Derby planning

Yes  early July is too rushed but can’t see any reason why  either the last Friday in July or first Friday in August  cant work with 96 dogs.
I totally understand why the sponsors don’t want it to be behind closed doors , but, if in around 7 or 8 weeks time there is still no attendance allowed at tracks it will mean that we have had a second spike and  that would mean that you could probably kiss goodbye to October anyway.
There’s absolutely no reason why open racing can’t go ahead right now, this would allow the potential “Derby Dogs” to get match fit, yes behind closed doors to start, because of the need for sponsors these would be only one offs or Cat 3 level.
If you go for October you probably lose the Leger; as for the Irish dogs travelling it’s my understanding that there’s no restrictions, Mister O’Brien brought his horses over to Newmarket today no bother.
I’m 100% safety conscious, but apart from the sponsorship issue of the “bigger competitions” Opens should be taking place now – open racing is no different from graded when it comes to Covid 19.
As for the Irish Contenders when Paul Hennessy was on RPGTV he was asked what he would do if the English Derby and Irish Derby clashed he said that he would apply the “horses for courses” (in this case greyhounds) strategy.
I worked in Sales and Marketing for 75% plus of my working life, not just on this issue the Greyhound Industry and the powers that be need much more of a D.I.N. approach to everything that they do (stands for DO IT NOW).

Paul Gebhard

What’s in a name?

As always I greatly enjoyed your Remember When segment. The snippet about “Bugs Bunny” at Romford set my mind thinking of the longest and shortest names of greyhounds that I had seen race !
The shortest was IT at West Ham in the late Sixties, by coincidence he had been transferred from Romford,to West Ham trainer Paddy Power.
The longest ?  Well there were two.
I saw PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION race at Newport about 1959, trained by Paddy Coughlan.  And then at Park Royal, during the two years I worked for London Stadiums Ltd ’62/’63, I saw BORRISS IN OSSARY PRINCE run, he was trained by my colleague and friend Stan Gudgin.
In fact it was this greyhound’s name that caused the NGRC to, from then on, restrict names to sixteen letters and spaces.
Bob Rowe