Nottingham Greyhound Stadium
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| Location | Colwick Park, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, NG2 4BE |
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| Coordinates | 52°57′00″N 1°06′40″W / 52.950°N 1.111°W |
| Owner | Nottingham Greyhound Stadium Ltd. |
| Operator | Nottingham Greyhound Stadium Ltd. |
| Capacity | 1,500 |
| Field size | 437 metres (1,434 ft) |
| Surface | Sand |
| Scoreboard | None |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 24 January 1980 |
| Renovated | 19 August 2008 |
| Expanded | 19 August 2008 |
Nottingham Greyhound Stadium is a greyhound racing track and stadium on the outskirts of Nottingham, England. It was voted ‘Central Region Racecourse of the Year’ by the British Greyhound Racing Board for 1998-1999 and 2001-2002.
Races at the course are held on Monday, Friday and Saturday evenings as well as an additional BAGS (Bookmakers’ Afternoon Greyhound Service) meeting on Tuesday mornings. The circumference of the track is 437 metres (1,434 ft).
The stadium holds several competitions annually, the most prestigious of which is the Select Stakes.
Other competitions include:
In 1970 the White City Stadium in Nottingham closed down leaving the city without greyhound racing. However members of the Severn and Trent greyhound clubs had maintained a presence in the council’s thoughts and several year’s later plans for a new track within the Nottingham horse racing course began to surface. The site of the racecourse was west of the village of Colwick and the racecourse had opened way back in 1892.
On 24 January 1980 the Colwick Park greyhound track opened, it was situated on the north side of the race course where a car parking area had stood and previous to that it had been an old bed of the River Trent. The circumference of the track was 442 metres and was described as a very good galloping track with long straights and the sand used was Worksop Grey. The Managing Director Jon Carter announced that there were over 2,000 attending the first meeting which consisted of eight races, six over 500m and two over 295m. The very first winner was a greyhound called Tartan Al trained by W Horton who won in 32.98sec at odds of 7-1.
An initial investment of £250,000 included the Panorama Room with a state of the art restaurant and totalisator. The first Racing Manager was Jim Woods, the Director of Racing was Terry Meynell and the first trainers were Bill Horton, Christine Lawlor, A Coppin, T Smith and one Charlie Lister. Another trainer that appeared on opening night was Geoff DeMulder and he joined the track in 1984. Racing took place on Monday, Thursday and Saturday evenings and the nature of the large track soon attracted some of the sports best greyhounds including Scurlogue Champ who broke the track record in October 1985 and then Ballyregan Bob who won two races at Nottingham that formed part of his world record breaking run during November 1985 & April 1986 with the first run creating a new track record. It was also in 1986 that Coventry closed resulting in the Eclipse competition finding a new home at Nottingham. In April 1989 the 'Outside Sumner' hare was replaced by the 'Bramich' and race distances were re-measured as 310, 500, 700 & 747m.
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