Remember When - 1 July 2025

LARKHILL JO wins from Toms The Best Shawfield Scottish Derby Final 18.4.98 Steve Nash pic 

Remember When

1999 Prince Of Tinrah and Larkhill Jo are both retired to stud. Irish Puppy Derby winner and Harolds Cross 525 record breaker Tinrah finished sore with an ongoing hock injury. He will stand at the kennel of recently deceased sire Frightful Flash. Larkhill Jo was crocked in a race at Shelbourne Park. His career highlights included wins in the Scottish Derby, Eclipse, Select Stakes and the Wey Plastics Invitation. He ran third to Eyeman in the Irish Derby and broke the 460m and 480m track records at Monmore. One week later, another two stars both pull up with career ending injuries at Shelbourne. Derby winner Eyeman finished lame with a gracilis inury. Blue Riband winner Droopys Merson broke a hock later at the same meeting. 

1975 Shifting Shadow, trained by Dublin bus driver Podge Molloy wins the £11,000 Irish Derby with Moonshine Bandit a length adrift in 29.35 for Shelbourne Park’s 525 yards. 

1983 Following pressure from welfare groups, Biscayne becomes the second American track to replace its dummy hare shaped lure, with two dummy greyhound shaped lures. 

1976 July 29 Jimmy Rhodes and Reg Deller, owners of Westmead Myra (Myrtown-Westmead Silver, Jul'74) who finished third in the English Derby and the Select Stakes to Mutts Silver (The Grand Silver-Simple Pride, Apr'74), challenge Silver's connections to a match race. Southend agree to put on the race as part of a normal eight-race card, and forego their forecast pool for one race. The greedy London tracks will not do this. The match over 484m called The Playboy Match Of The Century, worth £2,500, including £500 added by the sponsors, brings in a large crowd. They see a brilliant race. Mutts Silver goes from Trap 4 at 1-2 favourite, with Westmead Myra backed from Trap 6 at 6-4. Myra takes the match. Coming off the last bend level, she gradually draws ahead to win by three-quarters of a length in 29.47. 

2008 July 31 Drumbo Park, the revamped Ballyskeagh, opens for racing for the first time. The winner of the first race in Have A Wit. 

2014 Two years and five months after leaving his ten year role as Assistant Trainer to Mark Wallis, Patrick Janssens is granted a training licence. He has room for 14 greyhounds at his base in Hockwold near Thetford. Clearly he is going to struggle! 

1996 Bord na gCon agree to pay the prize money to the Produce Stakes finalists after banks bounce the cheques issued by promoter Alan Singleton. 

1980 The High Court refuse Poole Stadium permission to appeal over their court loss earlier in the year over their refusal to allow a fifth bookmaker to stand at the track. In the original case, the bookmaker had been declined admission to the track despite offering to pay the ‘five times admission’ charge as stipulated under the 1963 Betting Gaming & Lotteries Act. 

2018 Countryside Properties send out flyer to Kirkmanshulme Lane residents indicating that they plan to build 243 dwellings on the site of Belle Vue greyhound track. Promoter Clive Feltham responds: “"We were expecting at some time a planning application from the freeholder to ascertain value .As it is a pension fund it must be seen to maximise value from its portfolio . The question is if it will be successful. Our lease can only be determined if they have a full development planning permission. Unlike Hall Green this is for affordable housing so value will be a lot less and with us paying 8% yield could be significant." 

1968 28-year-old Charles Chandler is the new assistant managing director of GRA trust. The MD is 33-year-old John Sutton. Also appointed to the board is Wimbledon’s John Cearns. Sutton, who brought Catford into the GRA portfolio is a director of photo finish and chromotagraphy suppliers Instaprint. Both Instaprint and Cearns building contractors hold contracts with GRA. In their most recent set of accounts, GRA register significant losses in their purchase of a company operating golf centres. These have been shored up by the £575,000 sale (index linked to £23.4m) of the company’s head office in Berkeley Square. 

2015 Sunderland’s reputation takes a battering following a series of career ending injuries. Defending champion Pinpoint Maxi broke a leg for the second time in his career in the semi finals of the William Hill Classic. He is retired and goes to stud. Likely favourite Laughing Gravy is also injured in the semis and is withdrawn from the final. The Grand Prix is also affected Jaytee China coming off lame after qualifying for the final. (She never races again but becomes a successful mum throwing the likes of Blue Tick George, Jaytee Wexford and Turnhouse Jet.) There is some consolation for trainer Paul Young who wins the Grand Prix with another of his qualifiers, Bubbly Gold. However his Classic finalist Bubbly Ninja is disqualified for fighting. Ealier in the competition, litter brothers Magical Hotch and Magical Reid both suffered career ending hock injuries in the Grand Prix. 

1968 The great Cranog Bet loses her place in the record books to another fantastic female when Shady Parachute lowers the Harringay 525 clock to 28.89 from 29.02. A week later Bet also loses her Clapton 400 record which is taken by Foyle Tonic in the heats of the Scurry Gold Cup. 

1999 The NGRC grants permission for the trial use of Australian style lycra racing jackets. The trial takes place at Monmore though trainers ultimately give the jackets the ‘thumbs down’. 

1987 The Scurry Gold Cup, run at Clapton from 1928 to 1973, then transferred to Slough from 1974 to 1986, has now been transferred to Catford. It is run over 385 metres with the final sponsored by David Richardson on July 18.  That final is won by Fred Smith's Rapid Mover (w bk d Sandman-Rapid Lady, Apr'85. The even money favourite, trained by Fred Wiseman at Milton Keynes, is fast off and leads all the way, winning by 2 1/4 lengths in 23.52. 

2018 Welfarist Clarissa Baldwin is critical of tracks racing in temperatures approaching 34 degrees centigrade. GBGB boss Mark Bird issues a warning to tracks and several cancel trial and race meetings. Ladbroke Coral Head of Stadia Ian Smyth cancels Crayford cards but not Romford, on the basis of the different travelling arrangements for trainers at the two tracks. He also states that the decision whether to race or not will be entirely at the direction of the veterinary surgeon on duty. 

2008 The NGRC’s new appeals board quash a £1,000 fine and severe reprimand on Yarmouth trainer Michael Clare following his handling of Dunmurry Queen. The greyhound had been injured at Yarmouth and Clare – by profession a barrister – had been given instructions by the track vet as to the arrangement and treatment of the bitch the following day. However, the owner of the greyhound had expressly forbidden the trainer to take the bitch to the vets and had taken her home when she later had to be destroyed. The appeals panel found no evidence that Clare had permitted unnecessary suffering to the greyhound. 

1996 Tapwatcher, the most narrowly beaten Derby runner-up (sh) dies at his kennel in Ireland aged 11. A talented, if reluctant stud dog, his progeny included Mountleader Peer, Sullane Castle, Pond Hamlet and Corpo Election. 

2013 Trainer Kelly Findlay has her licence withdrawn after she went missing from her kennel. 

1992 Canterbury trainer Ray Dove relinquishes his licence after being fined by the NGRC following an alleged £60,000 off-course betting coup. Dove and fellow trainer Terry Rayment handled the last three home in a race where there had been substantial forecast and trio combinations placed on the other three runners. 

2016 Following an inquiry, the New South Wales Government announces that it plans to ban greyhound racing in the state from 1 July 2017. Premier Mike Baird blames the "widespread and systemic mistreatment of animals" In fact, Baird’s political career was already on a downward spiral and he left politics in January 2017. 

2010 A Huntingdon woman landed the £1,200 Peterborough jackpot having come to the track on a special £1 promotion which included a fast food meal and a successful ‘lucky dip’ bet on the tote. 

2007 Leading Sussex Cup fancy Westmead Joe was withdrawn with a weight variation from the heats. The dog had lost weight for his trip to Dundalk and had weighed in at 1.5 kilos heavier on his trip to Hove. 

1970 GRA hold eight-dog trials at New Cross, however owners and the press were refused entry to the stadium to witness them. 

2015 Towcester introduce a new distance, 500 metres. It will run alongside the existing 480m. 

1969 July 12 Romford trainer, John Coleman, has a great chance to win his and Romford's first classic, as he has three runners in the Scurry Gold Cup final at Clapton. They are Ace of Trumps, Cheeky Boy and Trew. The 400-yard race is marred by a first bend pile up involving four of the runners. Trew is knocked over leaving Lovely Morning and Ace of Trumps clear. Ace, the evens favourite, caught Lovely Morning at the third bend, and railing well put in a strong finish on the home straight to win by three lengths in 22.85. Owner Jim Fletcher picks up £1,000 and trophy, and does a lap of honour with Ace of Trumps, who has now won 5 from 5 races at Clapton.  

2008 Somebody within the bookmaking industry – BAGS deny that it’s them – order tracks to stop selling race videos and DVDs to punters.  

1973 Former Walthamstow open racer Rita’s Choice breaks the Harolds Cross and Shelbourne Park 750-yard track records in the space of a few days. Both clocks are in finals of major stakes, the Corn Cuchalainn and Irish TV Trophy respectively. In England he broke the 700-yard clock at Southend. 

2014 Sheffield receive only 15 entries for the TV Trophy. Sadly, two intended runners were both defeated by injuries, defending champ Musical Gaga and Barrie Draper’s recent Irish intake, Volcano. 

2018 Sheffield boss John Gilburn supports Pat Rosney when he complains about the absence of pain relief when The Other Reg breaks a hock in a trial at the track. Gilburn reports the on duty vet to the Royal Society and to the GBGB.