Monkey Jockeys at the Canidrome

In 1940-1941 business at the Shanghai Canidrome in Frenchtown was down. Of course it was the war and navigating the streets with unfriendly Japanese around wasn’t much fun while plenty of foreigners and high rolling Chinese had gotten out of town. There were also a rash of new casinos in Frenchtown and the adjacent Badlands in the Western Roads Area to attract gamblers. Simply dogs chasing round a track after a hare wasn’t going to do it.

And so…monkey jockeys. Which genius actually came up with the idea I have no idea but once word got round town that the Canidrome was having  monkey jockeys the crowds flocked back, at least for a while till the novelty wore of. I don’t know where the monkeys came from or whether they were good jockeys but they certainly looked pretty snazzy and wicked little jockey caps. I was so happy to find this old photo of a group of well groomed monkey jockeys on their dogs I had to stick it up here. And so here are the monkey jockeys of 1940 in all their glory…