ELLA WINDSOR - ARTICLES

THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
NIGHT AND DAY MAGAZINE
Thrill of the Chase

Greyhound racing is losing its cloth cap image thanks to celebrity fans such as Brad Pitt. Ella Windsor heads to Walthamstow and finds the 'dogs' surprisingly addictive.

It's one of our most popular spectator sports, but I'd never been to 'the dogs'. The stealthy grace of racing greyhounds, wild-eyed in pursuit of a toy hare, was as foreign to me as the screams of fans and punters staking fortunes on them. As a novice at the tracks, I felt I needed a chaperone, and who better than David Matthews, who took on the dogs as an owner as well as a punter for his new book Man Buys Dog: A Loser's Guide to the World of Greyhound Racing.

'You're in for a treat,' he says when I meet him for our trip to Walthamstow Stadium, east London, one chilly Thursday night. The journalist and author was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award for his first book, Looking for a Fight, the tale of his own two-year training for a professional bout.

Matthews is 6ft-plus and good-looking, with no hair, a gold tooth and a good laugh. Before he started researching Man Buys Dog, he had no idea of the extent to which he'd be caught up in the sport. Not only would he have the welfare of his own racing dog to oversee, but he quickly encountered another, tougher challenge: gambling.

'I developed a slight problem,' he says. 'Originally I thought, "OK, gambling's not a problem for me." But then you see other people obsessing about something and you kind of look over the edge.' What's more, Matthews's only solid investment, his dog Kevin, turned out to be a loser, costing him vast amounts of time, sleep and money. Luckily, his sense of humour prevailed, and Man Buys Dog is a joy to read. After absorbing one punter/owner/loser/joker's story, I couldn't wait to see the dog world for myself.

Walthamstow Stadium is the British Greyhound Racing Board's race track of the millennium. 'It's the best I've ever seen,' says Matthews. We head to the entrance and pay £6 to enter the main enclosure. I'm stunned by the horserace-sized, open-air sand track surrounding an oasis of grass and fountains. For some reason I'd expected a dog track to be indoors and proportionate to the size of the animals. Two neon-lined tent tops and a score board lend the place a circus feel.

A high-pitched revving pulls my attention back to the tracks. The 'lure', a toy hare mechanism devised to draw the dogs, who race by sight, toward the finish line zooms along the edge of the track within a metal groove. Once the lure has made about a third of track headway, the traps fly open and six dogs bolt free.

I'd expected bigger beasts. Greyhounds, however, are undeniably sleek, and they are also very entertaining racers. They don't seem to run so much as forage through the air and grab at the ground. I'm glad more seasoned viewers had opted to watch from inside as I hooted like a schoolgirl.

Overlooking the track are bars and restaurants, so we headed for seats in the Paddock Grill. Ann Aslett, marketing director of The Stow, as the stadium is known, has come to tell us the score. The great, great granddaughter of Bill Chandler, who built the stadium in 1933, could not be nicer.

Ann shows me photos of the stadium's most famous visitors, including Brad Pitt. 'He came here with Vinnie Jones,' says Matthews. It turns out that Jones is a big fan of the dogs and races several of his own. The actor isn't here tonight, but by the track we see the hardiest punters, many of them barrel-shaped, with whiskers and bright eyes. Clearly the characters down at the dogs are a large part of the sport's appeal. Matthews reckons the personalities sum up the state of modern-day racing.

'On the one hand the sport doesn't want to be seen as this "dodgy geezer" kind of event, but at the same time that's a huge part of the appeal,' he says. 'There are a lot of really spivvy looking bookmakers, but then you also get your trendy crowd. It kind of wrestles with itself.' I have yet to meet a bookie, so Matthews takes me to see 84-year-old Dougie Tyler, the 'oldest bookie you'll find'. He's been working here since 1946. In fact, he looks a good deal younger than his age, although no doubt a bright set of teeth and a sense of humour don't do him much harm. For a photograph we rally a fiver between us, but Tyler holds on to it, handing me a stub to mark the bet. Matthews tells me he drives a blue Rolls-Royce.

'Nice doin' bizniz wiv ya,' he winks. The fiver was his my dog came in second.

What is it about Matthews's luck? Between his losing dog and his gambling, he squandered a small fortune. Kevin the dog's strike rate was one in 7.5; hopeless for recuperating his costs, £2,500, plus a kennelling fee of £250 per month, let alone making a profit. But gambling came as a surprise. In Man Buys Dog Matthews writes, 'I had to have a bet of some form. I needed that fix.' With the help of Gamblers Anonymous, Matthews has since been reformed. Indeed, he was nervous about returning to the tracks tonight, having stayed away for more than a year. He says he used to bet regularly, but with smallish amounts at most a couple of hundred pounds. But far higher wagers from big punters weren't uncommon.

'Oh, I'd hear monkeys (slang for £500) called out, and grands two, three at a time. A Thursday or a Saturday night attracts a lot of money.'

Before we leave at around midnight, after all 14 races, Aslett takes Matthews and me to the kennels. I scan about for something resembling Kevin's feed, chicken, mince, lamb, sometimes cereal with milk, but the yard is spotless. I wonder if Matthews is missing Kevin. Recently, he was lucky to see the retired dog find new owners, having sold him to a re-homing kennel.

Aslett introduces me to Tarney Backle, the kennels' current hurdle track record holder (475 metres in 29.17 seconds). He's a beautiful animal; sturdy but softskinned with black and white spots and a diamond-hard look in his eyes. We bid him goodnight and he's locked, like the other dogs, into his kennel for the night.

Could Matthews be drawn back? 'I wouldn't rule out a comeback,' he laughs.

But next time he wouldn't invest alone or leave a dog's future unplanned.

'I'd have a syndicate and a strategy.' Barbados is one idea. 'All I need is a couple of million and a group of investors.' Dog racing in Barbados? I'm still getting my head around dog racing in London.

Could I catch on to this? Well, those fish and chips are pretty good, not to mention the sight of a racing greyhound. I couldn't think of anything more likely to put a smile on anyone's face apart from winning of course, which I haven't yet experienced. But then again, you never can tell.