Feldcrest- Greyhound Star of the Late Fifties
Feldcrest was whelped on November 15th, 1955. Her father was No Refund, the brother of the great champion of the beginning of the decade, Beach Comber. Ornamental, her mother, had the speedy Lucky Pilot as her father, and Feldcrest certainly inherited those genes for being fleet afoot. A diminutive 55 pound blue brindle with white mixed in, Feldcrest was as beautiful as she was fast. But her career did not begin like that of a champion. Feldcrest broke in at Pensacola in 1957, a dog track in the Florida panhandle, and she was victorious just seven times in twenty-three trips to the post. However, once she left Pensacola, her career blossomed.
The Pensacola meet ended, and Feldcrest moved on to prestigious St.Pete’s, located in the western Florida coast city of St. Petersburg. At St. Pete’s, Feldcrest began to find herself, and soon was winning on a regular basis against some of the best greyhounds in the country. Feldcrest won sixteen times while there, and when the meet ended, she moved back to Pensacola, where she added five more wins to her resume in eight starts. Her handlers decided to bring Feldcrest north to Raynham, a track a bit south of Boston, in Massachusetts, where she established a new world record running over the five- sixteenths of a mile distance. Feldcrest was clocked at 30.40 seconds for the 1,650 foot trip around the racing oval, and her name was on every greyhound racing patron’s lips. When Feldcrest went to Taunton, just ten miles down the road from Raynham, she set the greyhound world on its collective ear.
In September of 1958, running for the Orville Moses Kennel, Feldcrest won the 23rd Annual Taunton Inaugural in 30.30 seconds, shattering her old world record over the five sixteenths. No dog could catch Feldcrest once she got her nose in front, and fifteen thousand fans cheered her as she destroyed the old Taunton track record of Duke Bagley by three-tenths of a second. Breaking from the seven box, Feldcrest was never challenged once she took over the lead, coasting to a seven length triumph over Kosher, who was her kennelmate. After the event, the crowd gave Feldcrest and her handler, Charles Rink, a huge standing ovation.
But Feldcrest had more work to do at Taunton. She was entered into the American Derby, the most prominent greyhound race of its day, which was contested at three-eights of a mile, or 1,980 feet. The added distance did not cause Feldcrest to flinch, as she went through the preliminary rounds, against the best middle distance racers the nation had to offer, undefeated and untested. In the final, Feldcrest drew the far outside eight hole, and the huge throng of bettors made her the overwhelming favorite at 2-5 odds. Feldcrest did not disappoint them; if anything she left them with their mouths agape. Feldcrest came flying out of the box and opened up a huge lead, winning the American Derby by an amazing eight lengths over Hope Rock at the wire. It was akin to Tiger Woods winning the Masters by eight strokes and it put an exclamation point on the great year Feldcrest had in 1958. Feldcrest was the National Wins Champion, with forty victories for the calendar year, and was voted Greyhound of the Year as well.
1959 began with Feldcrest journeying all the way back to St. Pete’s. The greyhound racing circuit was much different back then, as tracks would hold their meets for only a few months at a time, requiring kennels and dogs to pull up stakes and move on to the next venue. So it was that Feldcrest came to St. Pete to run on January 2nd in the St. Pete Inaugural, facing the best greyhounds that the track could assemble. It had rained throughout the day right up to race time, making the track slow and muddy, but Feldcrest still prevailed in 31.79 over the sloppy surface, paying her backers $4.20 to win.
Hollywood park, in Miami, was offering a ten thousand dollar Silver Anniversary Stakes Race, which naturally attracted the country’s finest, including Feldcrest. She made the trip from one coast of Florida to the other worthwhile, setting an unofficial track record while in a practice race and then notching a win in the finals, held over the three eighths of a mile distance. Unfortunately, Feldcrest was injured shortly after this race and her career was in jeopardy as she recuperated. Would she be able to recover, and if so, would she be her old self?
Sidelined for six months, Feldcrest returned to racing with a bang, winning both the Taunton Inaugural and the Rehoboth Fair Stakes back in Massachusetts to show she still had it. In her attempt to defend her American Derby title, Feldcrest had to settle for third when she was bumped while going around one of the turns. Feldcrest then went south once more, in December of 1959, to compete in the Biscayne International, a race that she was able to win over the Miami track’s 1,815 foot course in thirty four seconds flat. Feldcrest then was entered into another stakes at Biscayne, but she broke down and had to be retired from the “Sport of Queens”. It was February, 1960.
Feldcrest was voted into the Hall of Fame and was inducted in 1974. Feldcrest’s final numbers were wonderful; 74 wins in 124 outings, worse than third only 18 times, and Feldcrest ran last only three times in her life. In the autumn of 1959, in her last appearance ever at Taunton where she was beloved, Feldcrest was paraded around the track by her trainer, Chuck Rink, before the adoring crowd. She ran an exhibition race in a 30.50 clocking and received a gold collar from track officials, as they honored a legend that Rink once said, “was the only greyhound that could make grade A stakes dogs look like grade Cs”.
