.57 in a 490m trial at Wembley.
1995 Paschal Taggart is asked to be the new Bord na gCon Chairman following the departure of Kevin Heffernan. Millionaire tax consultant and greyhound owner Taggart receives personal requests to take over the role from four cabinet ministers.
2018 Hurdler supreme Razldazl Raidio picks up a minor injury and is retired after a stellar career in which he won 54 of his 84 open race outings.
1960 The Grand Champion is the leading open race sire of the year with 114 wins. In second place with 107 wins (though more prize money) is Champion Prince with Prince Of Bermuda in third.
1946 Castledown Tiptoes (Castledown Lad-Hotcap) trained by Sidney Orton, becomes the first bitch to win both the Puppy Oaks and Oaks at Wimbledon.
1981 The NGRC are trying to contact former Shawfied trainer Chris Dawes after three of his ex-runners are found dead; the cause of death is necrotising pneumonia.
1959 A tragedy at Motherwell Stadium. Twenty one year old John Mulholland, the son of the proprietor Hugh Mulholland, is electrocuted operating the hare driver’s handle. John, a Glasgow University student, who was stepping in for the absent hare driver, was killed when bringing the hare into position for racing. His father promptly closed the track and never allowed it to be used for greyhound racing again. It was eventually bought by a traction company.
2012 Millwards Mick (Blackstone Gene-Droopys Seville) possibly went into the record books for all the wrong reasons. Disqualified for fighting on debut at Hove, he was schooled over hurdles and six months later won his first jumps race in a flying 24.18 for 400m at Romford. He received his second red card in his next race. Mick saw out his twilight years in Pakistan.
1975 Leading prize money winners: Tartan Khan (£21,279), Pineapple Grand (£8,230), Sallys Cobbler (£5,125), Tor Mor (£4,568), Silver Sceptre (£4,488).
1946 Popular publication Greyhound Breeder, which amalgamated with Greyhound Breeder to form a paper that would be popular with racing folk for the next half century, ran an interesting an interesting article about the staging of the first greyhound race. It claimed that the origin of track racing could be equally traced back to a coursing meeting in the early 19th century as to that famous event at Welsh Harp in 1876. While acknowledging that the Hendon event was behind a mechanical lure, it was only for two dogs who went from slips. Earlier in the century, at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, “a sweepstakes of a novel character” took place at Ashdown Park, Lambourn. The report reads: “A trap containing a hare was sunk in the ground. At a certain distance from which the dogs were stationed in a row, each held in hand by a servant, and each wearing a riband of a determinate colour, to distinguish him by. The hare being started, the (six) dogs were all at once let loose, and the dog which first reached the hare was the winner.” Incidentally, the article was written by a recently demobbed serviceman by the name of Harry Carpenter (yes THAT Harry Carpenter).
1994 Irish trainer Martin Fortune is given permission to walk his runner Our Dog Ned around the entire Plough Lane circuit prior to a trial over the same course.
1973 Clapton, the fourth track to open in London, closes on December 29 after 45 years of trading. The almost circular racing circuit had straights of only 76 yards with a standard distance of 400 yards, which staged the sprinter’s classic, the Scurry Gold Cup. The six bend trip was 550 yards. Because of the shape, greyhounds were able to stride out throughout the entire race and it was considered the f’astest track in the county’. The Clapton runners were kennelled at Claverhambury and at one stage, they (Biss, Bassett, Jowett, Rees, McEvoy, Keane etc) were reckoned to be the most powerful group of trainers in the country. The track had been bought by the GRA in the mid 1960s and is now the Millfields Estate.
