WITH THE WHIPPETS.

Shannon News, 27 November 1925, Page 2

WITH THE WHIPPETS.

RACING AT CHRISTCHURCH. SOMETHING NEW, IN SPEED. One hundred .yards in 6 4-sseos! One hundred yards, hurdles 8 l-sse‘cs! In the matter of speed, something-new has been handed out by a Christchurch spurting company in introducing whippet racing 'this season. For purposes of description the whippet may best be likened to the greyhound in miniature; -for the purposes of speed he may best be likened to a streak of lightning. Now that whippet races have been established at- the Stadium, they have become one of the features of interest at the Saturday evening sports there, and last Saturday a flat and a hurdle event gaye the good crowd that was in attendance a sample of speed such as it *had never seen before, says the’ “Sun.” In ithe flat race there were four heats qf four, and a final. The procedure is to line up the four dogs competing, each in charge of a .“slipper.” A man walks from them to past the end of the coarse blowing a whistle at intervals. At his signal the dogs are unleashed and race towards the siffleur, who puts in a good heaidy six to seven effort to encourage them. The dogs are away like a flash, and hurl themselves along the track towards the man with the whistle.. He stands 30 yards beyond the winning post, so* that the dogs are going at top speed when they pass it. In the hurdles race the great grace of these little speed kings is demonstrated—they leap with an, ease that makes this event more interesting than the flat races.