Last Sunday’s Greyhound of the Year award was always guaranteed to be a talking point.
We’ve done the ‘disqualified dogs in the Derby’ debate to death and I don’t intend to go back over old ground.
In fact, given the absolute quality shown by Dorotas Wildcat, the exemplary skill and humility of his trainer, and great sportsmanship of all connections, it is quite remarkable that a challenger could even be found.
As it transpired, my colleagues on the Greyhound Writers Association deemed that when the cards were laid, four Cat One wins (never previously achieved) by King Turbo would be trumped by an English Derby and a Cat One.
Can we reduce the decision to algebra? Remove a Cat One from each side, and we end up with the equation: 1d >3c. In other words, one English Derby is greater than three Cat One events.
Working to that equation, you can’t be Greyhound of the Year unless the Derby winner hasn’t won anything else, and you’ve won at least four Cat Ones.
Now that might be me being too mischievous. Would Turbo have collected the award if Wildcat had started at 12-1 in the Derby final and won a less prestigious Cat One than the Eclipse? (We all know that Cat One events are not all equal).
Are the Greyhound Writers the best people to vote anyway? Certainly, I was informed, with no debate beforehand, that the Greyhound of the Month awards, previously judged by the journalists, will now be determined by RPGTV viewers.
Some will applaud the decision and I can see why, given the low opinion that many owners and trainers have of greyhound ‘writers’.
(In reality there are many more RPGTV presenters than people who actually write about the dogs).
It can only be a matter of time before RPGTV takes another step towards becoming “Strictly Come Racing’ and TV viewers will decide Greyhound of the Year.
Which is all very well until 1,500 members of the Champagne Club have a serious contender.
The fact that Nottingham are to allow ‘cleared’ greyhounds to contest the Derby for the first time ever will bring a different type of pressure.
What if it all goes Pete Tong. . .?
Having been prepared to forcibly express my view on the subject, I expect to be among those blamed if it all goes wrong.
So I spent a bit of time going through the Star archives and the more you study the subject of ‘fighters’, the more you realise the absurdity of the whole concept.
As Pete Harnden noted recently, one racing manager’s ‘disq’ could be another grader’s ‘Awk’ depending on the size of the kennel strength. But there has never been anything sacrosanct about the rules on ‘fighting’ (deliberate interference).
Until 1957, all races were automatically voided if the stewards decided a dog had thought. However, mindful of the lost revenue from a void race, the Romford and Dagenham tracks had introduced a ‘first past the post’ rule which the NGRC copied. Although the fighter had his card marked, the result was unaffected in terms of bets.
GRA objected but were overruled. But they had their own (chequered) system for dealing with fighters. For a start, none of their classics (all the classics bar the Grand Prix) were open to previously disqualified dogs.
Gradually they relented though cleared runners were not allowed into the Laurels until 1994.
Despite the zero tolerance approach, the English Derby has been littered with disqualifications from the earliest days, starting with two of the three Mick The Miller finals. He won a Derby in a re-run and then lost one in similar circumstances, both due to disqualifications.
Even more controversial was the 1968 disqualification of Not Flashing for (alleged) fighting in the Derby semi finals. Prince Philip’s fourth placed Camira Flash was promoted into the final and promptly won it. Following a massive outcry, and as a direct consequence, the following year the NGRC banned the promotion of non-qualifiers into finals.
That decision inevitably came back to bite them (killer pun intended) in 1975. Derby favourite Shamrock Point was attacked by Lively Band when leading his Derby semi and eventually finishing fourth. Ger McKenna’s dog then won the consolation in a faster time than the final.
The most recent case came in 1998 when Greenwood Flyer became the only bitch to be denied a place in a Derby Final after fighting in the fastest semi final.
Since the Nottingham announcement I have seen several comments on social media along the lines of “Once a fighter . . .”
Except that view doesn’t really stack up.
Perhaps the most famous ‘double red’ in recent years was that great bitch Killeacle Phoebe. 1999 Romford Puppy Cup winner Droopys Rivero was another serial offender.
But of all the greyhounds disqualified last year, only 21 received a second disqualification from 420,000 performances.
And how do you predict a disqualification anyway?
The great open racer El Boss was disqualified for fighting at Shawfield in the 102nd race of his career, which included 42 open race wins.
Yet known villain Taylors Cruise who fought just past the line when winning both the Scottish Derby and East Anglian Derby didn’t have his card marked until the Monmore Gold Cup. He had already contested two English Derbys.
The list of great champions who have won major competitions after being disqualified earlier in their careers is too long to publish. Just about every classic – excluding the English Derby – but including two Irish Derby winners.
I will leave the subject with a story from our archives, first published in August 1981.
In a monthly newsletter the Romford racing office take a pop at their Crayford counterparts following the disqualification of pup Jama. The former Romford grader had his card marked on his first sighting of a new Sumner lure, which had been ‘decorated’ in celebration of the royal wedding. Romford sympathised that the dog “did not recognise the red, white and blue lure as a member of the hare family.”
