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  • The Field

    Dash, pluck and stamina

    Jun 16, 2022 6 minutes
    WRITTEN BY RORY KNIGHT BRUCE
    PHOTOGRAPHY BY GEORGINA PRESTON

    Of all the country sports, pedigree whippet racing today must be the most innocent. There is no swag of prize money, no on-course bookies and the picnics behind the custom-made campervans would not challenge Car Park Number One at Royal Ascot. “A transformation has occurred,” wrote Pauline Wilson, one-time editor of Whippet News, in her book, Whippets: Rearing & Racing. “Although most people imagine these little dogs still run to their cloth-capped owners amid a background of gambling and drinking, nothing could be further from the truth. It has evolved into an amateur and family sport.”

    So I was to discover as I joined the Andover & District Whippet Racing Club for one of its 15 annual Sunday meetings in a grass field behind the welcoming Weyhill Fair pub in Hampshire. Involving more than 120 whippets and their enthusiastic owners of all ages, it was a charity race day in memory of regarded owner and breeder Mike

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