Abbey Stadium, Swindon

Swindon Stadium, also known as the Abbey Greyhound Stadium, is a Greyhound Board of Great Britain regulated greyhound racing track and speedway track located in Blunsdon, Swindon, England.The stadium is home to the Swindon Robins, who compete in the Elite League. Matinée races take place on Monday and Friday with evening race meetings on Wednesday and Saturday nights. The greyhound track, with a circumference of 463 metres, is one of the largest in the United Kingdom; the speedway track has a circumference of 363 meters.CompetitionsTwo annual greyhound competitions are held at the venue: The Arc and the British Bred Produce Stakes.OpeningThe stadium opened to the public on 23 July 1949 when it hosted the Swindon Robins speedway team; greyhound racing followed three years later on 1 November 1952. Swindon had already experienced two short-lived greyhound track venues, in the village of Wroughton and near the town centre in Edinburgh Street, but both had disappeared by the mid-thirties. The stadium occupied a rural setting south of Lady Lane and was named after the Blunsdon Abbey estate in Blunsdon St Andrew, a Victorian estate which had seen its main house destroyed by fire in 1904.HistoryThe track initially raced as an independent with 2,000 people attending on 1 November 1952 to watch a greyhound called Don’t Care win a 324 yard race in a time of 19.02 secs at odds of 6-1. The stadium came into the hands of the Bristol Greyhound Racing Association, owners of Oxford and Eastville (Bristol) stadiums at that time. This led to the track becoming part of the National Greyhound Racing Club during April 1968. The Silver Plume competition arrived the same year as the track's principal event. Another independent track to the northwest of Swindon opened during the sixties at Common Platt but had little effect on the business of its larger neighbour.