Woodlands Greyhound Racing
The Woodlands is located on 400 acres of land in beautiful western Wyandotte County in Kansas City, Kansas. The track is a one mile dirt track that features greyhound and quarter horse racing. It is open year-round and has four restaurants.
The Woodlands' first turn diner offers a fantastic view of the track and is the perfect setting for a group of 20 or more spectators. Meanwhile, “The Starting Box” is a casual, self-service area that overlooks the beginning of the track.
The Woodlands' atrium is especially suited to simulcast patrons. This area has many television monitors tuned to various racetracks around the United States.
Racing greyhounds are also housed at The Woodlands' modern facilities. The compound also has an adoption kennel for retired greyhounds.
Getting to Woodlands Greyhound Racing
Woodlands Greyhound Racing is located at 9700 Leavenworth Road, Kansas City, Kansas, USA.
History of Woodlands Greyhound Racing
Greyhound history in Kansas goes back to the mid-nineteenth century, when farmers imported greyhounds to help control the jackrabbit population. Later in the century coursing - in which greyhounds chased live rabbits in an enclosed field - became a popular entertainment.
The first regulated greyhound coursing match in the United States was held at Cheyenne Bottoms, Kansas in 1886.
One hundred years later, in 1986, Kansas voters decided by referendum to amend the state constitution to allow pari-mutuel wagering at racetracks. The Legislature passed the Kansas Pari-mutuel Racing Act the following year.
Woodlands Greyhound Racing opened in 1989. A horse track was added to the track a couple of years later.
In December 1998, William M. Grace, a gaming and construction magnate, bought the track.
The greyhound racing industry boasts that Kansas is the home of greyhound racing. The National Greyhound Association (NGA), which operates the national registry of racing greyhounds, is located in Abilene; so is the National Greyhound Hall of Fame.
There are more than fifty greyhound breeding farms in the Kansas, and among them they produced 6,500 of the 35,800 greyhounds whelped in 1998.