Greyhound racing to end in Daytona Beach in March
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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (FOX 35 ORLANDO) - The Daytona Beach Racing and Card Club announced they will end live greyhound racing at their track in March 2020.
According to a news release, dog racing will officially stop on March 28.
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"Our plan is to gradually reduce the number of live races and greyhounds here at Daytona Beach before ending racing on March 28," said Fred Guzman, president and general manager of the facility. "At that point we hope to have cut our roster of active greyhounds in half."
Greyhound racing began 71 years ago in Daytona Beach, but in 2018, voters decided to ban the sport. The measure requires that all greyhound racing across Florida be phased out by Jan. 1, 2021.
Guzman said the club will begin working with the owners of the kennels that supply the track with greyhound racers to start reducing the number of active greyhounds at the facility.
According to Guzman, the club will work with Box to the Wire Greyhound Adoption Inc. to get 70 retired greyhounds a month adopted into forever homes. The adoption events are set to begin in April.
"We will always choose to do the right thing," Guzman said. "When we started to look at this, it became abundantly clear this (adoption process) would take much longer than we anticipated."
"We know it's going to take many months to adopt out our greyhounds, and we don't want to risk being in the flood of greyhounds hitting the adoption market later in the year."
The facility plans on dedicating a space to honor its dog-track history with memorabilia and artifacts collected over decades, including the 1960 Daytona 500 winner's trophy, which was sponsored by the kennel club.