West Memphis, Arkansas: Southland Greyhound Park's Standouts Show Their Talent

No greyhound track in the country runs odder distances than does Southland, located in West Memphis, Arkansas. West Memphis is on the left side of the Mississippi River, directly across from Memphis, Tennessee, and one of the track's distances, the 703 yard marathon, is known as the River Course. It is on this course that Kiowa Apple Lyde recently broke the track record during the Night of Stars race, but there may have been even more excitement at Southland on May 18th when he hooked up with another speedster over the shorter Razorback Course, which is the only distance at Southland that is run elsewhere in the nation.

While the Southland marathon is only 703 yards, or about 67 yards shorter than a true 7/16ths, the standard marathon yardage in America, the Razorback route is a normal 3/8ths of a mile, measuring out at 660 yards. It is over this course that Apple Lyde, fresh off his remarkable marathon run, took on a AA field that included the gifted My Sugar Drive, a brindle female out of the fabulous Cayman Went. Kiowa Apple Lyde's daddy is WW Apple Jax, and ironically enough, Apple Jax and Cayman Went were bitter foes on the Tampa-St. Pete circuit a few years back, a rivalry that now appears to be taken up by these two offspring.

My Sugar Drive has been teasing the Southland faithful with her own attempts at track records, coming close to Okie Lynda's 36.28 mark over the 3/8ths with a 36.38 last month. Okie Lynda was as get as they come anywhere, so to be approaching anything that she was able to accomplish takes some doing. In the May 18th match-up, Sugar Drive broke out of the seven hole and Apple Lyde from the two box. Apple Lyde cleared in second place along the rail behind the early foot of the one dog, WTD Evonna, while Sugar Drive recovered from a mediocre break to settle into third as they headed around the curtain turn and down the backstretch.