Happy 97th Birthday to Hove Stadium
It is 97 years to the day since Hove Greyhound Stadium first opened their doors.
Happy Birthday Hove
June 2, 1928 saw the first greyhound meeting at Hove Stadium. The opening race was won by Costs, owned by Graham Hopper with a crowd of 7,000 assembled for the historic occasion.
Capacity is restricted to 2,200 these days but it is still one of the top venues that the sport has. It was announced in March that Hove will be the new home of the Gold Collar after the closure of Crayford. One of the most legendary competitions in the sport will kick off on October 26 and conclude on November 9.
Hove celebrated on Saturday night with a crowd of more than 700 through the door to enjoy a graded card that included the Doreen Walsh Memorial Trophy, named for the Hove Hall of Fame trainer who passed away in February.
There have been some exceptional performances at the track though the years but perhaps none that captured the imagination of the racing public more than Ballyreagan Bob. It was at Hove on December 9, 1986. that he won for the 32nd time in a row, setting what was at the time, a new world record for consecutive wins.
In more recent times, Jimmy Lollie scorched the sand on the south coast to a pair of Sprinter of the Year awards as well as overall Greyhound of the Year in 2010. He raced 25 times at Hove, winning a remarkable 23 times in a career that saw him win at 14 different tracks and notch up a remarkable 37 wins the year that he won Greyhound of the Year.
Although she 'only' won nine of her 10 races at the track, Space Jet was another recent superstar. The winner of the 955m Coral TV Trophy in 2022, she would drop back to the 695 distance to pick up the Premier Greyhound Racing Regency the following year. Her sole defeat at Hove came in the final of the George Curtis & Ballyregan Bob Memorial final in 2022 where early trouble saw her finish third.
Here's to many more birthdays.
