In its centennial year, Derby Lane changes hands

Derby Lane’s fate was sealed in 2020, when dog racing was outlawed in Florida.

St. Petersburg’s grandest gambling palace has been in freefall ever since. Once the greyhounds were evicted, Derby Lane tried everything to keep the folks coming, including poker and closed-circuit horse races, and dog races from the few states where it was still legal.

Philadelphia-based Rally Acquisition Co. has purchased Derby Lane (d/b/a St. Petersburg Kennel Club Inc.).

“Rally is excited to complete the acquisition of Derby Lane,” attorney Scott Esterbook told the Catalyst. “It intends to not only to continue to build on the Club’s excellent gaming operations, it also looks forward to developing its 130 acres for the benefit of the community at large.”

He would not disclose the purchase price, nor provide a timeline.

The historic property on East Gandy Boulevard – three large buildings, a grass-landscaped oval track and acres of parking lot – is in a Coastal High Hazard area (below the elevation of a Category 1 storm surge line), which means it’s susceptible to flooding.

Babe Ruth, center, holding the winning greyhound, Racing Ramp, at St. Petersburg’s Derby Lane in 1925, the year it opened. Photo: Derby Lane Archives.

The sale comes in Derby Lane’s 100th year. Lumber baron T.L. Weaver built the greyhound track, as an amusement for winter visitors, and ran the first race Jan. 5, 1925. Until 1931, when Florida legalized parimutuel betting, gambling was illegal; Weaver “sold shares” in the dogs as a way of getting around the law.

St. Petersburg Kennel Club became Derby Lane in 1949.

“For a quarter of a century, lacking a year, greyhound racing as presented at the Kennel Club has been St. Petersburg’s major all-winter sports attraction,” Weaver declared. “We believe that greyhound racing at our plant has played a vital part in attracting thousands of visitors to the city annually – and in entertaining those visitors and the year-around residents as well.”

In the 1980s, attendance reached an all-time high at Derby Lane. Keefer, a Kansas-bred “All America” greyhound, became the all-time single season winner, with 23 winning races, and a local celebrity. In 1986 alone, $105 million was wagered at Derby Lane – a track record. As many as 10,000 visitors came to watch the hero hound run the track.

In a 2023 St. Pete Catalyst interview, Weaver relative Richard Winning, president and chairman of the board of St. Petersburg Kennel Club, said he could see the writing on the wall as early as 2003, when the Seminole Tribe of Florida opened the Hard Rock Casino in east Tampa.

That was around the time animal rights activists began making noise about how greyhound racing was cruel and inhumane to the dogs. Which ultimately led to Amendment 13, the legislative bill that told Winning he couldn’t do it any longer.

He waxed nostalgic about Derby Lane, where he’d worked since the mid 1970s.

“I miss the excitement of the race,” Winning said. “The roar of the crowd. People are just cheering, and screaming … when the greyhounds broke out of the starting box, and went into that first turn, they were doing better than 45 miles an hour.

“The whole race was done in 30 seconds – and you don’t realize how long that is until you try to stand on one leg for 30 seconds.”

Greyhounds run at up to 45 mph. A typical race around the quarter-mile oval track lasted about 30 seconds. Photo by Chip Weiner.