Fiery Furnace - The sire almost all trace back to

Fiery Furnace (nearer the camera) – pic courtesy Charles Blanning 

Floyd's Global Sires Series 

“Virtually every modern greyhound traces directly to him at the top of his sire line.” 

The line is quoted by Charles Blanning in his fabulous book, “The Greyhound and the Hare”  and as the sires chart at the end can hopefully demonstrate. 

In two previous columns we considered the modern sire lines based on their Australian https://greyhoundnewsuk.com/article/the-influence-of-australian-sires-in-uk-and-irish-greyhound-racing American or Irish heritage https://greyhoundnewsuk.com/article/the-influence-of-american-sires-in-uk-and-irish-greyhound-racing 

So whether it was Irish supersire Droopys Sydney or the record breaking Aussie, Fernando Bale, they could all be traced within a few generations to a particularly successful and prolific stud dog. 

In order to keep the diagrams comprehensible (and keep it on a computer screen less than four feet wide) we separated all the leading families to a dozen common global supersires.  

From Australia we narrowed it down to Brett Lee, Eaglehawk Star, Head Honcho, Just The Best, Pretty Short and Roanokee .  

From the USA we traced the lines back to: HBs Commander, Sand Man, Unruly and Understood. 

The smallest of all the groups was the Irish where we traced back to Newdown Heather and Monalee Champion. 

But that only tells part of the story because if you go back far enough, those dozen global bloodlines can all be traced back to one shared sire – Fiery Furnace. 

My knowledge of 19th century English coursing lines is scant at best, and thus every fact concerning Fiery Furnace has been shamelessly plagiarised (with permission) from the sport’s no.1 coursing historian, Mr Blanning. 

Fiery Furnace was whelped in 1895 and owned by brothers Christopher and George Fawcett who were among the sport’s biggest players at the time. Based in the North West, they and trainer Tom Wright won the Waterloo Cup five times. 

Fiery Furnace was seemingly not among their most successful hounds having won 12 of his 15 courses before being injured. 

He had been reared in the Cumberland Fells and according to myth was named after his habit of sneaking into the bakery in Alston and sleeping next to the warm ovens. 

Coursing aficionados will recognise the lines well, Fiery Furnace’s grandsire Greentick threw the greatest English courser of all time, the four-time Waterloo Cup winner Fullerton. 

With track racing still a quarter of a century away, Fiery Furnace threw the 1902 and 1903 Waterloo Cup winners Farnden Ferry and Father Flint. 

Such was Fiery Furnace’s impact that in his book The Modern Greyhound, published in 1947, H Edwards Clarke showed that every single Waterloo Cup winner between 1925 and 1946 were from the Furnace sire line, and all but two were through Farnden Ferry. 

The lines were soon going global with Great Limes exported to Australia in the 1920s, only to appear in the USA half a dozen generations later with Cleveland Lad. 

The other main offshoot goes through the relatively obscure Firth Of Forth whose grandson The Dickens would be exported to Australia and set-up the ‘Micawber’ dynasty that would then blossom with the export of Tell You Why, rated by many American bloodlines experts as their most successful ever import. 

As for the Australians, you would find no dog in their history held in higher esteem than Temlee, a great grandson of English Derby winner, Pigalle Wonder. 

It really is a global breed tracing all the way back to Cumberland.