A post on Facebook claims that an experiment was conducted to race a cheetah against greyhounds with a picture appearing to show a cheetah sitting in the starting box while the dogs run ahead.
The post says that when the cheetah didn’t bother participating, the race coordinator explained its behaviour by saying: “A cheetah uses its speed to hunt, not to prove to dogs that it is faster and stronger.
“Don’t waste your time and energy proving your value to folks who simply don’t possess the skill set to appreciate your value and worth. Move on.”
The photo accompanying the Facebook post does not depict a real race. It was created as part of an advertising campaign for Audi, with the strapline: “Nothing to prove”.
There have been real races between greyhounds and cheetahs in the past and cheetahs certainly do race, at least some of the time.
The Romford Recorder reports that in the late 1930s, cheetah and greyhound races were put on in Romford, east London, with the first seeing the cheetah, Helen, set the 265 yard course record and win.
Future races were less successful, with the cheetahs sometimes failing to complete the distance.
There have been reports of races between cheetahs and greyhounds in China.
A 2012 study comparing the speed of cheetahs and greyhounds said: “The cheetahs used in this study were all captive bred but were regularly (2–3 times per week) run with the lure, and thus could be considered fit, but being captive bred, may never have had the motivation to run at full speed or chase live prey. It is believed that a lack of motivation rather than a lack of ability is the main reason why the cheetahs studied here did not run faster.”
Image courtesy of Mark Dumont, via Wikimedia Commons.
