WHEN GREYHOUND RACING CAME TO WALES
By Brian Lee
Brian
Lee is writing and researching above book on the history of
greyhound racing in Wales and
would like to hear from anyone with anecdotes, photographs,
press cuttings etc.
Please write to Brian Lee, 13 Felbrigg
Crescent,Pontprennau,Cardiff,CF23 8SE.
Tel : 02920736438
Or email him on
brianlee4@virginmedia.com
Eighty years ago, on April
7th 1928, greyhound racing (which had been introduced to Britain
two years earlier at Manchester's Belle Vue Stadium) came to
Wales.
The first meeting took place at the now long gone Welsh White
City Stadium at Sloper Road in the Grangetown area of Cardiff.
Owing to the persistent rain that fell that historic
Easter Saturday only 9,000 spectators turned up. And when the
first hurdle event was declared a no-race (because the dogs
were so busy fighting each other that none of them completed the 470 yard
track) the future of greyhound racing in Cardiff didn't look too
promising.
However, fine weather on the Easter Monday saw some 25,000
people paying either 2s 4d or 5/- to get into the stadium, which
before the Second World War had been a venue for football,
rugby, speedway, athletics and other sporting events. The Greyhound Racing Association (South Wales) had erected six kennels with accommodation for 180 dogs and under the
grandstand there was spacious accommodation for its members who were
provided with a lounge, bar, ladies room and cloak room all for just
two guineas a year.
Owners who intended to race
their dogs at the track paid just a
£1 a week and they could select any of the following trainers
Paddy
Fortune (Cork), William Baldwin (London), Albert Carter (Somerset),
D T Edwards
(Wattstown) and T Phillips(Cardiff).
In those days, the greyhounds raced on turf, not sand and this
had been brought from Caerphilly Mountain. The stadium was said
to be comparable with the big London tracks like Wembley and
White City and 'the dogs' became so popular that soon
afterwards another greyhound track was opened at then world
famous Cardiff Arms Park.
Mick The Miller, the most
famous greyhound in the history of the sport, set a world record
of 29.55 seconds for the standard distance of 525 yards when
winning the 1930 Welsh Greyhound Derby at the Sloper Road
stadium. Another famous greyhound to race there was Beef
Cutlet trained by John Hegarty, who later became the racing
manager at the Cardiff Arms Park track. Beef Cutlet won the
1933 Welsh Greyhound Derby, clocking 29.56 seconds, just .01 slower
than Mick's tremendous time.
The opening of the greyhound
track at the Cardiff Arms Park was reported to have been, "A
triumph of pluck and perseverance.'' Men were still working on
the track a few hours before the public were admitted and it
was, not until 6 o`clock that the hurdle trials were held.
Despite the hustle and uncertainty the meeting went off without
a hitch and 5,000 fans are said to have had an interesting
evening's sport, even though the grading of dogs was not what
it might have been.
A band played during the
intervals as the dogs paraded and a new type trackers-hare
proved most satisfying. When greyhound racing came to Newport's
Somerton Park Stadium in the November of 1932, several thousand
people waited an hour, after the fifth race, while
electricians tried to remedy a mechanical defect in the
flood-lighting. Earlier, Alderman Fred Phillips formally opened
the ' most modern Welsh track' and the South Wales Argus
reporter wrote: "Whiz went the hare, fleet-footed sped the dogs
after it, their legs and bodies craned to see those wonderfully
intelligent animals jockey for the position near the rail. There were gasps of wonder and astonishment as newcomers to the
sport saw the fastest animals trained on four legs leap
gracefully over the hurdles.'' The fault, however, could not
be located and officials had no alternative but to abandon the
rest of the card.
Greyhound racing came to an end at the old Sloper Road track
during the war years and at Somerton Park, it finished in 1963
after the twice-weekly meetings attendances every Tuesday and
Friday had dropped to hundreds rather then the 3,000 after-the-war crowds who had supported it. A crowd of 700 gathered to
witness the death nell of the sport in Newport and it was the
mechanical hare that had raced around the track a million
times since 1932, which had the last laugh, for as the final
race was about to start, the traps opened too soon – before the
dogs with the hare chasing the dogs for a change! Len Davies,
secretary at Somerton Park, told a local newspaper: "Some of the
best dogs in the country have raced at Somerton Park. Perhaps
the best of them all was Antartica, a white bitch which set a
track 450 yards record in a Somerton Stakes heat in 1958.''
He also recalled that during the same year three dogs, Combined
Hope, Finnerty and Maglin Breeze-ran a triple dead heat, a very
rare occurance indeed. Sadly, greyhound racing at Cardiff came
to an end on July 30th 1977 because the Welsh Rugby Union needed
the track to extend terracing at the National Stadium. 1,128
fans saw Lillyput Queen, owned by Cardiff butcher Malcolm Davies
and trained by Freddie Goodman,win the last race.Cardiff City
Council had taken less than ten minutes to reject a plan to
switch greyhound racing to Maindy Stadium. And no longer would
enthusiasts flock there to see well-known greyhounds such as
Shaggy Lass (1945), Trev's Pefection (1947), Ballylanigan
Tanist (1951), Endless Gossip(1952) Mile Bush Pride (1959) and
Patricia's Hope (1972) who all won the Welsh Greyhound Derby. Now
fans in Wales have only three flapping (unlicensed) meetings to
attend at Swansea, Bedwellty and Ystrad Mynach to witness their
favourite sport.
|