Racing Ramp*

From the very dawn of greyhound track racing in America in the early 1900’s, the sport has had its champions. You, Racing Ramp, were one of the very first. Whelped in England in 1920 and imported to America two years later, you eventually ended up in the hands of a couple of Chicago sportsmen, Frank and Joe Loomis.

Sadly, there is little documentation of your racing career, but the testimony of a few oldtimers who saw you race is proof enough that you were the class greyhound of your day.

Veteran racing official Jack Fisher called you “the best dog I ever saw for the simple reason that he did everything ever asked of him. He beat fast breakers in the 3/16ths, and outran the finishers in all other distances up to a half-mile.”

Said Orville Barber: “There isn’t a greyhound in the Hall of Fame that I have not seen run, and none was better than Racing Ramp. “He beat them all at 3/16ths to a half-mile — and I mean by plenty,” said Arch DeGeer. “No other dog could do that.”

You ran well past your 6th birthday, beating the best from Miami to Chicago. When you were 4, you won the Miami Kennel Club Derby over a half-mile. At age 5, you captured the very first St. Petersburg Derby, which today is the oldest stake race in America.

Although not honored until 1979, you are the oldest greyhound to be enshrined in the Hall Of Fame.