Famous greyhounds in history: notable dogs across the centuries

Part 1

Ancient roots: greyhounds in Egypt

If you have ever wondered how far back a dog's story can be traced, greyhounds take you further than most breeds. The inscription for Abutiu described him as a Tesem hound, lightly built with erect ears and a curly tail, much like a greyhound. These dogs appear hunting gazelle and other prey alongside their owners in Old Kingdom tomb paintings. The Tesem type also appears in predynastic depictions, making it one of the oldest dog types with a continuous image record in Egypt. You can still see that same basic shape, a light frame built for the chase, when you look at greyhounds today.

Abutiu, an ancient sighthound, died before 2280 BC during Egypt's Sixth Dynasty. An inscription discovered by archaeologist George Reisner in October 1935 records that a pharaoh ordered an elaborate ceremonial burial for Abutiu, complete with a coffin from the royal treasury, fine linen, and incense. The text names Abutiu as a Tesem, described the same way as other greyhound-like sighthounds of the period: lightly built, with erect ears and a curly tail. Neither Abutiu's tomb nor his mummy has ever been found, and only the inscribed stone survives, now held in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Egyptian dogs were often given individual names, and more than seventy have been translated from collars, stelae, and tomb reliefs, including names like Brave One and North-Wind. Dogs in ancient Egypt were also linked to Anubis, the jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife. One noble at Giza even had his own dog shown holding the leash in his tomb chapel, presented as a companion rather than a mere possession. If your own dog ever tugs you along on a walk, it is worth remembering that dogs and their leashes have been pictured together for thousands of years.

• Abutiu died before 2280 BC and is one of the earliest domestic animals whose name has survived.
• The stone recording his burial was found in Giza's Western Cemetery in October 1935.
• He is believed to have served as a royal guard dog during Egypt's Sixth Dynasty, around 2345 to 2181 BC.

Part 2

Greyhounds in racing history

Modern greyhound racing grew out of coursing, an older sport where dogs chased live hares. The first official coursing meeting on record took place in 1776 at Swaffham in Norfolk, under rules set by the Swaffham Coursing Society. Coursing by proxy with an artificial lure was introduced at Hendon in 1876, when six greyhounds raced over a straight course chasing an artificial hare, though the idea did not catch on at the time. Track racing with a mechanical hare took hold in the United States, where Owen Patrick Smith opened the first professional dog-racing track in Emeryville, California, in 1919. The sport reached Britain in 1926, when the first British meeting was held at Belle Vue Stadium in Manchester on 24 July, in front of 1,700 spectators.

Attendance rose quickly, reaching around 16 million in 1929, and racing hit its peak just after the Second World War, when 1946 totalisator turnover reached about £196 million. You may recognise some of the names that made the sport famous in that era, since greyhounds like Mick the Miller, Ballyregan Bob, and Scurlogue Champ were covered in the mainstream press. The English Greyhound Derby, first run in 1927 at White City, became the sport's most sought-after prize, and the final once drew a crowd of 92,000.

The industry declined from the early 1960s, after the 1960 Betting and Gaming Act allowed off-course cash betting away from the tracks. Iconic venues closed one by one over the following decades, including White City in 1984, Hackney Wick in 1997, and both Wimbledon and Hall Green in 2017. By January 2025, there were 18 licensed greyhound stadiums left in the United Kingdom, down from seventy-seven tracks in the late 1940s. Welfare concerns about racing greyhounds, including injuries and what happens to dogs once their racing careers end, have shaped regulation of the sport in recent years. If you share your life with a greyhound today, that long history of speed, ceremony, and changing fortunes is part of the breed's story.