Charlie Blanning on 100 Years of British Racing

Episode 53: Recorded April 11, 2026

“Not only did you have the working class, if you like, after work, but also you had Lord this and Lady that in the club having dinner in black tie, and of course everyone else was milling around at the stadium having a bet. So it suited everyone.”

Charlie Blanning, author and historian, on the class-crossing nature of the sport during the British Golden Age of racing

Show Notes

Traditional anniversaries have gift recommendations up to the 60th — the diamond anniversary — but what do you give for a 100th? In the case of British Greyhound racing, you sit down with the sport’s foremost historian — author Charlie Blanning — and trace a century of the sport from its improbable American origins to the grandeur of White City and Wembley.

Charlie’s book — Please Mister: The Golden Age of Greyhound Racing — serves as a starting point in the story of British Greyhound racing, chronicling how Owen Patrick “O.P.” Smith’s oval track concept crossed the Atlantic. In the summer of 1926, rainy Manchester served as the venue for the sport’s first English race. It would grow into a sport that drew crowds of over 100,000 to a single Greyhound Derby final.

In this episode, host John Parker sits down with Charlie to discuss the founding figures behind British Greyhound racing, Golden Age hounds and trainers, and the rise of high-society track culture at White City and Wembley. Charlie also shares his candid views on the sport’s precarious future.

“When the sport goes, the breed will go with it.”

Links

• The Greyhound and the Hare (Facebook)
• Please Mister: The Golden Age of Greyhound Racing (eBay UK)