DOG RACING.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 28 February 1929, Page 7

DOG RACING.

HAS IT DECLINED? LONDON, Jail. 5. Greyhound racing has completed its second season in London, and its third in the provinces. Official figures are not available, hut it is authoritatively stated that no fewer than ten million people have attended the meetings this year, that £150,000 .has been paid to the Government in entertainment fax, and that the prize money on the various tracks has aggregated fully- £200,000_ Brig.-Gen. Critchley, managing director of the G.R.A. has expressed the opinion that only in large towns, with a population of 300,000 or more, can greyhound Tacing be made .to pay. Major C. E. Lucas-Phillips, secretary of the National Greyhound Society of Great Britain, Ltd., which represents the financial side of the. tracks, said in an interview: — “Both the society and the club arc at one in the belief-that greyhound racing 'has come to stay, and will flourish, always provided, of course, that the sport is run on a clean basis.” So severe lias been the slump in attendances at many tracks (says the “Daily Express”)'that it seems likely the recent prophecy of Sir William Joynson-Hiicks, the Home Secretary—“By next year the -sport will be almost at an end” —may be justified. Frequent reports have been received at the Home Office from Chief constables in the provincial' cities and towns and from the Metropolitan Police showing that .the attendances at greyhound racing tracks are falling. Although these reports’are denied by some tracks, the impartial observer who goes to dog racing frequently knows that the police statements, applied to (lie sport as a whole, arc true, and there is considerable speculation whether some tracks in the country can carry on through another year. I There were last year 134 greyhound racing companies, with a total capital of nearly £4,000,000. A large number of those concerns are now moribound. A contention is made by greyhound, race managers that as many people as ever are going dog-racing throughout the country, but that they are spread over a greater number of tracks. No substantial figures, however, are produced to confirm this contention.