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SIGHTHOUND RACING

A GREAT NEW SPORT IN FRANCE IN A SETTING OF HIGH ELEGANCE:
SIGHTHOUND RACING AT SAINT-GEMME
By Marcel Boulenger - France
In: L’Illustration #4504 29 June 1929 pp 796-797
Photographs: J. Clair-Guyot et Tournassoud

L'Illustration has already had the opportunity to discuss sighthound racing in England.
Last year, an attempt was made to acclimatize it to France, and for a time, similar
exhibitions were held in Paris. Organized for purely commercial purposes, they lacked
the patronage of qualified encouragement societies, and in an article published here on
February 25, 1928, Mr. Marcel Boulanger detailed the exact situation in our country
regarding this very special sport. He announced that a project was under consideration
to introduce it here with the same rigor as our neighbours across the Channel. This has
now been accomplished thanks to the initiative of a group bringing together the greatest
names in our aristocracy, as our distinguished contributor explains in this new article.

Left: Spate of Baron Waldner. Right: Sprint of Mr. Delares

The racing sighthound is certainly the most beautiful animal in the world. It should
not be imagined as a ridiculously thin dog of caricatured distinction: on the contrary,
it is athletically built and endowed with enormous muscles; but its completely
effaced belly, its powerful neck, yet supple like a swan's neck, its elongated nose give
it an air of extraordinary slenderness.

Contrary to a completely inexplicable and universally widespread legend, the
purebred sighthound is admirably intelligent, as well as very gentle with humans.
One could not dream of a more attached, more affectionate companion: it is only
with its own kind that it shows itself to be pugnacious and, sometimes, ferocious.