I WOULD like to introduce readers to a racing greyhound. Market Trustee is an 18-month-old fawn bitch in which I have an interest along with my colleague, Peter Koenig.

We have bought the dog to run it in the premier hare-coursing event, the Waterloo Cup in February.

Hare coursing will be abolished on February 18 under this government’s anti-hunting legislation. Once the biggest spectator sport in Britain, it became a victim of its own success, and when the electric hare hit Britain in the 1920s (an import from America) greyhound racing in stadiums took off and coursing in open fields began to wane. The rest is history.

I digress. The collected owners of the dog are a colourful lot and include shoe designer Emma Hope, roly-poly City PR man Piers Pottinger, bloodstock agent Charlie Gordon-Watson, racehorse trainer Charlie Egerton, the Spectator magazine’s political editor Peter Oborne and BBC business editor Jeff Randall.

Oborne is so taken with his purchase that he now growls and woofs when answering his telephone. A special dog lunch is to be held at London’s Cinnamon Club (the restaurant’s owner, Iqbal Wahab, also has a leg).

At a dinner a few years ago Oborne munched his way through a pie filled entirely with dog food and pronounced it to be very much to his liking. Pottinger says: “I think it highly likely that Peter is going to turn into a dog. Either that or he was one in a previous life.”

No picture of the dog is available at present but here is one of her co-owners — Jeff Randall. He is so enamoured with her that he sent the dog a Happy Christmas e-mail.

She had a good one, Jeff, and she will be running in a day or two. The big race is in February when this entire motley crew threaten to turn up in Southport, Lancashire, where the race is run.

Grrrrrrr. Woof, woof, as Market Trustee might say.

Buyer offers £18m for ‘Pornbroker Palace’

PORN BARON and Birmingham City Football Club boss David Sullivan is a shrewd property investor. His Birch Hall residence in – naturally – Essex cost him £7m to build and was instantly dubbed Pornbroker Palace by the Daily Mail.

But the last laugh is on Sullivan. He has just had a jaw-dropping £18m offer for the mansion and grounds, which will accelerate him ever nearer billionaire level in the next Sunday Times Rich List.

This year should be an interesting one for Sullivan. An authorised biography on him is being prepared but details are strictly under wraps.