Greyhound Stud Book & National Coursing Club

If your greyhound bitch is British bred, then she will already be registered with the Greyhound Stud Book, and you do not need to register her further, just the Litter. The Mating should be registered with us by the owner / agent of the Stud Dog, who will pass the litter registration papers to you.

If she is Irish then she will need to be registered with us before we can accept her litter. You can download a registration form for this – complete it, sign it and send to us with the fee and her Irish ID card (which must be up-to-date and show the correct owner’s name – if it isn’t, see below).

Confusion sometimes arises when owners have Irish greyhound bitches that have raced over here. It is important to remember that Irish greyhounds registered for GBGB racing will probably not be registered with the Greyhound Stud Book – but they must be before their litters can be registered.

(Irish dogs and bitches brought over for Coursing under NCC Rules must be registered with the NCC before their entries can be accepted)

No you don’t have to send it to Ireland. You can print off an Irish Transfer form and, providing you have it signed by the previous owner, send it to us with the fee (plus the Registration Form as in Q1 above) and we will effect the transfer at the same time as registering her with us. We will inform the ICC that she has been transferred, and send the fee to them.

We will need to see her Irish ID when she is registered with us – but if it has gone missing, then providing the missing card showed you as the owner, you can get a simple “For Breeding Purposes Only” single sheet duplicate for £8 from the ICC (00 353 52 6122611). This is quite acceptable here – but a photocopy of it isn’t, we must see the actual card.

Yes, you can. If the Mating has been registered with the ICC we will contact them and ask them to send us the Mating Certificate so that we can register it with us and send you our litter registration paperwork. We will ask you for £10 to cover registering the Mating, in addition to whatever fee the litter will cost to register. Ring us, on 01787 212381, (or email us) and give us your name, address and phone number, names of the stud dog and brood bitch and date of Mating, and explain that you want to have the litter registered with the Greyhound Stud Book.

If the Stud Dog has not been registered with us he will have to be before we can register the litter, so it is worth telling the Stud Dog’s agent that you are intending to have the litter registered here when you go to him.

Stud dog kennels in Ireland with Studs already registered with us will be able to give you our paperwork and will register the Mating direct with us.

First of all, is he/she British or Irish? Check his/her ear tattoos – the simple rule is that he is tattooed only in the right ear he is British, if in both he is Irish. We only register Irish track dogs when they are to be used for Breeding, so if you have a retired Irish racing dog your first port of call is the GBGB on 0207 822 0900, then the Irish Coursing Club on 00 353 5261 88500. If he is British then we will have him on our database – have a good look at his ear tattoo and email us with the earmark, his colour and approximate age. If you have read the earmark correctly we will be able to give you his racing name, date of birth and sire and dam – we don’t keep race history here but once you have his registered racing name you can ring the GBGB and they should be able to give you his race details.

If you or anyone you know goes on Facebook, you can join a great group called ‘Your Greyhound’s History’! The ladies there will help you find all about your retired superstar’s previous life, whether he was British or Irish bred, where he was born and brought up, info about his siblings, and possibly even find you some photos or videos of him, maybe even as a puppy!  All you need to do is post a question with a photo of your dog, and photos of his earmarks and microchip number – if you were given any info eg racing name, by the rehoming centre where you got him, add that as well.

Once you know his racing name, you can also look him up on the Greyhound Data website, which collects data on greyhounds from all over the world.

Yes, you certainly can! For welfare reasons it is far better that the ‘keeper’ of a retired greyhound is registered as its owner. By far the easiest way is to ask for the dog’s ID card when you take him home – we can then get him transferred into your ownership. You can then download a Transfer form for retired dogs from our forms page – there is no charge to have him put into your ownership, but if his ID card is missing we will ask you to pay £10 for a duplicate. We will need the signature of the previous registered owner – ideally the people you got him from will be able to get this, but if not we will write to them. It will mean you have a permanent record of your dog’s breeding – and also proof of ownership. It will also mean that if your dog is lost or stolen and subsequently found, we will be able to immediately identify him and get him returned to you.

Yes, you will be able to get the pups registered and earmarked for racing provided that you are quite clear as to which dog was the sire. Assuming he isn’t registered as a Stud Dog you will need to register him as such (using the Stud Dog Registration Form) and if he or the bitch are Irish you will also need to register them with the Stud Book first (see Q1, above) . If there is any question over the identity of the sire, we would advise you to have them DNA tested, which is fairly simple; contact us for details.

All dogs racing on British Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB) registered tracks have to be registered and earmarked. Earmarking is done automatically when your litter has been registered with the Greyhound Stud Book.

If your litter is the result of a Mating with a registered Stud Dog, then the dog’s owner/agent should have registered the Mating with us and also given you Litter Registration paperwork. Complete Form 1d (the white card) and ensure that your vet signs and stamps it having checked the pups’ details and eg whelp date, complete the Breeder’s side of the pink earmarking form and send to the Stud Book offices with the correct fee.

Once we have received it, if it is all in order we will register the litter and pass the pink form on to the GBGB who will send it to your local Earmarking Steward. He in turn will ring you to make an appointment to come and earmark.

If you have no litter paperwork contact the owner / agent of the Stud Dog and request it, and also check that he has registered the Mating.

No. Once the litter has been registered the earmarking steward will come out to them when they are between 12 and 16 weeks old and earmark them. The current ruling is that all greyhounds have to be micro-chipped before they trial on the track – for the up-to-date ruling on this contact the Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB) on 0207 822 0900.

Basically the name you choose must be unique, so if anyone else has registered that name for a dog within the last ten years you cannot have it. We operate a sounds like rule as well so that, for instance, if someone has registered the name Blueberry you cannot have Blooberry. Many words have been registered as ‘prefixes’ – ie someone has paid to have exclusive use of that word as the first word of their dogs’ names for five years, so if you inadvertently choose one of them you will be told it is not available. We work with Ireland on this – they respect prefixes we have registered and we respect prefixes they have registered.

We also do not accept names of former ‘famous greyhounds’ – eg Derby or Waterloo Cup winners – or names of famous living persons. And no rude words, no matter how you have tried to disguise them by spelling them strangely!

If you are completing the green form to name your greyhound you will see that we ask you for five possible names, to reduce the likelihood of our not being able to accept what you have asked. Please don’t start all five with the same word – otherwise if it is someone’s prefix you won’t be able to have any of them! Also, it is a waste of time giving the same name spelled differently – if one is not acceptable, the other won’t be either!

If you have any doubts as to whether a name is acceptable or not please give us a ring, any weekday between 10am and 4pm.

Yes of course you can (providing no-one else has booked that particular one). The fee is £25 for five years and that ensures that no-one else can start their dogs’ names with that word – it could be the name of your house or kennels, or another word of your choice. You can download a form to register it – but it is worth telephoning us before you send it in, to ensure that the prefix is available.

We term multiple owners ‘partners’ – and if dogs are owned by a partnership you need to add £5 x the number of partners to the basic fee. For example, if you register an Irish brood bitch that has two owners, the fee will be the usual £10, plus £5 + £5 = £20.