Reading Your Greyhound's Performance Lines

The graphic below is a performance line - it lists racing data for a single dog over a period of time, in this case a total of 9 races from January to March 2001. This particular performance line was taken from a company called Rosnet, which collects racing data for 28 tracks around the country. Performance lines compiled by other organizations, including the free online source Greyhound Data, may be formatted a bit differently, but the same data will be represented.

You can also see a sample of a racing program containing performance lines and an explanation of each item at the American Greyhound Track Operators Association site.

The First Line - The first line at the top lists, in order: Dog's Name; color; sex; date of birth; sire and dam's names; name of the racing owner.

A - This is the abbreviation of the name of the track. The graphic shows DB, which stands for Daytona Beach. You can see a full listing of US track abbreviations by going to the Greyhound Racing Racing Basics - Track Abbreviations page.

B - Date of the race.

C - Time of the race. A= afternoon, M= matinee, E = Evening

D - Number of the race in that day's performance. Tracks typically run between 10 and 15 races in a performance.

E - distance of race, in this case, 5/16 of a mile. This same distance can be listed as 550 yards or 1650 feet. Some tracks name each distance a different "course." At the Southland track for instance, you might have AC for Arkansas Course (which is 583 yards), RC for Razorback Course (660 yards). The 550 or 5/16 is the standard sprint distance on American tracks, starting out of the box in front and to the left of the grandstands, and making a complete loop of the track. The dogs will finish the race in front of the grandstand. There are also sometimes longer races - the 3/8 mile or 7/16 mile.

F - This lists the track condition. F = fast, M = muddy, S = slow.

G - Time, in seconds, of the winner of the race.

H - Weight of the dog in pounds at post time

J - The first number here lists the post position, usually 1 through 8. The second number lists position at the break, i.e. 7th dog out of the starting box. The third number lists the dog's position at 1/8 mile, and the fourth number is the dog's position at the top of the home stretch (exiting the last turn).

K - This lists the dog's position at the finish line and how many lengths behind the winner he or she was. If the dog was first, the lengths indicator is how far ahead he or she was of the 2nd place dog. An NS abbreviation = nose. HD = head.

L - Finishing time, in seconds, of the dog.

M - Odds on the dog at post time, i.e. the first line in the graphic shows odds of 7-1.

N - Grade of race. Grades can vary from track to track, but in general can go from A or AA to D or E. A or AA will be the best, fastest dogs at that track while D or E will be the slowest ones. M = Maiden race (for new dogs), S = Schooling race (again, for new dogs), J = (young dogs again).

O - This lists track comments on the dog's race - often it will be noted here if the dog was crowded or bumped, or how much in contention he or she was for a winning position. For a list of basic chartwriter's terms, see this listing at Greyhound Racing.com.