Greyhound Nation – Détails, épisodes et analyse

“You need to write about what you know. You need to write about what you’ve experienced.”

Charlie Blanning on how his father’s and grandfather’s Greyhound breeding inspired elements of his new novel

Greyhound author and historian Charlie Blanning has released his second work of Greyhound fiction — Electric Rabbit. His latest novel picks up many of the dangling narrative threads from his first novel, Rags to Riches. His latest work stands alone, but he recommends reading both novels to get the most of recurring characters and full historical context of the story.

Speaking of that historical context, Electric Rabbit reads very much like historical fiction. The narrative continues Charlie’s incorporation of elements factual Greyhound sport — Greyhound racing and coursing in Great Britain. This new novel is set in the mid-1920s and focuses on the first Greyhound racing activities in the country.

Without giving too much of the plot away, host John Parker and Charlie sit down to talk about the novel and its Greyhound sport underpinnings. Charlie shares how his family’s background in racing and coursing Greyhound breeding informed Electric Rabbit’s narrative. As always, he brings to bear his considerable corpus of historic Greyhound sport knowledge to paint a vivid and engaging portrait of the Greyhound in early 20th century Great Britain.

• The Greyhound & the Hare (Facebook; place your order)
• Text: 0 79 01 824 556 (UK SMS to express interest)
• Owen Patrick Smith, Greyhound Hall of Fame inductee (Website)

“People have jumped to the [conclusion] that, because tracks are closed in the United States, there’s no more Greyhounds…”

Debra Hardman, of GALT-Arizona, describing the state of affairs for Greyhound adoption applications

Former racing Greyhounds are still available to adopt in the United States. However, those Greyhounds will likely be sourced from outside the United States. Adoption organizations that partner with groups like Greyhound Racing Ireland / the Irish Retired Greyhound Trust, Greyhound Racing New South Wales (GRNSW) and Greyhound Racing Victoria (GRV) have effectively resuscitated their programs. These organizations’ leaders, including Bob Koch of Nittany Greyhounds and Debra Hardman of GALT-Arizona, are navigating the ins and outs of rehoming these overseas hounds.

Bob’s adoption group in central Pennsylvania serves adopters regionally — basically the mid-Atlantic and Midwest. At any given time, he has about 50 approved adoption applications. Nittany works with two organizations in Australia — and GRV and GRNSW — but they started international rehoming with Irish racing Greyhounds. According to Bob, the Greyhounds handle the long travel very well and share the same temperament as American racing Greyhounds.

Debra’s experience in the American Southwest is very similar to that of Bob’s organization. GALT-Arizona — a chapter of the Greyhound Adoption League of Texas (GALT) — serves Arizona and surrounding states. Her Australian Greyhounds come directly into LAX for pickup, and she describes the hounds as happy as ever as they finish their long journeys after transport.

In this episode, host John Parker talks with Bob and Debra about these and other experiences rehoming international Greyhounds with American adopters. They discuss the logistics of bringing the Greyhounds into various ports of entry, the paperwork involved and the care given to the hounds as they make their way around the world. Bob and Debra also share a bit about each of their organizations and how they’re adapting to this new source of Greyhounds while also maintaining high welfare and breed support standards.

• Nittany Greyhounds (Website)
• GALT-Arizona (Website)
• Irish Retired Greyhound Trust (Website)
• Greyhound Racing Victoria (Website)
• Greyhound Racing New South Wales (Website)
• Episode 15 – Featuring GALT founders; discussing The Greyhound Project (Podcast)
• Episode 41 – Highlighting GALT and Australian racing Greyhounds as PTSD dogs (Podcast)

“Our most western track…is a 14 hour drive from Sydney…”

Rob Macaulay on Broken Hill, one of the 30 community run Greyhound tracks in New South Wales

Rob Macaulay served as legal counsel for Greyhound Racing New South Wales (NSW) four years ago and immediately immersed himself in the sport of Australian Greyhound racing. When the opportunity presented itself, he applied to serve as Greyhound Racing NSW’s Chief Executive Officer. As CEO, Rob leads the organization’s racing and welfare initiatives in Australia’s largest and most southwest state.

The Australian track system will, at first glance, appear very different from the American system. Tracks under Greyhound Racing NSW’s umbrella of leadership are community clubs, similar to English football clubs. Rob speaks of the smallest and most remote tracks like the Broken Hill Greyhound Club in the same breath as the largest Greyhound racing tracks in Sydney. One gets the sense that there is a sense of community pride within this Australian Greyhound racing system.

Rob is very eager to share Australian racing Greyhounds with the world when they retire. Similar to the Irish Retired Greyhound Trust association with Greyhound Pets of America, Greyhound Racing NSW is piloting a similar adoption program for potential American Greyhound adopters. In 2023, Rob has a goal to introduce 120 Australian Greyhounds into the enthusiastic and welcoming arms of American adopters.

In this episode, John and Rob sit down to discuss the Australian racing Greyhound and the sport’s present and future. The conversation covers the community centric track system in New South Wales, technical aspects of Australian races and racing surfaces, and the wagering and funding of the sport. They also cover the welfare and rehoming of Australian racing Greyhounds, including the emerging partnership with Greyhound Pets of America.

• Greyhound Racing New South Wales (Website)
• Greyhounds as Pets (Website)
• Greyhound Integrity and Welfare Commission (Website)
• Broken Hill Greyhound Club (Facebook)
• Greyhound Pets of America (Website)

“If you could bottle what I felt and sell it, I’d be a rich man…”

British racing Greyhound owner George Sell describes seeing his first Greyhoundk, Steeple Road Teddy, win a race

George Sell lives the life of a travel and real estate writer, business owner and “horse husband” in the south of England. His wife is an accomplished equestrian. They both love and own Whippets. He’s also involved in a couple of racing Greyhound ownership syndicates.

Greyhound racing syndicates might raise an eyebrow for the unfamiliar, but they are fast becoming the best way for a fan of the breed to try their hand at owning a racer. George’s first racing Greyhound — Steeple Road Teddy — was owned by a 10-member syndicate. When the Greyhound was having trouble, George enlisted a former Waterloo Cup coursing trainer to set things right.

Managing a racing syndicate is just one part of racing Greyhound ownership in Great Britain. Owners get to participate in Sundays at the kennel, visiting and playing with their Greyhounds, the trainer, and fellow owners. They also have to react to changes to the sport and its tracks since the COVID pandemic.

In this episode, George shares his experience as a racing Greyhound owner in the UK. Host John Parker discusses with George sourcing a potential winning Greyhound, finding the right trainer, and adapting to changes in Irish and British Greyhound racing.

• Macchiato (Website)
• Americano (Website)
• Fantalilly (Website)

“He had become the darling of the crowds in England…we’re talking about crowds…of a hundred thousand people…”

Author Charlie Blanning on Mick the Miller, one of his “top five” Greyhound picks

Charlie Blanning and Gary Guccione are second to none when it comes to declaring the “top five” racing Greyhounds in the modern era. Charlie — author of three Greyhound history books — gravitates towards the finest English and Irish racers 20th century. Gary — former Executive Director of the National Greyhound Association — brings a distinctly American selection of Greyhounds to his “best of” list.

In this episode, host John Parker asks the question of both Charlie and Gary — “Can you name five racing Greyhounds that stand out above all others?” Charlie and Gary deliver, with stories of Mick the Miller, Westy Whizzer and Westmead Hawk, just to name a few. Join us for a fine hour of Greyhound history, discussion of the sport of Greyhound racing, and news on Charlie’s books.

1. Westmead Hawk (Wikipedia)
2. Ballyregan Bob (Wikipedia)
3. Pigalle Wonder (Wikipedia)
4. Endless Gossip (Wikipedia)
5. Mick the Miller (Website)

1. Downing (Greyhound Hall of Fame)
2. Miss Whirl
3. Westy Whizzer
4. Real Huntsman (Greyhound Hall of Fame)
5. Traffic Officer (Website) and Flashy Sir

• The Greyhound and the Hare (Facebook)

“Training is not something you do to your dog but something that you do with your dog.”

Lee Livingood on the importance of a dog owner’s investment in bettering their dog

Lee Livingood wanted to be a veterinarian as a child, but she settled on always having a dog in her home. During college, she adopted a mixed breed dog from a local shelter and discovered it suffered from severe separation anxiety. Lee helped find the right home for the dog, and the experience ignited her interest in and passion for canine behavior.

In 1991, Lee and her husband learned about retired racing Greyhounds. They adopted their first Greyhound shortly thereafter — a 2 year old hound named Penny. At the time, her home in Pennsylvania was in the throes of a winter storm. She went out in the blizzard with her newly adopted Greyhound on lead, who promptly chased after a squirrel and left her face down in the snow.

She didn’t know about Greyhound “prey drive” and the quickness and strength a Greyhound could exert in such a situation. The experience inspired her to write Retired Racing Greyhounds for Dummies — the first book about racing Greyhound behavior and care after adoption. The book would become a mainstay in the Greyhound adoption community.

In this episode, host John Parker and Lee sit down to talk about her background in Greyhound behavior and training, as well as her experience in writing the book. They explore the nuances of publishing what would become a very popular reference in the Greyhound adoption community, Lee’s involvement with that community, and the future of the American Greyhound breed.

• Retired Racing Greyhounds for Dummies (Amazon)
• Redfern Canines (Website)

“He definitely had a huge, big heart. He just had that will to win…”

Irish Greyhound breeder and trainer Dolores Ruth, on training champion racing Greyhound, Razldazl Billy

Irish Greyhound breeder and trainer, Dolores Ruth, describes her 2006 Irish Greyhound Derby champion, Razldazl Billy, as an enigma. Clever. Superhuman. Named after Billy Flynn, a principal character from the musical, Chicago, Razldazl Billy seemingly put on a show wherever he raced.

Razldazl Billy’s career is, to date, the pinnacle of Dolores’ career in breeding and training, but he’s not the only highlight. Dolores grew up in a racing Greyhound family. She recalls fond memories of feeding her father’s Greyhounds Weetabix, milk and scrambled eggs and walking their family’s Greyhounds in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.

When her father became ill in her late teens, Dolores would take the reins of the family Greyhound business. In the early 1990s, she would come into her own as an independent Greyhound trainer. After Razldazl Billy won the Irish Greyhound Derby in 2006, she transitioned from trainer to breeder. The Razldazl bloodline continues to this day.

In this episode, host John Parker and Dolores explore not only Razldazl Billy’s career, but some of the many other Greyhounds that have made a mark in the Irish racing Greyhound world. It’s an entertaining exploration of some of the biggest Greyhound names in the sport and the breeder and trainer that helped share them with the world.

• Irish Greyhound Derby (Wikipedia)
• Razldazl Billy Race Career (Greyhound Racing Ireland)
• Razldazl Billy Pedigree (Greyhound Racing Ireland)

“I don’t know how to describe heaven for a dog…it’s hard for a lot of people to understand how much these Greyhounds love to run…”

Dr. Rob Gillette on Auburn University veterinary students seeing Greyhounds run for the first time

Dr. Rob Gillette has been around working and sporting dogs his entire life. He was born in Great Bend, near Cheyenne Bottoms, Kansas and grew up hunting with retrievers and bird dogs. Cheyenne Bottoms was also home to the first coursing meeting of the American Coursing Club in 1886. He didn’t realize it at the time, but it was a sign of his future involvement in Greyhound sports medicine.

Dr. Gillette graduated from veterinary school at Kansas State University in 1988 and subsequently helped take care of Greyhounds at local dog tracks and with breeders in and around Kansas City and Abilene. After completing a postdoctoral in human biomechanics, he received a research grant from the Kansas Racing Commission to better understand how Greyhounds run and how to reduce their injuries. Dr. Gillette would continue to research Greyhound performance and consult on track design and surface composition on behalf of trainers and track owners.

In the late 1990s, Dr. Gillette began a 15 year career at Auburn University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. There, he expanded his canine sports medicine research. His students had the opportunity to observe and learn from Greyhounds participating in what is now known as the Canine Performance Sciences program. His research would not only benefit the care of the Greyhound but serve the greater canine community as well.

In this episode, host John Parker discusses with Dr. Gillette his career as a veterinarian and researcher of Greyhounds, service dogs, and law enforcement and military K9s. They discuss how an understanding of the Greyhound’s unique anatomy and athleticism better informs sports medicine for many breeds. Dr. Gillette also shares some of his current research activities and plans to develop the next generation of Greyhound savvy veterinarians.

• SportsVet.com (Website)
• SportsVet (Facebook)
• Athletic and Working Dog: Functional Anatomy and Biomechanics (Amazon.com)

“He said to me, ‘Why don’t you make it a personal record? Put more of yourself into it…'”

Charlie Blanning, on the advice given to him while writing Twenty Two Waterloo Cups

Charlie Blanning’s latest book — Twenty Two Waterloo Cups — is more than just another history of the famous English Greyhound coursing meeting. It also tells the story of the author’s involvement in the Waterloo Cup as a correspondent for various coursing publications from 1981 to the end of the Cup in 2005. Charlie braved judges’ horses, blowing gales and anti-coursing protestors to share the experience of the Cup with readers.

Twenty Two Waterloo Cups is Charlie’s fifth book about Greyhounds and the sport of coursing. The book picks up the Waterloo Cup in the early 1980s after a hiatus of four years that put premier coursing meeting’s future in jeopardy. Thankfully, supporters of the sport and the Cup’s rich history came to the rescue and revived the coursing meeting for more than two decades. The book is dedicated to one of those key figures — Bill Stedman, Treasurer at the time of the National Coursing Club.

In this episode, Charlie and host John Parker hold a “virtual launch” of Twenty Two Waterloo Cups with a discussion about the coursing meeting’s history, the Greyhounds that made it famous, the people who organized the event, and the undercurrents of anti-coursing protests during the Cup’s final years. Charlie shares his motivations for writing the book and how he went about publishing another entry in his growing library of Greyhound history.

• The Greyhound & the Hare (Facebook)
• Reservation Form for Twenty Two Waterloo Cups

“I literally grew up with Greyhounds…”

Leslie Wootten, on her childhood at the Tucson Greyhound Park

Leslie Wootten’s earliest memories of Greyhounds are from the Tucson Greyhound Park around 1953. Her father was hired as the plant superintendent at the race track, and her family lived in a house near the paddock on the track grounds. She heard the Greyhounds every night outside her bedroom window when there was racing.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Greyhound racing was the thing to do in Tucson. Leslie found herself at the paddock fence every night while her father worked and her mother mingled at the clubhouse. As she grew up and her family moved away from the track, she developed other interests. She would return to Greyhounds in her 30s.

With a college degree in writing, Leslie found herself revisiting her family’s history in Greyhound racing. Her very first writing effort was the nomination of her grandfather — James “Pop” Wootten — into the Pioneers section of the Greyhound Hall of Fame. Gary Guccione, former executive director of the National Greyhound Association, later invited her to become a regular columnist for The Greyhound Review.

In 2007, Leslie would write Keefer: The People’s Choice — a book about breeder Keith Dillon’s favorite Greyhound. Dillon felt that Keefer had an incredible personality from the moment of his birth in 1984. Keefer wowed the crowds at Derby Lane, becoming the first Greyhound ever featured in the Wall Street Journal. Leslie’s book would explore this phenomenal Greyhound’s career, based especially on her multi-part series about Dillon’s life in Greyhound racing.

In this episode, John Parker sits down with Leslie to discuss her book and other writing about the Greyhound people and the Greyhound breed. They explore her family’s rich heritage in Greyhound coursing and racing, her experiences in Abilene, Kansas, and the future of Greyhound racing and the Greyhound breed.

• Keefer: The People’s Choice (Amazon)
• Greyhound Hall of Fame
• National Greyhound Association