Owen Patrick Smith

Owen Patrick Smith is celebrated for revolutionizing the sport of greyhound racing by inventing the mechanical lure. His contributions transformed greyhound racing from a traditional coursing event into a modern, humane, and popular spectator sport.

Greyhound racing has its roots in coursing, i.e. very fast hunting dogs known as sighthounds pursuing animals by sight (not scent) and catching them by speed.

Early greyhound racing events used a real animal for the dogs to chase, typically hares and jackrabbits. The mechanical hare, also known as the artificial hare, was invented by Owen Patrick Smith in 1912. He had altruistic ambitions and wanted the spare the real animals, while also encouraging the public to see “greyhound racing as we see horse racing”. Greyhound racing in its modern form, featuring standardized circular or oval tracks, did not become dominant until the mechanical hare had been invented.

Early life of O.P. Smith

Owen Patrick Smith was born on March 28, 1869, in Rapid City, South Dakota, USA. He was the son of a funeral parlor owner based in Memphis, Tennesse.

We do not know much about Smith´s early life, but he was known as O.P to his friends, and as a young man he worked as a barber before moving to the railroad stop town Hot Springs. Back then, many of the other towns in the region had already turned into ghost towns.

A fortune-teller had once told him that he would die while crossing water, and Smith therefore developed a fear of this. (He died on land in 1927 from a brief illness that followed a nervous breakdown.)

Before his involvement in greyhound racing, Smith worked in various roles, including as a railroad dispatcher, which helped him develop mechanical and logistical skills.

The Chamber of Commerce tasked Smith with attracting more people to Hot Springs by using sports and Smith began arranging tug-of-war events. Eventually, he also arranged a coursing meet. According to legend, he was shocked by the sound emitted by the poor animal once it was caught by a dog – but if this is true or not we do not know. Another version of the story claims that Smith was not overly bothered by the dying screams of the lure, but understood that this aspect of coursing prevented it from becoming a more socially accepted sport.

Excactly what happened remains unknown, but we do know that Smith started working on designing a mechanical lure that would replace the live lure.

Prior to Smith’s innovation, greyhound racing involved live coursing, where dogs chased live hares or rabbits. This practice was deemed inhumane and faced criticism and legal challenges. Smith recognized the need for a more humane method that could still provide the excitement of greyhound racing without these ethical concerns.

Developing the mechanical lure

In 1912, Smith invented the mechanical lure, a device that mimicked the movement of a rabbit but was driven mechanically around an enclosed track. The mechanical lure traveled along a rail inside the track, leading the greyhounds during races and ensuring a consistent and humane experience.

That is the short version of the story: “Smith invented the mechanical lure in 1912.” In reality, the problem took several years to solve and Smith worked on various prototypes before finally reaching the solution that would come to revolutionize the world of greyhound-racing.

The first propotype created by Smith consisted of a stuffed rabit skin strapped to the back of a motorcycle. By 1907, his continued efforts had resulted in a rickety design – The Inanimate Hare Conveyor. This solution involved having a narrow gauge railway burried in a ditch and using a flat car with an overhead arm to move the lure in front of the greyhounds. It was a heavy contraption. While the hare only weighed one pound, the conveyer weighed 1,600 pounds. When moving at 40 mph, it was very difficult to stop in a safe and quick fashion.

Testing it in Salt Lake City

Smith needed a track to test drive his invention, and he built one on a salt marsh called Walker Flat, not far from Salt Lake City. It was a barebone track, described as “just a muddy oval surrounded by an unpainted board fence”.

Then, tragedy struck. Smith had been trying to make the sport less bloody, less cruel, and more palatable to a wider audience. However, when the contraption was tested with real dogs, several of them accidentally slipped into the conveyor’s rail and broke their legs. As if this was not enough, serious mechanical problems were also plaguing the device. The potential audience in Salt Lake City lost interest, and Smith moved on.

Continued mechanical problems

Instead of giving up on his invention, Smith made new attepts – in Tuscon in 1909 and in Houston in 1912. He also kept struggling with the mechanical problems, including the conveyor’s tendency to jump the rails.

A 1,600 pound car moving at 40 mph is not easy to stop. Initially, Smith believed in a solution where he would cut the electricity and the car could run into a tunnel where heavy sacks of sand had been placed on the roof. The sacks would fall onto the car, thereby stopping it. While the solution worked – the car was stopped – the sacks caused a lot of damage to the car.

At one event, the issue with stopping the car was made even worse by human error. The man responsible for turning off the electricity became so focused on the race that he forgot, so the car came into the tunnel at full speed and broke the fence of the track.

It was clear to everyone that a better solution was needed.

Successful implementation of the mechanical hare

The first really successful demonstration of the mechanical lure took place at an oval track in Emeryville (near Oakland), California, in 1919. Smith was a driving force behind the creation of this establishment – a professional dog-racing track with stands for the spectators.

In 1920, the track was torn down and a new racetrack was built, with the mechanical lure incorporated from the start. In the U.S. press of the time, the mechanical lure was dubbed “the automatic rabbit”. The first race on this new track took place on May 29, 1920.

In Emeryville, Smith had started working with two men that turned out to be highly valuable – the former cowboy Tom Keen and the nightclub owner George Sawyer. Keen was handy and it was he who helped fix the remaining mechanical problems with the conveyor. Sawyer was an excellent promoter and once the conveyor worked he knew how to reach out to people interested in contests.

The mechanical lure becomes a success in Florida

Soon after the successful use of the mechanical lure in Emeryville, Smith, Keen and Sawyer moved from California to Florida, where a real estate boom was going on. In Florida, the aviator and motorcyclist Glenn Curtiss helped them establish the Miami Kennel Club. At the time, Curtiss was developing what we today know as Hialeah, and he hoped the greyhound-racing would attract more people to this real estate development.

The first race at this new establishmen took place on March 1, 1922. It had a $60 purse and attracted over 5,000 spectators. The winner of the race was Old Rosebud.

The greyhound track at Hialeah in Florida was not open to black punters. It still attracted black gamblers, but they were forced to remain outside the fence and pass their wagers over.

The hard work to standardize greyhound-racing

Back in those days, the world of greyhound racing was rife with frauds – and a lot of the fraudsters were very cruel to the dogs. Among other things, dogs were drugged or harmed with cinders, and their toes could be cinched by rubber bands. The betting situation was also very chaotic and not transparent, as the tote board had not been invented yet.

Secure kennels

Smith was working hard to make the sport more honest and improve how the dogs were treated. He developed a new system at Hialeah, where all greyhounds had to be placed in secure kennels two hours prior to the race. They would be weighed, and if the weight was off by more than 1.5 pounds compared to the listed weight they would not be allowed in the race.

The Tote Board

Tome Keen was behind the creation of the tote board, which greatly helped make betting more transparent. The machine would tally bets for each dog, compute odds, and anncounce winners.

Better lighting

Smith installed overhead lights at the racing track in Hialeah, which ment that dog races could be held at night. This, in turn, helped attract larger working-class crowds who were busy during the day.

The mechanical lure´s impact on greyhound racing

The mechanical lure eliminated the need for live lures, making the sport more humane and more widely accepted. The mechanical lure helped gain broader public support for greyhound racing, and without it, greyhound racing would probably eventually have been deemed illegal under animal cruelty laws.

The mechanical lure also helped with the development of standardized, enclosed tracks, which made the sport safer for the dogs and more controlled for betting and spectating.
Enclosed tracks with mechanical lures became the norm, helping greyhound racing grow in popularity.

Smith capitalized on his invention by promoting greyhound racing and helping establish new tracks. His efforts laid the groundwork for the professionalization of greyhound racing, turning it into a commercial sport with well organized events and betting systems.

Legacy and recognition

Owen Patrick Smith is often referred to as one of the fathers of modern greyhound racing due to his groundbreaking invention and continous promotion of the sport. His mechanical lure remains a fundamental component of greyhound racing, ensuring its humane and regulated practice.

By the end of his life, Smith had accumulated an impressive 53 patents for greyhound-racing technology, and he had been able to see greyhound-racing expanding across the United States and the British Isles.

Smith’s contributions significantly boosted the sport’s growth, making greyhound racing a major form of entertainment and a popular betting sport in many countries. His work paved the way for further innovations in animal sports, emphasizing humane treatment and ethical standards

Smith’s legacy is celebrated within the greyhound racing community and by those who appreciate the more ethical evolution of animal sports.

Additional information

• Sursprisignly, Smith was very much against betting. He wanted greyhound-racing to be a pure spectator sport, without any gambling involved. It was the nightclub owner George Sawyer in California that finally convinced him that wagering was necessary for the sport to become popular.

• Smith worked very hard to make the sport more fair, but many other people in the world of greyhound-racing had other ideas. In 1927, the year he died, five new greyhound-racing tracks opened in Chicago under the control of less than reputable owners, including the O’Donnell Gang, the North Side Gang, and Al Capone’s Outfit. In 1952, Tom Keen was killed by a car bomb – he turned the key in his Cadillac and it triggered a dynamite explosion.

Final Thoughs

Owen Patrick Smith’s invention of the mechanical lure was a transformative moment in the history of greyhound racing. By providing a humane and ethical alternative to live coursing, Smith not only saved countless animals from harm but also ensured the sport’s survival and growth. His legacy lives on in every greyhound race, a testament to his innovation and vision for a more humane world.