Greyhound racing as a sport its origin and history from United States of America
The sport of greyhound racing has achieved a great sum of promotion not only in United Kingdom, Ireland, America and Australia but also in other continents like Asia.
This prestigious sport has a very big history starting from the eighteenth century moving towards nineteenth and now twentieth century itself has a history about this sport.
Starting from Owen Patrick Smith who was the creator of the mechanical lure in 1912, this creation has a major role in the greyhound racing history because previously rabbits and lure were used for the purpose of race. After this invention the killing of
hundreds of rabbits and lure was prohibited.
Owen Patrick Smith was the first one to open a circular shaped racing track in Emeryville, California. Within few years he had 25 tracks of his own in America which includes the tracks in Montana, Oregano and Florida.
In the year 1922 the state of Florida was declared as the capital of the greyhound racing sport, gradually the sport gained a great amount of popularity among the working class, from United Kingdom and America it got famous in Australia and Ireland.
Due the fact of its popularity this industry is achieving a major increase in its revenue, in one year thousand of events are scheduled at different racing tracks. In 1992 16,827 events were held in 50 tracks. Back in 1992 the Gulf Greyhound Park located
near Houston was the largest track, 5000 attendee could enjoy the race, in that year 467 races were held there.
Almost all the racing tracks in America are quarter mile oval, greyhounds participating in the race have to cover different distance depends upon the race type.
Eight to twelve greyhounds can participate in the race, these race are known as heats. Normally 13 heats per event are scheduled. Most of the greyhounds are from Tijuana, Mexico, a race track named as Agua Caliente schedules 13 race every night along with
a matinee performance on the weekends.
The greyhounds are trained by special trainers from the age of 10 to 12 months. This training is related to the dragging of the artificial lure. When the hounds reach the age of 18 months they are sent to the track at that point their training ends
Greyhounds are given six chances to break their maiden, if they are not successful in doing so they are declared retirees and placed for adoption.
In the racing tracks the hounds are put into the starting box few minutes before the race is started. The artificial lure is dragged with the help of a mechanical device and the greyhounds are supposed to chase it and win the purse.
With fame of this sport this sport betting also became a major part of it, bookies has played a major role in the progress of this industry in past years.
Usually the race tracks have 16 to 20 kennels compounds which operate there, greyhounds have to be leased by the owner to one of the kennel so that the specific greyhound can race in that track.
In 80’s greyhound racing was at the peak in America but in 90’s the popularity of this industry declined due to the fact that gambling in other sports was increased because of which many small tracks were shut down.
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