Named after one of the superstars of greyhound racing Black Top - a Newcastle local - the race carries Group 2 status and is a feature on the calendar at the Ladbrokes Gardens track.

The first Black Top was staged in 2005 and won by the Doreen Drynan-trained Buddy Rich.

The event has attracted a number of very smart greyhounds and has been won by the likes of One Tree Hill (2007), Cindeen Shelby (2009), and local favourite Mister Twister (2017) for Jason Mackay.

Mackay won his third Black Top in 2019 when Aston Duke put up a  tenacious performance to win on a rain drenched night in Newcastle.

2020 saw the emergence of a young greyhound under the care of Kristy Sultana. Flying Ricciardo stunned everyone in the heats running 1/100th outside the track record, a week later he was equally impressive.

In 2021, French Martini backed up her phenomenal and record breaking performance in the heats with a dominant win in shocking conditions on grand final night for Peter Lagogiane.

She became the first greyhound to break 29 seconds in the heats (28.94) and then backed it up a week later to beat home the Finn pair of Zipping Kyrgios and Gatlin in the decider.

While favourite Nangar Lucy won the 2022 edition of the race for trainer Dennis Barnes. Barnes said during the week she was "no chance if she missed the kick", but thankfully she proved him wrong with a tough come-from-behind win over G1 Megastar winner Umberto after being sluggish away.

In 2021, after the heats of the Black Top, one thing was for sure ... there was speed to burn in the final.

The Michelle Lill pair More Sauce and Casual Glance both were brilliant in their all the way heat wins as was Zulu Warlord. But the star of the heats was Zipping Kyrgios who came off the leader's back to win in the best of the night, 29.24s.

More Sauce was drawn to lead in the one, but nobody was quite sure where Zipping Kyrgios would land.

As expected More Sauce led with Zulu Warlord, but the John Finn-trained Zipping Kyrgios was able to slide across, camp on the leaders then exploded on the turn and capture the Group 2.

In 2022, the heats set the stage for a scintillating final after first Gatlin, and then French Martini both lowered the track record for the 515m trip in the preliminaries.

Gatlin's run of 29.09 in the opening heat set the benchmark, before the Peter Lagogiane-prepared French Martini became the first ever greyhound to break the 29 second mark in race conditions at The Gardens, stopping the clock in 28.96.

The final (held in wet conditions) didn't reach the same lofty heights on the clock, but it was the locally-owned French Martini who claimed a deserved victory after forging to the front up the back straight and surging away for a three length triumph.