1965 One to test the NGRC rules on ’16 letters and spaces’ for registration purposes, Aldridge Sales offers for auction The Palantines Daughter (that’s 23)
1990 Three Yarmouth trainers had their licences suspended by the NGRC, Messrs Freeman and Lightning for seven months, A Turner until January 1992.
1965 Berkshire based Irish trainer Andy Cullen appeals to the NGRC stewards for leniency after his C-licence is suspended for a year. Cullen and five other handlers had been accused by another trainer of attending Bletchley flapping track. Amazingly, the stewards bowed to the appeal of the father of five that he would lose his livelihood due to the ban.
1968 White City receive £12,000 in entry fees for the Derby. Of the original 195 pre-paid entries, 80 chose not to enter, while there were 13 late entries @ £100. It represented a £550 increase in 1967 fees, and £970 more than the previous year. The winner’s prize is £7,252.
1970 There is an unusual winner at Southall flapping track. The 18 month old pup was out of Glen Crackers who had been sold, unknowingly in whelp, for 40gns at Hackney sales the previous year.
1993 A report in the national papers states that Wimbledon FC chairman Sam Hamman intends to buy the town’s greyhound stadium, get rid of the dogs and bring in football. Hamman’s club are currently playing their home games at Selhurst Park. GRA’s Clive Feltham concedes that the company are dealing with Hamman, but insists that any deal would involve the dogs staying.
2001 The BGRB expresses “concern” that a group of small tracks have signed agreements to stage racing on the new digital TV channel, Gobarkingmad. Their octet are Harlow, Henlow, Hull, Kinsley, Mildenhall, Rye House, Sittingbourne and Stainforth.
1947 One racing paper is openly critical of Slough’s policy of staging at least three minor opens at every meeting. This ‘open kennel’ policy is dismissed as ‘flapping under rules’.
1975 Kilkenny bookmakers refuse to chalk prices about a 12 length winner going to traps for her second race. She duly obliges in the fastest time of the year, 29.40. Her name is Ka Boom.
1989 Canterbury trainer Derek Millen is fined £1,000 and has his licence suspended for seven month after Ring Slippy wins an A4 race in 27.40 (TR 27.23). The dog was back from 5-2 to 4-6f and also tested positive for a drug used allegedly to clear up a urinary infection. By the time the stewards had heard the case, the dog had gone on to win the Blue Riband.
2001 Harlow promoter Toni Nicholls defends his stewards for not stopping the hare during an incident strewn graded race. A collision at the first bend sees two dogs knocked over (they subsequently jump the inside fence) while another breaks a hock – his subsequently put to sleep. The remaining trio head to the backstraight where the leader breaks a hock and ultimately trails in a distant third. Nicholls claims the decision to not stop the hare until after the line was a “tight judgement.”
1965 Harmless, four years and two months old, has his first four races over hurdles. He wins two, sets a track record at Manchester White City and finishes a close second in the Scottish Grand National.
2011 Sunderland stage a puppy open that they would rather forget. It is won by 14-1 chance Highview Rumble with the remainder of the field all failing to finish. Two of the field were by Australian sire, Crash!
2011 Dual TV Trophy winner Midway Skipper is retired. Henry Chalkley’s British bred first went to traps in A9 at Henlow, eventually winning 52 of her 120 races and twice being voted Marathon Greyhound of the Year.
1990 Swindon racing manager Stuart Netting grades the race of his career when the field is separated by sh, sh, sh, sh, 3/4.
1965 Warley is the last winner of the Regency Produce Stakes, a popular event at Brighton since 1948. The track have announced though that from 1966, the event to a regular ‘all-comers’ event simply called the Regency. The winner will collect the huge perpetual trophy which is valued at £650 (around £10,400 at today’s values)
2001 Kieran White, a kennel hand with Catford trainer Sonja Spiers has his licence taken away by the stewards after it is discovered that he has tightened the strap on muzzle for a dog about to race. At the same meeting, Barrie O’Sullivan was fined £400 following the withdrawal of Juniper Rascal from a graded race at Catford after vomit was found in his kennel. O’Sullivan’s defence was the dog was a bad kenneller and he had hoped that a larger than usual race feed might have reduced his fretting prior to the race.
