Like all the other trainers, I have been doing my calculations over the cost of staying in business since racing was called off.

Peter Harnden

I currently have 69 dogs in training, they are not all racing, but we still have one of the biggest kennel strength at Nottingham.

My monthly food bill alone is currently £1,800, to include meal, meat and veg. Given the GBGB grant of 50 pence per day per day, that comes to £1,069. A deficit of just over £700.

By reducing the quality of feed, I can reduce that figure by around £400, meaning there is a shortfall of just over £300.

Of course, all of that comes before we include things like bedding, electric, water, veterinary costs, the running costs of the vehicles and of course, staff.

I have taken vehicles off the road and stopped insurances but you cannot operate a kennel of that size without staff.

If I include all the other costs, including working on a skeleton staff but take cut everything to the bone, I think a ‘break even’ for me is around £3 per dog per day.

So running the kennel for the month works out at £6,417 (69 x £3 x 31). Adding together the GBGB grant and £5 per week per dog from ARC, that comes to £2,389. So basically, it is costing me four grand a month to keep the kennel going.

Many kennels are worse off than me with no other form of income and I suspect we will start to see a number of them closing down, never to re-open after the first month or so.

As a GBGB director, I have had a stream of abuse from different trainers, all pretty much with the same line, ‘if you think we can feed a dog for 50p you must be f****** mad!’

Trust me, I’m not. I know exactly how much it costs. But don’t take it out on GBGB. It is not their job to finance your kennel!

The GBGB is offering emergency welfare support. The agreement between the tracks and the trainers, and the tracks and the bookmakers, is nothing to do with GBGB.

All of which has given me some time to think about where we go from here. Where will we be in three months time? Because that is the bare minimum before we see anything returning to normal, as far as I can see.

Which tracks will actually re-open? How many trainer will still be training? How many betting shops will be open? What state will horse racing be in?

Nobody knows.

What I do know is that this should be a wake up call. We need a complete overhaul of how are kennels are financed.

If we really do love our dogs, we should do everything possible to ensure that we never have to put them through this again.

Wasn’t it great to see the videos of pups being schooled around Towcester? In a fairly bleak time, it is one of the few bright spots. In my book, it is the industry’s new Walthamstow.

Like a lot of trainers, I certainly intend to run a few dogs in opens there. It is a 40 minute trip which is quite do-able for me. But on that subject, I wonder whether this is the right time – because of the Coronavirus break – for tracks to start doing things differently when it comes to trainers traveling.

I hear so many trainers say things like, ‘I’ve got 15 dogs on the strength, but they only put three out at one meeting, four at another, and then another four, that means I have to travel three or four times to get runs for my dogs.’

That just isn’t good enough. There is so much wasted diesel and staff time because certain racing offices won’t put themselves out. They are not all like. Some racing managers try their best but the others have to be bought into line if this game is to survive – and that was before Coronavirus came into our lives.

I’ve been talking to large welfare organisation and if we have anyone in serious trouble please tell them to get in touch