Ballyregan Bob and the Legends Who Ran at Nottingham

Nottingham’s Track Has Hosted Some of the Greatest Dogs in History

Every greyhound track accumulates its legends. Some venues are defined by a single unforgettable night. Others build their reputation through decades of hosting the best dogs in the country, event after event, until the track itself becomes part of the story. Nottingham belongs to both categories. Colwick Park has been the stage for world-record holders, Derby winners and some of the most celebrated greyhounds in the sport’s history — dogs whose names still mean something to anyone who follows racing with any seriousness.

The legends of Colwick Park span different eras and different types of achievement. Some came to Nottingham as part of a national campaign, passing through on their way to immortality. Others made their names at the track, their finest performances etched into the local record book. What connects them is the quality of what they did on this specific piece of ground — the 437-metre sand circuit, the six traps, the Outside Swaffham McGee hare — and the fact that their runs are still measured against by every dog that races at Nottingham today.

Ballyregan Bob: Two Wins on the Way to 32

No discussion of Nottingham’s greyhound legends can begin anywhere other than with Ballyregan Bob, the brindle dog who set a world record of 32 consecutive victories between 1985 and 1986 — a streak that captivated the British public far beyond the normal reach of greyhound racing. Two of those 32 wins came at Colwick Park, in October 1985 and April 1986, and they represent the moments when Nottingham’s track became part of one of the greatest individual achievements in the history of the sport.

To understand what Ballyregan Bob meant to greyhound racing, you need to understand the scale of what he did. Thirty-two consecutive wins is not a hot streak. It is a statistical anomaly so extreme that it has not been matched in the decades since. Each of those wins required him to break cleanly from the traps, navigate the bends without interference, outpace five rivals and cross the line first — and to do that thirty-two times in succession, across different tracks, different distances, different conditions and different fields. The probability of a dog winning thirty-two consecutive races, even assuming a generous 70 percent win rate per race, is approximately one in 70,000. Ballyregan Bob was not just good. He was an outlier of an outlier.

His visits to Nottingham came during the middle phase of the streak, when the record was building momentum and public attention was intensifying. The October 1985 win was one of many stops on a campaign that took in tracks across the country. The April 1986 win came closer to the conclusion of the streak, by which point every race was front-page news and the BBC was covering his runs live. Colwick Park was not the scene of the record-breaking 32nd win — that honour belonged to Brighton and Hove — but it was one of the grounds on which the record was built, and Nottingham’s place in that narrative is permanent.

Ballyregan Bob retired after his record-breaking run and lived until 1994. He remains the benchmark against which every winning streak in greyhound racing is measured, and his name is one of the very few in the sport that can be recognised by people who have never placed a bet or visited a track. That two of his thirty-two victories were recorded at Nottingham gives Colwick Park a connection to the sport’s single most celebrated individual achievement.

Priceless Blake and Skywalker Logan: Derby Stars at Colwick Park

When the English Greyhound Derby moved to Nottingham for the 2019 and 2020 editions, Colwick Park hosted the richest and most prestigious event in UK greyhound racing — and two dogs, in different roles, left permanent marks on the track’s history.

Priceless Blake won the 2019 English Greyhound Derby at Nottingham, claiming the £100,000 winner’s prize in a final that brought the best open-class runners in the country to Colwick Park. The Derby is the sport’s ultimate test: a knockout competition run over multiple rounds, with each heat eliminating the slower dogs until only six remain for the final. Priceless Blake survived that process and delivered on the biggest night, earning a place among the Derby winners whose names are permanently recorded in greyhound racing’s honour roll.

Skywalker Logan, while not the Derby winner, arguably left the more lasting technical mark on Nottingham. During the first round of the same 2019 competition, Skywalker Logan clocked 29.05 seconds over 500 metres — a time that remains the Colwick Park track record. That run was a demonstration of raw speed under pressure: a first-round heat, under lights, against elite opposition, on a surface that happened to be in perfect condition. The 29.05 has stood for years since, untouched by any dog at any meeting, which speaks to both the quality of the run and the rarity of the conditions that produced it.

Together, Priceless Blake and Skywalker Logan defined Nottingham’s Derby era. One took the trophy. The other set the time that every dog at Colwick Park has been chasing ever since. The 2020 Derby also took place at Nottingham, though the competition was affected by pandemic-related disruptions that altered the schedule and the atmosphere. The event has since moved to other venues, but Colwick Park’s two-year tenure as the home of the Derby remains one of the defining chapters in its history.

Other Notable Greyhounds at Nottingham

Beyond the headline names, Nottingham has hosted a steady stream of notable performers whose achievements may not have reached national consciousness but whose records at Colwick Park are part of the track’s competitive DNA.

Eclipse winners, Select Stakes champions and Puppy Classic victors have all left their mark. These are the dogs that define Nottingham’s own calendar of prestige events — competitions that may not carry the prize money or the national profile of the Derby, but that attract the strongest local and regional runners and produce performances of genuine quality. The Eclipse, run over the standard 480-metre distance, has been won by dogs that went on to compete at the highest level nationally, using their Colwick Park form as a springboard to open-class events at other venues.

There are also the quiet legends — the dogs that never won a headline event but raced at Nottingham week after week, year after year, accumulating records that tell a story of consistency rather than brilliance. A dog that wins 30 races at A2 and A3 level over two seasons at Colwick Park may never feature in a newspaper column, but it has done something that most greyhounds cannot: competed at a high standard repeatedly, over a long career, without serious injury. In a sport where the welfare discussion rightly focuses on the risks of racing, these durable, healthy, successful animals represent the best-case outcome for a racing greyhound.

The legends of Colwick Park, then, are not limited to the names that headline this article. They include every dog that has pushed the track record close, every Eclipse winner that announced itself on a Friday evening, and every consistent performer that gave Nottingham’s regular audience something to follow across months and seasons. The track’s history is written as much in routine excellence as in extraordinary moments — and both deserve recognition.