Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
State Fair’s pig racing elicits kids’ squeals of joy
Dear Otus,
We just got back from the Arkansas State Fair and, as usual, the best thing about it was the Show Me Swine Racers. This year, our 5-yearold daughter was finally old enough to ask about where racing pigs come from and what happens to them after the races. What should I tell her? — Arthur Hoggett,
Sherwood Dear Arthur,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and I’d be more than happy to assist you in your tough-love parenting. I note you do not live on a farm in Sherwood, so it’s normal your daughter would be curious.
I’m a firm believer that honesty is the best policy when it comes to swine and children. I’ve written about the sport of swine racing in the past, but I always get a flurry of emails on the subject during the Arkansas State Fair, when untold thousands attend the pig races.
Piglet racing, the “Sport of Princes,” was officially organized in Australia in 1840 as an adjunct to the Royal Adelaide Swine Show, the oldest and most prestigious pig and hog exhibition in the world.
In the United States, pig racing became popular on small farms throughout the South and Midwest during the Great Depression, when the bottom dropped out of pork bellies market.
Suddenly faced with a surfeit of piglets, local good ol’ boys would take their favorite and fastest pigs to a homemade sawdust track down at the mill and pass the time racing them for sport and moonshine.
As the years passed, pig racing became loosely organized on a county-by-county basis with informal leagues, but it was still conducted for nothing more than bragging rights.
Then, in the late 1980s, swine racing exploded (an unfortunate metaphor) when cable TV entrepreneur “Rowdy” Ronnie Rambeaux, originally of Opelousas, La., organized the first professional pig-racing circuit in the Midwest, PORK — Pigs Organized to Race in Kansas.
Kansas, you see, was a hotbed of racing fever in the ’80s.
Rambeaux is credited with being the “Godfather of Pig Racing.” He established the now familiar format of professional pig callers, racing silks for the pigs, audience participation, local and national sponsors and the Oreo cookie for the winner.
In 1994 Rambeaux cut a deal with Turner Sports, changed the tour name to “Hell on Hooves” and the popularity of the sport soared.
The cable channel formed regional companies of pig racers that became enormous successes with legions of fans.
In 1999 there was the celebrated split between the East Coast Porkers and West Coast Swiners following the highly lucrative ($114.2 million worldwide) PorkerMania payper-view PigSlam races.
That split later gave rise to the rogue all-sow league, Gorgeous Ladies of Pork (GLOP) and the mainstream racers of PPE — Professional Porkers Entertainment.
Many pig-racing fans look back on the years between 2001 and 2005 as the glorious heyday of pig racing. There were porcine heroes and pig villains and the sport’s manufactured stars became huge fan favorites, with action figures, plush toys and millions in ancillary sales.
The iconic heroes included Hogzilla the Hulk, Pigasus, Arnold the Ziffle, Porko Rosso, and Piggley Wiggily. The villainous porkers (equally popular) were in the New Pig Order (NPO) — Spoink, Grumpig, Swinub, Piloswine and Manmoo the Mauler.
Then it all came crashing down. And there’s a local connection.
The great pig steroid/doping scandal of 2005 still resonates. The legendary Jabba the Pork, undefeated 2005 National Pig Racing Association champion out of Diamond Lakes Farms in Glenwood — and the greatest pig racer the world has ever known — was alleged to be using anabolic steroids to enhance his performance.
Although his trainer vehemently denied the accusations, Jabba lost his appeal and was banned from the sport for life. He retired to stud on his luxurious spread between Glenwood and Amity, and commenced to let himself go. At the time of his demise in 2009 Jabba weighed an embarrassing 1,858 pounds.
Jabba’s distraught owner commissioned a life-size bronze statue in his memory by renowned sculptor Vogel Schwartz, and it squats today in Little Rock’s River Market District, where thousands of visitors snap selfies with him for good luck.
And what happens to the pigs once their average eightmonth racing careers are over? The other white meat, Arthur. Everything from bacon to sausage, ham to chitterlings.
Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that your daughter really doesn’t want to know more about chitterlings.