I’m going to break the narrative of my personal whippet racing journey by discussing whippet racing’s fastest dogs. I started with the usual Greatest Of All Time approach, but it was too difficult to be objective.

The greatest of course is not necessarily the one with the most “medals”. George Best won far fewer medals than, say, Gary Neville, but I don’t think even Gary Neville would claim to be a greater footballer than George Best. The greatest racing whippet is clearly not just the one with the most titles. Championship supremes are a good guide, but not infallible. The widely regarded GOAT, Another Maid, wouldn’t make the Top Ten greatest on that basis.

The blue riband of whippet racing has always been yard per pound racing. The aspiration of almost all whippeteers is to own the leading yard per pound racing whippet of the time. It is impossible to compare whippets from different eras and there is even some dispute with regard to which dog is best during some periods of the past. However, in the main, one dog, actually bitch, has been accepted as the best around at any given time. Those bitches form a sort of whippet racing monarchy with the crown passing from one undisputed champion to another as age catches up with the incumbent.

It is probable that over time racing whippets have got faster. If we go back to the first proper documentation of the sport and Freeman Lloyd’s book The Whippet and Race-Dog published in 1904 we can see that a dog considered to be a flyer would record about 12s for 200y. Today’s best dogs would be nearer 11s. Snowflake, a 24-pounder and the best dog of the sixties held the track record at Dewsbury for 175y in a time of 10.16s. The best of today’s dogs of comparable weight might be a bit quicker than that but by less than half-a-second. The rate of progression has slowed further in recent times and it is doubtful that dogs have got much quicker since the 1990s when the weight-adjusted time recorded by Swift Holly to win the BWRA straight supreme at the Old Hall track was almost exactly comparable with that recorded by The Power when winning the same title nearly two decades later over the same stretch of ground.

The improvement in the dog’s times is probably not caused by better nutrition or training since there is very little difference between the way today’s dogs are prepared and those of the past were. More likely it is genetic advancement of the breed, the “fastest” whippet genes having been mixed with good greyhound blood. The old adage, put the fastest to the fastest and hope for the fastest has been attentively practised in the breeding of racing whippets.

Records are so sparse and so subjective prior to 1967 when the British Whippet Racing Association (BWRA) was formed and the first championships run that it is not really practical to include dogs that raced before that year in the lineage. And, despite the fact that Snowflake did not win a championship supreme title because some bright spark decided that the first BWRA supreme championship should be a time-handicap, it seems appropriate to begin the list with her.

I have addressed the issue of bitch whippets almost always being faster than dog whippets by creating two lists. The first a sort of monarchy of bitch whippets and the second one of dog whippets. In all bar a very few instances it would be accurate to regard the best bitches as the best racing whippet of their era. It is somewhat like the British Monarchy but the opposite way around. There have been dozens of British Kings who have ruled, but very few Queens. In whippet racing there have been very many Queens that have ruled but very few Kings.

Obviously this list is not infallible but it certainly more accurately identifies the best of the best than does Whippet News‘s Top Ten competition which was created for that purpose. Some of the dogs on these lists have won that competition but generally the fastest dog around does not win the Whippet News Top Ten in any given year. A match race between the BWRA Straight Supreme Champion and the winner of the Top Ten would almost always be won by the former.

Lastly mention must be made of bend racing. Just as grass is the original surface for tennis and Wimbledon its pre-eminent event, so straight racing is the original form of whippet racing and the pre-eminent whippet has always be considered to be the best straight racer. That said, from the 1990s when the sport became very delineated into summer straight racing and winter bend racing there did tend to be two pre-eminent dogs, one in each discipline. Very rarely, the same dog was best at both, but usually that was not the case and the best straight-racer was just an also-ran on the bends and vice-versa. A number of brilliant dogs have dominated the bend scene over the years, but the fact that supreme championships have been intermittently held means it is not possible to establish an unbroken timeline of the pre-eminent bend racers of their time. For this reason they do not figure in our lineage. That is a shame.

So, here is a list of the pre-eminent straight racers down the years, perhaps with the odd omission and, of course, subject to debate. With the exception of Snowflake all of these dogs won championship supremes and all at some point were THE best dog on the circuit. Some were only briefly pre-eminent, some were the best around for three or four years even if during that time others rose to the top when they were absent for seasons or injuries. I have also included the foundation sire of the dogs on the list. This reflects the first recognisable stud dog of significance in the very top line of a whippet’s pedigree i.e. the sire of the sire of the sire and so on. Three dogs completely dominate in this respect – Bilko, Blue Peter and Good As Gold. Good As Gold is by Golden Link who is recorded as having been responsible for around 30 litters, but that isn’t really enough to suggest his genes created a “type” of whippet, which Good As Gold’s, his son, with 240 litters clearly have. Good As Gold’s most influential son is Rhinegold, a black three-parts brother to the legendary Another Maid, with 207 litters. The heavy muscling seen in Good As Gold, Another Maid and Rhinegold is prevalent in many of their descendants today and in stark contrast to today’s pedigree show whippets. Most of Blue Peter’s descendants have come through Wishy Was (165 litters) and from him Sing On (72 litters). By repute Wishy Was only produced blue or black pups – genetically both colours are controlled by the same gene. Bilko who began the modern era with four outstanding bitches that dominated the early years didn’t produce a stud dog that was anywhere near as prolific as Rhinegold or Wishy Was and strangely is hardly represented in today’s racing whippets at all.

I am pretty confident the bitch list at least is correct as far as Biddy and from The Power but I wasn’t racing in the interim so those in between are informed guesses. The dogs equally look right as far as Streisand and from Midnight Dazzler but I have less confidence in the dogs between them.

Bitches first (remember the order is chronological):

Whippet | Era | Foundation sire

1. Snowflake (60s) (Bilko)
2. Little Lucy (70s) (Bilko)
3. Cherry (70s) (Bilko)
4. Dasher (70s) (Bilko)
5. Another Maid (70s) (Good As Gold)
6. Double Handful (70s) (Blue Peter)
7. Nottingham Forest (80s) (Good As Gold)
8. Kerry’s Dream (80s) (Good As Gold)
9. Rhinesize (80s) (Good As Gold)
10. So Perfect (80s) (Good As Gold)
11. IBM (80s) (Blue Peter)
12. Swift Wind (80s) (Good As Gold)
13. Hillside Honey (80s) (Good As Gold)
14. No Comment (80s) (Blue Peter)
15. Try Sex (90s) (Good As Gold)
16. Swift Ellie (90s) (Good As Gold)
17. Gone Again (90s) (Blue Peter)
18. Jolson (90s) (Good As Gold)
19. Fancy Free (90s) (Blue Peter)
20. Dawn’s Mystery (90s) (Good As Gold)
21. Swift Holly (90s) (Good As Gold)
22. Dancing Wind (00s) (Blue Peter)
23. Biddy (00s) (Good As Gold)
24. Peggy Sue (00s) (Blue Peter)
25. Spirit Of The Stag (00s) (Good As Gold)
26. Mo Chara (00s) (Good As Gold)
27. Beside The Point (10s) (Blue Peter)
28. Prada (10s) (Blue Peter)
29. Skoshi Tiger (10s) (Blue Peter)
30. The Devil Is Blue (10s) (Blue Peter)
31. Lady Polgara (10s) (Blue Peter)
32. Little Miss Dior (10s) (Good As Gold)
33. The Power (10s) (Blue Peter)
34. Brimone (10s) (Blue Peter)
35. Whisper (10s) (Blue Peter)
36. Oreo (20s) (Good As Gold)
37. Midnight Perfection (20s) (Good As Gold)
38. Who’s That Diva (20s) (Good As Gold)

And the pre-eminent dog racing whippets of the modern era:

1. Blue Cloud (60s) (Blue Peter)
2. Pedlar (60s) (Bilko)
3. Good As Gold (70s)
4. Sing On (70s) (Blue Peter)
5. Sam Spade (70s) (Blue Peter)
6. Set Fair (70s) (Good As Gold)
7. Mr Benn (70s) (Good As Gold)
8. Mo Evil (80s) (Blue Peter)
9. Second Chance (80s) (Blue Peter)
10. Mr Ross (80s) (Good As Gold)
11. Little Jim (80s) (Good As Gold)
12. Grasscutter (80s) (Good As Gold)
13. More Folly (80s) (Blue Peter)
14. Steinman (80s) (Blue Peter)
15. More Games (80s) (Blue Peter)
16. Laura’s Dream (90s) (Blue Peter)
17. Xspell (90s) (Blue Peter)
18. Snow Fox (90s) (Blue Peter)
19. Razzamatazz (90s) (Blue Peter)
20. Hillside Lad (90s) (Blue Peter)
21. Slippy Blue (00s) (Good As Gold)
22. Rapid Fire (00s) (Good As Gold)
23. Kirby (00s) (Blue Peter)
24. Streisand (00s) (Blue Peter)
25. Jackarella (00s) (Good as Gold)
26. Colorado (00s) (Good as Gold)
27. Little Bill (00s) (Good as Gold)
28. Red Rascal (00s) (Blue Peter)
29. Swift Boy (00s) (Blue Peter)
30. North B4 South (10s) (Good as Gold)
31. Little Slimfast (10s) (Good as Gold)
32. Candy Man (10s) (Blue Peter)
33. North 4 South (10s) (Good as Gold)
34. Chief Commander (10s) (Blue Peter)
35. Mr Boots (10s) (Good as Gold)
36. Midnight Dazzler (20s) (Good as Gold)
37. Emily’s Fate (20s) (Good as Gold)

So there it is, not infallible lists but a guide to whippet racing’s best ever open handicap racers.