Big Gossip

They said you couldn’t win the “Big One,” Big Gossip, but as the winner of $71,960.16 — the second-leading all-time money winner when you retired and twice recipient of the Most Outstanding Greyhound Of The Year award, you’d do until a better one came along.

It was your misfortune to be born two generations before your time. Were you able to compete in today’s rich sprint stakes, you’d likely threaten most of the sport’s earnings records. As it was, you were forced to compete at distances that were not your forte, because that’s where the big money was and you still came out a winner.

You won 102 races, the first to ever do it in the United States, and twice won National Win Championships (1960 and 1961). Incredibly, you did this against the toughest competition in the country, and 54 of your starts were in major stakes. The one year you were not named Greyhound Of The Year, 1961, you were named Most Outstanding Male Greyhound Of The Year.

Those who said you couldn’t win the big one didn’t take a close enough look at your record. At 17 months, you won the Flagler Juvenile Stake, then followed up with victories in the $10,000 Biscayne All-Florida, the O.P. Smith Memorial, the Biscayne Lads’N Lassies, and spearheaded Red Fork Kennel’s Medly triumph at Flagler. You also finished second in the American Derby, the Biscayne Invitational, the Hollywood Derby and the Biscayne Derby, and third in the Wonderland Derby and another Biscayne All-Florida.

Nothing could come close to you when you were at your best, Big Gossip, and you rightfully rank among the greatest the sport has ever known.