HOLLYWOOD, FLA. -- The most remarkable four-legged athlete in America isn't a horse. It's P's Rambling -- the fastest dog on earth.
Even though he has been racing in the major leagues of the sport for only a few weeks, P's Rambling is already eliciting comparisons with the legendary greyhounds of yore.
His 18-race winning streak is the least of his achievements. Dogs who possess high speed and break explosively from the starting box often can rack up long winning streaks. But nobody has ever done it the way P's Rambling has at Hollywood Greyhound Track.
It was impressive enough when he broke a nine-year-old track record shortly after he arrived here. But in his next six races, he broke the old record every time, and last Saturday he shattered the world mark for three-eighths of a mile, one of the two most common distances in greyhound racing. His time of 36.43 seconds could beat a lot of horses at the distance.
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In a game in which margins of two or three lengths are considered authoritative, P's Rambling has won qualifying rounds for the $100,000 Hollywoodian Stakes by distances of 9, 13, 11, 18 and 15 lengths. It's not a bad set of achievements for a pooch from the sticks.
P's Rambling started his career last year in Dubuque, Iowa, a track that is somewhat the equivalent of a triple-A farm club in baseball. Promising young pups go there to see if they are ready for the majors. P's Rambling showed signs of early ability, took a shot at a stakes race in Massachusetts, fared poorly and went back to Iowa for more seasoning.
He won his last 10 races there, breaking one track record after another, and became something of a local hero. "There's an incredible degree of civic pride in this track," said general manager Roy Berger. "If we could get P's Rambling back here to race again, we'd pack the joint."
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But P's Rambling is on to bigger things than Dubuque. His owner sent him to the care of Clarence and Dolores Connick, a husband-and-wife training team who are among the best in the business, and who treat their greyhounds like family pets.
"When the dogs come in here from another track, I bend over backwards to show them that Mama loves 'em," Dolores Connick said. "Whenever they run, win or lose, Mama gives 'em a sugar cookie. Ram loves to be loved, but he can also be a very aggressive dog. He's just got the attitude, 'I want to win.' "
Now that P's Rambling has shown such exceptional talent, the Connicks face the same types of decisions about his future racing that the trainers of top horses do. They want to manage him judiciously so that he will go to stud with a glittery record. But the scale of the two sports is utterly different. A top thoroughbred can win a few major races and be worth millions, but a champion dog has to work much harder for much less.
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P's Rambling is a bit more than 2 years old and probably has two more years of racing ahead of him. Because greyhounds can't get nationally famous through television exposure, they have to make their reputations by running at major tracks around the country. But even if he became a celebrity in Massachusetts, Arkansas, Colorado and the other centers of greyhound racing, P's Rambling might command $2,000 or $3,000 as a stud fee when he is retired. If he were syndicated, he might be worth $250,000.
But that's a long way in the future. P's Rambling may run as many as 150 more times before he is retired, and the Connicks must decide what objectives to pursue. They are debating whether they want to keep the dog running at three-eighths of a mile, or try him also at five-sixteenths -- the sport's most common distance, where he would encounter the fastest sprinting competition.
"Running five-sixteenths is a different game," Dolores Connick said, "and we don't want to take a chance and mess him up. He can't say, 'Mama, I don't want to do this,' so we have to look after his best interests. I don't want to get him beat if we can help it."
Given the chancy nature of the sport -- one slight bump or misstep can knock a dog out of contention -- all the great ones get upset once in a while. But for the time being, at least, P's Rambling looks just about as unbeatable as any four-legged athlete can be.
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