Dogs after Dark

To the dyed-in-the-wool horse bettor, dog racing is evidence that man will bet on anything that moves--be it kangaroos, chimpanzees or jumping frogs. Certainly a dog track is no place to admire the look of a dog: his face is wrapped in a muzzle that looks something like an air-raid warden's mask. But dog racing is an $81 million-a-year business in Florida.*

The crowds (2,600,000 last year) outnumber Florida's horse-race fans. Last week, thousands of Miamians saw the horses run at Gulfstream in the afternoon, then hustled down to the Biscayne Kennel Club to go to the dogs by night. The track sprawled like a giant outdoor roulette wheel, which is about what it is. Chasing after Swifty, the mechanical rabbit that never loses a race, were eight greyhounds clawing and skidding around turns at close to 40 m.p.h.--as fast as a race horse runs. Most fans, who couldn't remember the name of the dog they bet on, yelled like crapshooters, "Come on, seven!" and "Get up there, five!"

The Ninth Meeting. At Biscayne one night last week, the two speediest dogs in Florida--Beachcomber and Dry Lake--did their noble best. It was the ninth meeting of the two rivals in a month--something like a continuing race between Armed and Assault. Beachcomber whistled out of the No. 2 hole, got to the turn in front and stayed there. His time for the 5/16 mile was 31 2/3 if, only a fifth of a second slower than the track record and the best time of the current season. It was Beachcomber's fifth victory over his rival.

Beachcomber is no great shakes on looks. Unlike most greyhounds, he has a short tail that curls up at the tip. But he has all the breed's other characteristics: uncanny hearing, remarkable eyesight, a not too highly developed sense of smell. His owner, Paul Sutherland, a 43-year-old ex-butcher from Tulsa, expects to gross $40,000 this year. Says he: "Like all good dogs . . . Beachcomber's got brains."

He also gets plenty of pampering. So does his arch-rival Dry Lake, whose master, a well-to-do coal mine operator named Lucilius Moorer Kirkpatrick, reportedly bought him for $8,000.

Meals at Midnight. Kirkpatrick keeps his 30-dog kennel on a lot about two miles from the track. At 7 a.m., his trainer and two assistants take each pooch for a walk. Then the dogs have their toenails pedicured, get combed and rubbed. At 10:30, the dogs are put in kennels and the blinds are pulled down. They nap until 4. A couple of hours before the race, they are taken from their owners and kept under inspection by the Florida Racing Commission. At midnight, after the races, Kirkpatrick's greyhounds get their one meal of the day--a feast of hamburger, vegetables, bran and dog biscuit. Once in a while they get canned peaches, too.

It costs about $2 a day to keep a dog (one-sixth of what it costs to keep a race horse), and at the season's end the dog-man's profit-&-loss statement is usually a lot healthier than the horseman's. In the British Isles, where horse racing most wears the airs of pageantry, the dogs are not merely yipping at the horse's heels but are far out front. There, a whopping $800 million a year is bet at 222 dog tracks, and the dogs are not only a national pastime but a national problem.

*The only other states which permit dog racing: Massachusetts, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, Montana.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.