flapping, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

flapping n.

also flapper

any form of racing (or racecourse), e.g. horses or dogs, that is not subject to Jockey Club or National Hunt Committee regulations or, in greyhound racing, to those of the National Greyhound Racing Club; also of the animals involved (see cite 1904).

1857		Yorks. Gaz. 13 June 11/2: Quainton, we see, has been revelling in leather-flapping and hurdle-racing latterly.
1863		Kentish Gaz. 2 June 3/3: Wye Races [...] the racing itself having been until very lately of a most ‘flapping’ description [...] A great change for the better has been effected.
1865		Manchester Courier 4 Sept. 4/5: This Week’s racing [...] At Tunbridge there was nothing but leather flapping raceing [sic], so I will pass that and the meeting at Weymouth over.
1871		Dly Southern Cross (Auckland, NZ) 22 Nov. 3/4: Every obscure village in the old country has its ‘leather flapping;’ every town in Australia its race meeting.
1885		York Herald 7 July 8/3: It was a great success, as very seldom such good horses and so many runners are seen at a flapping meeting.
1892		Wanganui Herald (NZ) 31 Aug. 2/9: Frank Palmer has done a lot of leather flapping in New South Wales, where he met with a good deal of success.
1903		Observer (NZ) 25 Apr. 14/1: Were the legislature to insist on every racing club to give a certain percentage of its stakes [...] we would probably see less of the ‘leather-flapping-brigade’ figuring on our race-courses.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 20 Apr. 4/3: [T]here was a man in Cheshire who need to run ‘flappers,’ and he always had one that was very smart.
1911		Queen 8 Apr. 581/1: In racing parlance there are three sorts of racing, ‘the flat’, ‘over the sticks’, and ‘flapping’. The first is the spring, summer, and autumn sport, the second is the winter sport of steeplechasing, and the third either form of racing which takes place neither under Jockey Club nor National Hunt regulations [OED].
1922		Western Morn. News 28 Nov. 2/5: [headline] Pony Racing ‘Flapping’ Evils Admitted.
1928		Nottingham Eve. Post 6 Feb. 5/4: [Greyhound] Tracks which refuse to comply [...] will [...] be on a par to ‘flapping’ meetings in horse-racing.
1937		R. Westerby Wide Boys Never Work (1938) 96: I’m sending you flapping with the dog, see? Over to the little track you went to with Mick here. [Ibid.] 97: And then you go off to the Flapper at what’s-it’s-name – near Nunhead.
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 183: Flappings Small race meetings.
1999		Indep. Mag. 24 July 13: Flappers are [...] race meetings not covered by the Irish Turf Club’s rules and regulations. Flappers are usually run in places formerly too poor to have a proper racecourse.

In derivatives

flapper (n.)

a racehorse lacking the quality ot race other than on such tracks.

1900

Sudney Mail 10 Feb. 346/3: Watching ‘flappers’ monotonously flap six furlongs day after day is dull work, with little in it over which to become enthusiastic.

In compounds

flapping track (n.)

a small, unlicensed racetrack for horses or dogs.

1928		Parlty Debates (UK) 551/1: Dog Racing Bill [...] What is called a flapping track — is altogether outside its control.
1948		Parlty Debates (UK) n,p,: I would like to put before the Chancellor the case I have in mind of a flapping track with an attendance of 600 on Saturday afternoons and 750 on Saturday evenings.
1958		Schwed & Wind Great Stories from World of Sports 1 242: They’d only taken six pounds each, but they stood to lose a hundred and fifty, and for them — small-time bookies at a little country flapping track — that was quite enough for one race, thank you very much.
1964		G. Nicholson Professional 134: He is, ironically, the chairman of a greyhound flapping track (i.e. one that operates outside the jurisdiction of the governing body).
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 183: Flapping track Small (and unlicensed) dog track.
1978		Observer Mag. 14 May 13: He [...] had once been a kennel boy at the old flapping track at Edmonton.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.