TomD said:
"My response is that these people are like greyhounds chasing the mechanical rabbit of technology."
TomD:
I like that one a lot. Mind if I use that one on some of the obstructionists at my clubs and others?
"As all of us know, the greyhounds never actually catch the rabbit ... but a lot of money changes hands while they are trying."
All of you'all on here may think you know that but it's not true. They sure as hell do catch the rabbit sometimes (always known as "Rusty") and it can be pretty funny sometimes. There has long been this wives tale (or is it tail) that holds that if a greyhound ever catches the mechanical rabbit it will ruin the greyhound and they'll never run again. That's not true either.
How do I know all this stuff? Because fortunately, or unfortunately I inherited about 300 greyhounds when my dad died including the fastest 3/8th mile greyhound that ever lived. One of my jobs for about the next five years was to see that every single one of them got adopted without exception once they left the track or whatever.
As for the World Champion and World record holder he went out to Texas to stud in a Lear jet. One day the cowboy who ran that breeding farm called me and also my stepmother and told us in tears the great dog had died and that he'd buried him on his farm.
My stepmother apparenlty got irate and told that cowboy to go out there and dig up that great dog and take him and get him creamated and send his ashes to her in Florida because she wanted to give him the proper burial the great animal deserved on her place---headstone and all!
That Cowboy called me and said; "Tommy your step-mother wants me to dig him up and have him cremated and his ashes sent to Florida."
And I said: "Yeah, well, Slim, so what, is there a problem with that?"
And Slim said: "Tommy, that's crazy, we ain't never heard of creamating a dawg out here in Texas, even a World Champion, World record holder like him. To do that I gotta dig him up and take him about 100 miles each way to a human funeral home."
So I said: "Tell you what Slim, just leave the great dog out there where you buried him on the Texas prairie, go get a small box, fill it with Texas prairie sand or dirt and mail it to my stepmother in Florda."
So that's what Slim did.
Then about five years later my stepmother died too and I sold that house in Florida of my Dad and stepmother to some fancy-pants, pain in the ass lady who held me up at settlement and told me she wouldn't settle on the house until I dug up that dog buried in the back yard because it was against some kind of local code anyway.
So I told them all at settlement the story above and there wasn't anything under that gravestone in the back of the place other than a box of Texas prairie dirt or sand. Well, that wasn't good enough and somebody had to get in a car and go over to the house and dig up the grave only to find a box of Texas prairie.
On my way out of town I took the gravestone with me and it's out back next to big boulder now on the farm in Pa;
It says;
GREYHOUND
P's Rambling
World 3/8th mile record holder
36.43
1984-1994
That dog was about the greatest and smartest athlete I ever saw--and mean! His career record was 41 starts and 31 wins and when we owned him he only lost twice, once that was so close he didn't realize he lost and the other race he lost our trainer told us he was so pissed off and surly until he ran again in about five days no one dared go near him. With us I think he set an American record of about 20 straight wins.
He was the greatest box jumper (breaker) the industry had ever seen. He'd come out of there in the air and in about ten strides everyone knew the race was over. Some of those races he won by 10, 15 and once 18 lengths!
Then in the biggest race of his career, the biggest race in America at Hollywood Park in Miami they all were saying he was just a front runner and he wasn't the greatest despite his times and his world record because he probably couldn't run in traffic since no one had ever seen him do it. We were expecting another box jumping blowout in that biggest greyhound race in America and to our horror he came out of an outside box and ran right up on the back of another dog and fell down. Since he was heavily bet and went off as a 1-9 favorite and a lot of the greyhound racing world had come to see him there was a big gasp in the clubhouse.
But he picked himself up and started working his way around and through traffic and he was third in the back stretch but the two dogs running in first and second place were neck and neck 17 lengths (!!!) ahead of him in the backstretch. There was a guy sitting behind us who at that point said; “Ah shit” and tore up his ticket on P’s Rambling.
But he kept on coming and in the homestretch he was only about 5-6 lengths behind those two front runners running neck and neck—and then he must have just hit the after-burner because he caught them both and went right between them and won by about a head from each right at the wire. Hollywood Park just sat there in stunned silence for about five seconds and then the whole place went crazy. Some call that race the greatest American greyhound race ever run.
P’s Rambling ran for about three more months at Hollywood Park and then coming down the stretch he broke his leg badly---but he hung on and won that one too!
He was so talented he probably could’ve been a decent golf architect too.
TomD: As fast as he was I never saw P's Rambling catch Rusty, the mechanical rabbit but I tell you one thing---trying to stay ahead of P's Rambling I did see Rusty, the mechanical rabbit set at least one world record for the 3/8th mile!
