Racing office stewards should be given more time to review incidents before they disqualify greyhounds for deliberate interference.

That is the view of Simon Harris, whose extensive career as a racing manager included spells at Hall Green, Wimbledon and Coventry.

He said: “Even in my time as a racing manager, you might only have had 16 or 17 minutes between races and you had to compile and send off the results and make various announcements. It simply wasn’t long enough to decide.

“I realise that stewards will review footage, but the original timescale for disqualifying dogs was laid out before we had the benefit of video replays. Given the technology, you could now announce that a dog’s performance was ‘under review’, and then go through the footage the following day.

“Think about football. At first glance you might say ‘offside’ or ‘penalty’, but after review of the video, there might be an area of doubt and the dog should get that benefit.

“It won’t affect the vast majority of disqualifications, but there are always a few open to interpretation.

“I can remember occasions when I have been with two other stewards, they have thought that a dog fought, I thought it didn’t but have been overruled. There is nothing worse than having to confront an irate owner believing that he is probably right.

“I realise it would be a little more complicated in terms of competition qualifications or trophy races, if you don’t disqualify on the night, but you could soon find a solution to that. There should also be an option for an appeal.

“Given the turnover of staff these days, how many racing manager are even told what a deliberate interference looks like? I think I was two years in the judge’s box before I was made a steward and about 12 years into the job before I was made racing manager.

Harris was famously in the Wimbledon judge’s box when Greenwood Flyer became the last greyhound to miss out on a place in the Derby Final when disqualified in the 1998 semi final.

He said: “She was trained by Patsy Byrne who was a big supporter and sponsor at Wimbledon and (senior racing manager) Bob Rowe made a nervous dash to see Patsy and explain what had happened before the announcement was made. Patsy just shrugged his shoulders and said ‘fair enough’.”

Harris believes the long held GRA decision, continued by Towcester, to prevent cleared greyhounds from contesting the Derby was wrong.

He said: “If they can run in other events, they should be able to contest the Derby in my view. For many years, GRA wouldn’t even allow any disqualified dog to race on the flat at one of their tracks again. I think it was Stephen Rea who changed that rule.

“A lot of dogs can be dodgy or quite vicious after the line but there has been nothing to stop them running in the Derby. When I was at Coventry, Barry Denby had a dog who never fought, but was lethal at the pick-up. We reached a point whereby some owners would refuse to enter dogs for a race if he was entered.

“I saw the incident at Crayford involving Savana Winner on Saturday, and then the comments from people on the forums saying she should have been disqualified.

“Not for me and Danny Rayment (racing manager) is too good a racing manager to make a mistake like that. Though I don’t think she was even ‘awkward’ to be honest. I thought she swerved across the track and looked as though she had been distracted by something. You can’t disqualify dogs for stuff like that.”

** GBGB trainers representative Pete Harnden is currently seeking support within GBGB for a review on the rules on disqualification.