REMEMBER WHEN: 11 February 2025

1950 W J Cearns dies following a short illness. The former office boy invested his life savings in the failing building company that employed him. He took it over, and was one of the first to understand the great advantages of working with reinforced concrete. When one of his customers was faced with bankruptcy, he bought them out and thereby became the owner of the stadium that he was constructing – Wimbledon. Another of his building projects was West Ham, where he built the main grandstand and later became club chairman. He also served on the Football League management committee and was deputy chairman of the BGRS (a rough equivalent of the Racecourse Promoters Association). Popular with his Wimbledon patrons, ‘WJ’ would regularly mingle with patrons during race meetings, listening to their grievances and observations. 

2018 Hiya Butt is retired to stud following a UK career which produced 22 victories from 38 open races. They included the Peterborough Derby and English Laurels. He finished second in the Northern Sprint, third in an East Anglian Derby and National Sprint and reached English Derby finals over 480m at Wimbledon and 500m at Towcester

1991 Following a disagreement, Nick Savva asks Dave Hawley to remove Phantom Flash from his kennels. The dog joins Patsy Byrne.

2003 In a stand-off between the betting industry and the BGRB, the bookies announce that they will not take bets on evening meetings at tracks who have not signed their new BAGS contracts. These are the opening skirmishes in a plan for the BGRB to control its product through a licensing system – New Deal. BAGS then set a deadline for tracks to sign up. Nottingham are the first to sign. The bookies then ask the Office Of Fair Trading to intervene.

1988 Independent Sunderland announce plans to hold a sellers race every fortnight.

2009 Stud dog Droopys Woods dies following a short illness. The inferior brother of Droopys Vieri threw a number of top class hounds including Droopys Shearer, Ballymac Kewell and Wheres Yer Man.

1963 Two burglars are convicted of an attempt to defraud after breaking into a betting shop. Although a TV was stolen to make the raid appear a genuine burglary, the following morning the shop manager discovered a betting slip with the names of four winning greyhounds who had raced the previous evening after the shop had closed.

2001 Irish horse and greyhound racing shuts down on February 27 in response to the foot and mouth outbreak in the UK. Ironically, British racing continues unaffected though the Waterloo Cup is cancelled.

1995 Trainer Jan Little is sacked by Sunderland just a few days after one of her runners landed a major gamble. Barefoot Robin was backed from 4-1 to even money and won by 10 lengths

1949 Two Crayford kennel lads are committed for trial on charges of conspiring to dope greyhounds. The two teenagers planned to drug eight dogs in two races by giving them capsules when the trainers went to lunch.

2016 GBGB launch an enquiry after receiving “an unusually high number of positive samples relating to the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, meloxicam.”

1977 After only one defeat in 26 races and that was in a match Go Ahead Girl (pictured with owner Vic Clifford) was confidently supported at 4/6 to win the Aboyne Marathon over 845 metres at Wembley. But she never figured in the race going down by nearly 10 lengths in fourth place to Rockview Post and Tell You What (who also beat Girl in the match race at Bristol, when Go Ahead Girl was going for 18 straight wins.)

2008 Avtar Sandhu, the owner of Coventry Stadium is summoned by the NGRC following the failure of absent promoter Malcolm Francis to pay monies to them and tens of thousands owned to owners in prize money. Sandhu duly takes over the licence but the BGRF prize money grant remains suspended.

1934 West Ham’s first open race behind their new ‘trackless’ hare will have £100 prize money (equivalent to around £9,230 today) added to the £3 entry fees.

2016 EFRA (Environmental, Food & Rural Affairs) publish their two year review into the state of greyhound racing. https://greyhoundstar.uk/efra-report/

1969 Track records: Brighton 525y-Kans (28.71), 725y-Russian Tip (40.43), 880y-Spectre II (50.09), Charlton 415y-Carry On Oregon (23.36), 600yds-Crazy Paving (34.34), Mothel Duchess-775y (45.87), Hall Green 525y-Kilbeg Kuda (28.75), 700y-The Grand Canoe (39.42), 880y-The Cherry Tree (51.46), Harringay 525y-Yellow Printer (28.60), 525yH Tonys Friend (29.58), 700y-Westpark Quail (39.69), 900y-Poor Mick (52.84), Belle Vue 525y Rushton Spot (27.73), 700y-Mighty Kern (40.07), 880y-Meteoric (50.94), Perry Barr 525y-Discretions (29.24), 700y-Brandy Soda (39.90), Romford 460y-Yellow Dew/Westpark Jupiter (25.51), 650yds Shamrock Clipper/Cullen Era (36.42), Walthamstow 500y Westpark (27.60), 525y-Some Cheatha (28.95), 700yds Hong Kong Bay (39.91), White City 525y Yellow Printer (28.30), 550y-Monalee Champion (29.82), 525yH Lucky Orange (29.34), 725y-Hiver Whitenose (40.50), 880y-Poor Mick (49.83), 1025y-Greenville Fauna (58.60), Wimbledon 500y-Shady Parachute (27.57), 700y-Hurry On Cleo (39.58), 880y-Greenville Fauna (51.04).

2007 David Smith, the Seaham builder who claimed to have killed 10,000 greyhounds with a captive bolt pistol, pleads guilty to dumping waste into a landfill without permission. It is the only charge brought against him. He is fined £2,000 plus £2,000 costs.

2014 For IGB Chairman Michael Field and wife Marie added the Coursing Derby to the track equivalent (Kyle Jack), with Kyle Calvin. The Oaks was won by John Flynn’s outsider Somelittlething. However the Derby winner is subsequently disqualified following a positive test for ephedrine & phenylpropalonamine. Field is fined €6K and loses the prize money of €35K. Calvin had been a 40/1 ante post chance.

1999 Wisbech begins trialling back under the NGRC banner. It will be run by Gary Meades.

1952 The new owners of Long Eaton Greyhound Stadium, five Beattie brothers, give away the track owned dogs to local owners. The 40 dogs are valued at between £10 and £50 each.

2001 Droopys Rivero, winner of the 1999 Romford Puppy Cup has his card marked for fighting for a second time in an open at Sunderland and is permanently disqualified from racing under NGRC rules.

2003 Alison Ignram announced that she is to leave Catford to join Romford. The vacancy occurs due to the retirement of John Quinn.

1988 Former open race star Long Spell is one of eight dogs to die in a poisoning accident at his stud kennel in Florida. The dog famously purchased for £50,000 in 1982 (that’s roughly £250,300 index linked) died as the result of a organic phosphate based wormer. More than 50 dogs were affected in the incident though the remainder were saved by antidote.

1959 In an episode of radio comedy The Glums, Pa Glum reluctantly agrees to announce the engagement of daughter Eth to fiancée by placing an advert in the press. Being a betting man, he naturally chooses the Greyhound Express.

1994 A massive gamble on Michaels Machine for the Irish Derby sees his price tumble from 50-1 to 20-1.

1978 ITV’s World Of Sport programme announce they will stage “the most extensive live greyhound coverage ever seen on British television” when they broadcast the Trainers Championship meeting from Monmore. Three of the races will form part of the ‘ITV Seven’.

1964 Betting firm Stennings are taking no chances in pricing up runners for the 1964 English Derby with more than 250 runners listed. They include Chieftains Wonder whose Cardiff track record might have suggested he was decent value at 100-1, had he not died five months earlier.

2005 Ian Reilly’s Irish runner Hee Haws Barney is sold for a reputed €100,000 after winning his second race at Harolds Cross in 28.72. The dog joins Andy Johnson and contests 30 UK opens winning five.

1999 Right To Apply is unveiled as Greyhound Star’s Independent Greyhound of the Year.  Owned by Fred Needham and trained by Geoff Pixton, the son of Frightful Flash won over £12,000 in prize money when landing the Workington Derby and Highgate Classic. Prior to his switch to independent racing, Right To Apply had run third in the Irish Derby.

2008 Barrie Draper announces that he will leave Sheffield to concentrate on open racing only.

1952 Jockey Club detective John Walsh is featured in an article in The People newspaper which reads : Big as their rake-off undoubtedly was form the turf, the gang-dopers, I am sure, never made the same ‘good thing’ out of horse racing that they did from their rule of tyranny over the dogs. 

They were at work in the golden age of greyhound racing – the boom days of the sport just after the war and the dopers really did pull off some incredible coups. They worked the kennels for nearly seven years before their game was tumbled, and during that time no greyhound in the country was safe from interference. 

There was one course they visited so often that the dogs there almost became on tail-wagging terms with them. One dog in particular appears to have become so friendly that I am assured that it would actually lick the dopers faces and try to shake hands every time they arrived to carry out their dirty work. 

It was an era of big betting on the dogs and the track authorities for a long time decided that only kennel employees could be in a position to interfere with racing on such a scale. Scores of kennel lads lost their jobs as a result. But as I now know, the big doping jobs were ALL done from the outside. The gangs began as one but soon split after a row over betting odds. Both worked to the same pattern. Individual dogs were seldom, if ever, tampered with. 

The practice was one of ‘block’ doping. Kennels would be broken into at night and all the male dogs doped. Next time it would be the females turn. Or maybe the brindle coloured dogs would be done, or all those with white in their coats irrespective of sex. This block doping was common to both gangs and it once led to an extraordinary clash between them. 

One gang tried to work a track in the Midlands, to break into the kennels at night and ‘stop’ all the male dogs whatever their colour. The other gang decided to do the same kennel and ‘stop’ all the brindles irrespective of sex. The result was that all the male brindles were given two lots of dope within an hour and a half. Many were taken seriously ill. Some died. The kennel veterinary staff diagnosed chronic gastro-enteritis with resulting hysteria. 

Racing had to be abandoned and both gangs got nothing for their pains. It was not until long afterwards that the double-doping plot was discovered, and because of it, the gangs decided that in future, each would tip the other off as to its plans. Dogs are far easier to dope than horses. The horse is a finicky eater. The average dog isn’t. A piece of treated sausage meat would be swallowed at a gulp and often the dog would wag its tail for more. 

The drugs used to ‘stop’ the dogs – there is no known pep drug for them – were easier to get and less costly than those used in horse racing. One gang often used luminal which gave dogs the appearance of being outwardly bright but which in fact caused dizziness. Its effects were noticeable as dogs rounded bends in the track.

Luminal-doped dogs would lose yards in cornering because their brains would be in a whirl. If they thought vomit tests were likely to be made on dogs before they raced they would change their tactics. I have evidence that on one occasion an attempt was made to stop dogs at Reading by smearing four traps with rabbits blood. The gangs hoped that the dogs would be more interested in the smell of rabbit than in racing and would break slower from the trap. 

But their theory didn’t work out. The four dogs came out with a rush  - doubly eager to get at the hare. When the existence of doping on a large scale became apparent, and the authorities seemed powerless to stop it, two tracks decided on desperate measures of their own. 

One nearly caused a riot among its patrons one night by deliberately declaring the wrong placings in a forecast result. They realised that some dogs must have been got at by the large sums that were plastered on one two-dog forecast. The dopers, angry and frustrated, began to create a disturbance in the crowd. 

Unsuspecting patrons joined in the protest. There were threats of violence before police restored order. For every occasional failure, the dopers had literally scores of successes. And as they prospered, they grew increasingly more daring in their plans. The usual practice, when a coup was on the stocks, was to place big bets with several provincial bookmakers to reduce the chance of the bookies re-investing on the track and so bringing down the starting price. 

Then there came the night when the dopers had invested so heavily on a dog running at Catford, that to keep the price up, they cut all the wires leading to the public telephones on the course. Confusion broke out among the course bookies and near panic among the staff in their West End offices when they found there were unable to keep in touch on current betting. 

But the dopers daring paid off. Their dog won at 100-8! It was the enormous amount of late betting on unfancied dogs at Hendon Stadium that led to the final clean-up of the gangs. For the officials discovered that the same thing was happening at Hackney Wick and the Hendon and Hackney Wick dogs are quartered in the same kennels. When tests were made on six dogs about to run in a race at Hackney, four of them coughed up undissolved capsules containing dope. 

Walthamstow was the next to receive the dopers attention. Running soon became so uncertain  there that the late Mr Bill Chandler – one of the biggest bookmakers in the business and the track’s managing director – finally refused to do business with his West End colleagues when they tried to lay-off bets they had taken on dogs running on his own track. 

Then Mr Chandler wisely called in the police – and from that moment the hunt was on in earnest. The National Greyhound Racing Club soon threw a vase security net over every licensed track. Scotland Yard detectives were engaged as security officers . 

Kennels were rebuilt, many of them with false ceilings, to prevent any attempt to throw doped meat through the ventilators. Thousands of pounds were spent in rooting out the menace that was threatening dog racing. Slowly but surely the dopers were squeezed out and it was not long before they moved to the racecourse. There reign there too is now at an end.