Jetlane

– mukana suomalaisessa whippet- ja greyhound-racingissä!

In English

These web-pages are created by the Jetlane Greyhound team.

The Jetlane’s Greyhound team are a small group of amateurs who train whippets and greyhounds.  On these pages we will inform the reader about greyhound racing in Finland and also give information about our dogs.  Our private training area is called Jetlane Greyhound Park which is situated in Southern Finland, 65 kms north of Turku.

At our facility we currently have a gallop track which is 200 meters in length and also paddocks for the dogs to run free.

Annually we've also sponsored some contests. F.ex. KENNEL JETLANE TROPHY 2018 (280 m) FOR WHIPPETS was arranged by our kennel. Finals were at Tampere Kauppi Stadium on 28th of July 2018. Competition for dogs in grades L5 - L7. All the finalists were prized. Also Otalampi Sprint 2019 was sponsored by us.

ABOUT FINNISH WHIPPET AND GREYHOUND RACING:

In Finland whippet and greyhound racing is not yet a pretty popular sport. There is only a pretty small group of people owning and training their dogs.  Currently, it is not possible to live by breeding and training racing dogs in Finland, therefore we are all amateurs in the sport. There is only about ten different greyhound breeding kennels in our country and maybe one hundred hobbyists having one or two racing greyhounds. The amounts of whippets are bigger. Even though the numbers are currently low the level of racing is becoming better year after year.  Breeders have imported excellent ex-racers from Ireland and even now we have many siblings from such famous greyhound winners as Brett Lee and Top Honcho. You can find all Finnish dogs from the Greyhound-data on the internet.

All the racing greyhounds (and some of the whippets) belong to the Finnish Greyhound Racing Union “GRL”. You can obtain more information about GRL at: www.grl.fi The union arranges competitions on three different greyhound tracks in Finland:  Turku (Metsämäki), Tampere (Kauppi) and Haukipudas (Virpiniemi).  All of these tracks are sand covered. The whippets do race mostly under the Finnish Sighthound Union (Suomen vinttikoiraliitto, SVKL).

The racing season in Finland is quite short, from the end of April till October. During winters there are no competitions at all. In the summer time most of hobbyists travel from place to place to race their dogs.

You can enrol your dogs into Finnish competitions easily by using the internet once you have registered at the GRL webpage. For example, every Irish dog that has the right to compete in their own country can also run in Finland.

Usually our races are on Saturdays or Sundays between 14 and 17 o’clock (and the VETs start checking the dogs at 12.30).

Bitches and dogs usually run in the same starts, and the dogs are graded to different levels from 1 (top level) to 7 and the principle is to settle the dog to a start.   
 
There are 3 - 6 dogs in a start 
Dogs will start from the traps
The lure is always an inside one
They have muzzles (British or Australian model) and racing jackets (of different colours, such as the colours in Ireland) 
It’s possible to win small prizes in GRL races, but not in SVKL.
Mostly there are no betting possibilities (the only exception is the bigger GRL competitions)   
All dogs are at least 15 months old and they have to pass solo.
Annually you have to by a GRL competition licence for every dog but the owner or trainer himself does not need any licenses to take a part in competitions.

OUR SOCIETY:

We participate SVKL races but also belong to the societies named “TSGK” (Tampere District Greyhound Club), "TGK (Turku) and "EGU". Those're special societies for greyhound racers who operate under the organisation “GRL” (Finnish Greyhound Racing Union). In our official competition system there is two different dog breeds at present: greyhounds and whippets. Every season we have about ten contest days in Tampere Kauppi Track. Our nearest society "TGK" has also annually about 4 - 6 competition days, mostly on Saturdays or Sundays. All those races are arranged in Turku Metsämäki stadium. It was established in 1996. The track is situated in the middle of Metsämäki Horse stadium about 6 kilometres to north from the centre of  Turku City. The track bends are 53 m with a gradient of 11%. Racing distances are 325 m (sprint), 495 m, 560 m and 785 m (stayer).