Greyhound racing in the UK reaches its 100th anniversary today, the 24th of July 2026. Whilst the industry celebrates this grim milestone with a glitzy banquet, we look back on what the past 100 years has meant for the dogs at the centre of the debate on its future.
Greyhound racing yesterday
Mistley was a red fawn greyhound and was new to greyhound racing, but so was everyone in 1926. Belle Vue Greyhound Stadium had just opened its doors in Manchester and drew a curious crowd of 1,700 spectators, keen to find out about this new ‘sport’. Racing greyhounds around an oval track was an import from the USA and had never been seen before in Britain. Mistley won by eight lengths, and the wheels were set in motion for the next 100 years of racing. Little did anyone know at the time, but many innocent lives would be lost under those wheels.
The Greyhound Racing Association Ltd set up the first races, and managed racetracks across the country until 2019.
Greyhound racing arose to try to meet the needs of a post-war society starved of entertainment. Still recovering from the trauma of World War One, and without the financial means or indeed the technology to keep themselves entertained and fulfilled, people welcomed dog racing, and new tracks sprang up rapidly across the country. But the world was changing rapidly, and the place dog racing was trying to occupy in people’s hearts and minds was challenged from the very beginning.
Greyhound racing was born in the UK in a very different time to today. In 1926, women were not allowed to vote. Homes did not have televisions in 1926, and even contemporary literature was not made available to the masses until Penguin paperbacks were published in 1935. Not only did the audiences of 1926 not have the entertainment options we have today, more importantly, they didn’t yet have the knowledge about greyhound suffering.
Greyhound racing today
As awareness grew around the dangers of greyhound racing, so did opposition. Many stopped attending and betting on races, and some even became passionate activists campaigning for its abolition. Between 1960 and 2010, 91 greyhound tracks closed, signalling a steep decline in the pastime’s popularity.
Anti-racing campaigners celebrate the demolition of Belle Vue Greyhound Stadium in 2021.
Britain’s first stadium, Belle Vue, closed its doors for the final time in 2021 after two decades of dedicated campaign work by local activists. The site is now home to a community of families and individuals who live in much-needed homes built on the site. On the same road that the stadium used to occupy is a National Speedway Stadium, the National Basketball Performance Centre, and Belle Vue Leisure Centre – maintaining facilities for real sports played by consenting humans, not gambling products played out over the lives and deaths of helpless animals.
Today, only 16 licensed greyhound tracks are operating in the UK. Scotland and Wales have both voted to ban greyhound racing in their devolved parliaments – a welcome ruling that will come into law in coming years. Yet England lags behind – not only the nations of the United Kingdom, but indeed the world- in its failure to address the issue.
Last year, over 3,500 injuries were suffered by dogs on UK racetracks, and 161 dogs were killed trackside. That is a staggering level of injury and death that simply cannot go unanswered. Pressure is mounting on the Government to pursue a ban in Westminster, backed by a growing bank of evidence demonstrating the many harms of greyhound racing. This year alone we have seen the publication of:
Greyhound racing tomorrow
Today, on the 24th of July, the last 100 years of greyhound racing comes to a close. Tomorrow, the next 100 years begins – but it will not take 100 years to end this cruel and indefensible ‘sport’.
We are starting the next era for the nation’s greyhounds with a march through London demanding justice and safety for dogs. We begin at Knightrider Court, outside the Greyhound Board of Great Britain’s offices at 11:30am, and will march through London to Parliament Square, where there will be speeches from Vanessa Waddon from Hope Rescue, Green Party House of Lords peer Natalie Bennett, and Norb Gordon, founder of Shut Down Campaigns.
Sad eyes and stolen lives: The Secret Lives of Greyhounds will take viewers behind the scenes of a cloistered and problematic industry.
At the end of the march, attendees will be given exclusive access to the very first trailer of Animal Aid’s new documentary, The Secret Lives of Greyhounds. This groundbreaking film will be getting its full release later this year and is set to present new and shocking evidence that the industry, and those who allow it to continue, cannot ignore.
Come to tomorrow’s march, watch the documentary trailer from the 26th July, and sign up to join the community that’s fighting to end dog racing for good.
The movement to end greyhound racing has never been stronger, but we still need you to join us:
