At midnight, the nearly century-old tradition of racing greyhounds in Florida will come to an end. The battle over greyhound racing was hard fought on both sides for decades. The first greyhound track was built in Florida in 1922, but dog racing wasn’t officially made legal until 1931. RELATED: Greyhound racing ends at BestBet in Orange Park“It was approved by the Legislature during the Great Depression as a fundraising tool for the state,” said Jack Cory, a lobbyist representing the Florida Greyhound Association. Florida remained the hub for greyhound racing for nearly a century, but animal rights groups spent decades pushing lawmakers to end the practice.