Tumble Bug*

When you were just a pup of three months, you caused such an upheaval in your pen that your owner, C• Abraham, had to turn you over to a neighbor. But you were such a problem there that the neighbor had to give you up as well. Little could anyone imagine then that you-who’d later be given the name Tumble Bug-would become a champion racer and one of the cornerstones of the greyhound breed, worldwide.

Whelped in Australia in 1945, you overcame your “problem childhood” and developed into a beautiful 70-lb. black speed demon. The press clippings of the day in Tasmania, where you primarily raced, heralded you as the track’s greatest racer ever, with_the speed to match that of any greyhound in Australia. You were so fast that you were often handicapped by being placed in a starting box a few yards behind others in the field. Injury cut your career short, but in just 27 races at Hobart, Launceston and Sandown, you managed 18 wins, 25 in-the-money finishes, and victories in the Hobart Stake and Easter Cup. But it is not for your racing career that you are being inducted into the Greyhound Hall of Fame. Rather, it was your accomplishments as a sire and those of your descendants that will cause your name to forever be remembered in the sport of greyhound racing.

Prior to your exportation to America, you sired a number of top offspring, the most famous being Rocket Jet, whose name lives on in pedigrees in all major greyhound racing countries. Many of his sons, including the great Hall of Fame, Tell You Why*, would later join your other descendants in America, doubling up your name in the pedigrees of some of the greatest greyhounds ever to race in this country.

Purchased and imported by Harold Shugart, you soon became a popular sire in the States, producing such offspring as Saddler, Velvet Ribbon, Tumble Through, Flash Bug, Pretty Bug, Tumbling Pat, Hurricane Carol, All Man, Tecumseh Tillie, Star Billing-to name just a few. Through these and other descendants, particularly the rocket Jet portion of the family, would come lines that have had a hand in producing practically all of the top greyhounds of the 1980’s.