Greyhound Racing: Four Greyhounds Currently Working on Long Win Streaks

Greyhounds with double-digit winning streaks are usually hard to come by, but currently in the United States there are three that can make this claim and another closing in on that number. One is from Dairyland, where the great sprinter Ohboompowsuprise rules the Wisconsin oval. The national wins leader, Kiowa Willowwisp, dominates Flagler Greyhound Park as few before her have, while Gable Proteus down on the Texas coast at Corpus Christi Greyhound Park has yet to lose an official start after eleven tries. At Southland Greyhound Park in West Memphis, Arkansas, My Sugar Drive kept her skein alive with a scintillating come-from-behind victory that had to be seen to be believed, as she now has won eight in a row. 2007 has seen greyhounds like Switzler Jammin at Palm Beach, Coldwater Torres at Phoenix, and Gable Pimiento at Wheeling Island string together several wins, and now this quartet is at it.

Ohboompowsuprise is a brindle female that had taken seven straight at Dairyland Greyhound Park before losing two races back to back in the elimination rounds of the Dairyland Sprint Championship. However, after she righted the ship and went on to win the sprint crown, Suprise has been perfect, scoring in ten consecutive outings. Her latest victory got her streak up to ten, and it was her twenty-third triumph in thirty-five starts at Dairyland. She has been so consistent that she has not been worse than second to the first turn in any of these contests; with her closing kick there are few greyhounds if any at Dairyland that can stand up to her late when she clears that close. Running over the 1,650 foot 5/16ths of a mile distance, Ohboompowsuprise's slowest time has been a 30.55 effort, if you can possibly consider that slow! Due to the fact that the National Greyhound Association only allows sixteen characters in a greyhound's name, surprise has been shortened to "surprise", but this spelling shortcut is about the only thing not perfect about this dog lately.

Few greyhounds ever succeed in putting together ten wins in a row, but the mercurial Kiowa Willowwisp has done that three times already in her career. Her latest romp on August 8th brought the most recent one to an even dozen, to go with earlier ten and seventeen race runs, with almost all of her best work done at Flagler, in Miami, Florida. Willowwisp has a staggering record at Flagler for her career, an astounding fifty-four victories for sixty-three attempts with just one time worse than fourth place. If she makes the lead she doesn't lose, and it is rarely even close. Since October 18th of last year, she has not won a race by less than three full lengths, an amazing statistic in itself. Now with thirty-six wins in thirty-nine outings in 2007, Willowwisp will be the national wins champion if she stays healthy.

Gable Proteus has seen another dog's backside just once in his career as he crossed the finish line and that was in his very first schooling event at Corpus Christi Greyhound Park. In his eleven official Corpus Christi times to post, the son of Gable Dodge has had just one close encounter with defeat, in his initial Grade AA start where he won from behind by a length. In most of his races he has looked like he has been running against German shepherds, almost always clocking the performance's fastest time for the 5/16ths of a mile. Proteus has yet to draw a five, seven, or eight box and it will be interesting to see what he does from the far outside. One thing is certain though, and that is if he makes the lead, nobody at Corpus Christi has a snowball's chance in hell of catching him.

So far all of these streaking pups have been sprinters, but My Sugar Drive, running at Southland Greyhound Park, is a router, running over the 660 yard course. This wide running bitch won her eighth in a row on August 9th, overcoming some early trouble to get up by three-quarters of a length in an exciting tilt in which it looked like she had little chance of winning going down the backstretch. However, Sugar Drive pinned her ears back and began to pass the leaders, until she trailed only E's Dubya going into the stretch, but still by quite a margin. Undeterred, she flew by Dubya and crossed the finish line in 37.22 seconds, much to the relief of the bettors who had made her the six dimes to the dollar chalk. All of these dogs will eventually lose, but in a year of streaks it will be fun to see how far each can take theirs.