Lord Hesketh
Lord Hesketh used his ‘Services to the Greyhound Industry’ acceptance speech to announce a major beefing up of Towcester’s welfare commitment.
In a strong warning to the industry of the need to further confront its welfare agenda, he announced:
– A pledge to re-home all of Towcester’s ex-racers
– A plan to publish the track’s injury data
– The appointment of Clarissa Baldwin OBE as an adviser to the homing operation.
Track CEO Kevin Ackerman said: “We are aware that the prospect of revealing our injury data hasn’t gone down well with all in the industry, but we think it needs to be done. Even from our own perspective, if it transpires that our figures aren’t as good as we believe, then we need to work out why.
“If, for example, we were getting an unusually high percentage of gracilis injuries compared to another track, I would want to know why, so we could then tackle it.
“In terms of the re-homing, we have estimated that we may need to re-home 250 greyhounds per year. It is hopefully a little bit less, but we would rather err on the side of caution. We have reached agreement with the RGT and will continue to also work with Kevin Stow (Lincolnshire Greyhound Trust). We have budgeted £90,000 per year towards re-homing.”
Towcester becomes the third stadium to pledge to re-home all its ex-racers following Yarmouth and Kinsley.
