1995 The NGRC are to investigate the road accident in which two of Patsy Byrne’s Wimbledon graders are killed.
1988 Wembley receive 103 entries for the 48-runner St. Leger.
2004 The Racing Post introduces a ‘full form’ greyhound service on its website.
1953 White City RM Major Percy Brown is conducting a study to compare the best winter racing surface, hay or straw.
2012 One of the fastest, but unluckiest runners seen on either side of the water in the past two years, Razldalz Jayfkay is retired to stud. The closest that the Wimbledon 480m record holder came to a big race win was second place in Shelbourne’s Champion Stakes.
2014 Towcester, yet to stage its first meeting is offered a BAGS contract for 2015. It will be joined by debutants Doncaster with Wimbledon back on the service. The service increases to 2,397 meetings though Sittingbourne loses its Saturday evening fixtures.
1988 The National Coursing Club take a lead over the NGRC by issuing a list of banned substances. (The NGRC blanket ban relates to ‘anything that can’t be attributed to normal feeding’). The NCC ban covers 17 substances or types of drugs including ‘muscle relaxants, respiratory stimulants, anti-histamines, substances affecting blood coagulation etc etc. They also produce threshold levels for caffeine and theobromine of ‘one microgramme per millilitre of urine’.
2012 Swindon hold a local enquiry when it transpires that their weighing scales have been inoperative for recent race meetings and trial sessions.
2015 New Peterborough Racing Manager Andy Lisemore’s greatest challenge will be ‘race balancing’ according to stadium consultant Con Baker’ “We recently calculated that less than 10% of our available runners are wide seeds, when ideally, you are looking for a third.”
1966 Romford have so many entries for their 1,030 yard marathon that they duplicate it. The first and fastest is won by nine lengths by Ernie Gaskin’s Come On Dolores (5-4), but the 4-5f in the other division, Little Man, is beaten 11 lengths by Dave Barker’s Dreenan Rambler.
2014 Former Oxford trainer Maurice Massey dies following a lengthy illness aged 75.
2010 Belle Vue come under fire when cancelling their meeting at 8.45pm, on the night of the Scurry and Northern Oaks Finals, due to a freezing track. The meeting is re-scheduled for a week later. The problems don’t end there because traffic problems on the rearranged date result in the non-appearance of favourite and second favourite Jimmy Ollie and Rotar Wing. In addition, Northern Oaks finalist Little Urge, who was joint second favourite for the English Oaks, cannot take place in that event as the first round is within 24 hours of the re-scheduled Belle Vue decider.
2016 In the first week of November Ladbrokes Head Of Stadia announces plans tor a new air conditioned freezer unit to keep the Monmore greyhounds cool in case of a heatwave. When questioned about the timing, he reports that the track’s salt supply to prevent the track from freezing was delivered in May.
1987 Swindon stages its first even hurdle race. Staged over the 510m course, it is won by veteran Castlelyons Cash who is completing a ten-timer.
2015 The Star produces some facts and figures for open racing at Romford. A winning time of 23.90 would win nine out of every ten open races over the 400 metre course. The 575 metre equivalent is 35.02. It is the country’s busiest open race venue with 549 races out of a national total of 3,921, or roughly 14%. 54% of all its opens are over 400 metres.
1994 Five months after losing his job as Romford racing manager, after altering a trap draw, Ray Spalding returns to his former job at Rye House.
2012 GBGB senior stipendiary steward Paul Illingworth is delighted with the response following an informal meeting with of the racing managers’ forum. Among the topics discussed were the repercussions of the phasing out of ID books, the possibility of webcasting open race trap draws, creating a DVD to help standardise the disqualification of greyhounds for aggressive interference and tweaking the requirement for point of registration sampling for home grown and reared pups.
1988 13 years after scrapping handicap racing, Hove announce plans to bring it back in the new year with stationary handicap boxes tiered on the inside rail.
2015 Dual attached County Durham trainer Paul Miller has three winners at Sunderland, followed by another five at Kinsley on the same afternoon.
2016 GBGB agree ‘in principle’ to consider the Star’s on-line petition for the return of ‘permit racing’. Shawfield RM Daniel Rankin says: “Daniel Rankin said: “We are delighted that permit racing has been approved and we are talking to potential trainers and intend to put details in our racecard. The biggest problem we face is not knowing exactly what is being talked about and what the restrictions may be. The sooner we know, the better.” Henlow’s Paul Mellor says: “I love the idea of having permit trained dogs here again. I have no idea how many of our old permit trainers who weren’t able to build kennels are still about. I suspect we lost a lot of them to the game when they couldn’t train themselves.” Yarmouth’s Simon Franklin said: ““We are big advocates of permit racing at Yarmouth. The care and attention given by the owners is second to none.”
