New Hampshire: Under Attack Runs a Race for the Ages as Hinsdale Greyhound Park

Under Attack is almost five years old, but don't try to tell him that he is too long in the tooth to be doing what he has been doing this year at Hinsdale Greyhound Park in Hinsdale, New Hampshire. In September, the red male will turn five, but the son of Flying Penske and Sassy Fortress has ruled Hinsdale all year long with one amazing performance after another. On Saturday, August 4th, Under Attack ran one of the fastest races ever on the Hinsdale oval, and in relation to the rest of the times that day, perhaps the greatest race any greyhound has ever run there.

Hinsdale has recently announced that it is closing after Labor Day and will then resume racing on a seasonal basis in the spring. The tenuous state of New England greyhound racing leads many to believe that the dog track, which has been open since 1972 as a greyhound facility, will be hard pressed to ever reopen for live racing once it shuts down in the late summer. If this is so, then Under Attack gave the Hinsdale faithful a show for the ages in his most impressive outing, as he blazed around the racing surface in 30.28 seconds, the second fastest time of the meet. Only UMR Sweet Acorn has gone faster in 2007, and before he was injured about a month and a half ago, Acorn was Under Attack's chief rival. Now there is no doubt that the stout racer will garner the track's wins crown, as this was number twenty-seven out of forty-seven Hinsdale starts, and then make the transition to become a pet somewhere. Owner John Lelas has no plans to run Under Attack anywhere else at his advanced age, as the big-hearted dog has done all that Lelas has asked of him and more in the time that he has had him up in the Granite State.

A 30.28 second tour of the 1,650 foot Hinsdale sprint distance is special enough, but when you factor in the rest of the day's times, the clocking takes on an almost mythical quality. The next best time that on that particular program belonged to Zam Stone Cold, another Lelas owned runner who ran second to Under Attack by seven lengths. Stone Cold is a solid Hinsdale Grade A in her own right, a shipper from Sanford-Orlando that has displayed flashes of great speed at times, but on this day she had all she could do to keep Under Attack in the same zip code as she was. The race also contained such Hinsdale standouts as Fast Buddy and Need What, along with UMR Brawler and Where's Tone Lo, but none of them could handle what Under Attack was dealing out on this particular day. The next fastest winning time of the entire performance was run by Amelia WV, a 31.02 in the Grade A twelfth, an effort that would not have come within ten lengths of Under Attack's Herculean feat. Had the track been fast, Hound City's 1989 record of 30.06 could very well have fallen.

Lelas also owns the premier router up at Hinsdale, a youngster named JL Royal Flush. Flush has held all the cards four 660 yard contests in a row, and has not been challenged in any of them. His times have been gaudy as well, one of them a 37.66 that he ran off late in July in a thirteen length blowout. If Flush has a weakness, it is his propensity to try to cut to the rail too quickly from outside holes, causing him to become offstrided as he encounters other racers, a habit that he had better grow out of when he moves to another venue after Hinsdale closes. Royal Flush just turned two in June, and is a product of the breeding of Kiowa Sweet Trey and Trainwreck Tina. The white and brindle male has scored wins in twelve out of twenty-nine Hinsdale trips to post, giving Lelas a solid one-two punch to unleash on his competitors as live racing at Hinsdale counts down the days until the mechanical hare, nicknamed the Colonel, makes his last trip around the track.