“Just five years after Brailsford took over, the British Cycling team dominated the road and track cycling events at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, where they won an astounding 60 percent of the gold medals available.
“Four years later, when the Olympic Games came to London, the Brits raised the bar as they set nine Olympic records and seven world records.
“That same year, Bradley Wiggins became the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France. The next year, his teammate Chris Froome won the race, and he would go on to win again in 2015, 2016, and 2017, giving the British team five Tour de France victories in six years.
“During the ten-year span from 2007 to 2017, British cyclists won 178 world championships and 66 Olympic or Paralympic gold medals and captured 5 Tour de France victories in what is widely regarded as the most successful run in cycling history.”
No – the Star hasn’t become a cycling website!
The piece above isn’t principally about bike racing. It is an extract from one of the biggest selling books on the planet, Atomic Habits by James Clear. It is the ultimate self improvement manual and a bloody good read.
The author is highlighting the philosophy of Sir Dave Brailsford whose methodology is attributed to – as the book claims – sparking the most successful era of British cycling in history.
Many of you will be aware of it – but for those who aren’t – Brailsford’s philosophy was just so simple in principle: ‘Incremental gains’
In other words, if you could break down a project to 100 component parts and improve each of them by just 1%, the overall improvement would be game changing.
When it came to cycling, Brailford’s attention to detail was incredible.
The fitness and diet of riders was forensically studied as never before. They were prepared to challenge established ‘norms’ and among many ideas introduced ‘warm downs’. The idea originally went down like a punctured tyre but was later acknowledged for boosting post race recovery.
The bikes were pulled apart with every part analysed and optimised, even the saddle. They took individually designed beds for the riders to every hotel to ensure the best possible rest. The bike workshops were painted white and kept surgically clean to reduce the accumulation of dust in the bike chains. The team coach was massively upgraded to ensure maximum comfort for the team between races.
And so on , and so on – and it worked
Hopefully Brailsford’s golden touch turns to poo in his new role at Manchester United.
So how does this apply to greyhound racing?
Well, if we were to run a survey on the website asking for the biggest challenges facing greyhound racing, what would you say?
Or to simplify it, what would be the top 5 issues?
I can suggest three that would appear in everyone’s top five.
- The backlog of ex-racers in trainers’ kennels.
- The lack of new owners coming into the sport
- A failure of the betting industry to adequately accommodate greyhound racing.
So what is the link to incremental gains?
Well to use the Brailsford thought process, the starting point is to see beyond the three issues and break them into dozens of smaller problems (or opportunities!).
It would be like saying to Sir Dave on his first day, ‘we only have TWO problems to stop us winning Olympic medals. The bikes are crap and the riders aren’t good enough.’
I would suggest that there are many dozens of things that could be improved in greyhound racing.
Many may seem insurmountable. Some are seemingly less important but are maybe the ‘one percenters’ that combine to make the tougher breakthroughs possible
After all, if there was one silver bullet to turn the industry around, isn’t it likely we would have thought of it already?
So here are my views of a few of greyhound racing’s issues – of varying sizes – and randomly presented:
Too much racing – too much daytime racing – too many empty traps – too many dodgy dogs – too much uncompetitive racing – too much unattractive racing – a breakdown of minor open racing – a failure to enhance and modernise Category One racing – a failure to engage a young audience – no TV network to consistently promote greyhounds – a failure to develop digital betting – a failure of many tracks to attract a live audience – failure of tracks to be visually appealing on broadcasts – a disconnect with owners – inadequate wages and conditions for kennelstaff – a lack of a training regime for kennelstaff – a failure to publish injury data – a failure to correlate injury data to track preparation– a lack of specialist vets – failure to set up an integrated national re-homing scheme – failure to promote greyhound rehoming.
There are no doubt some ‘inexcusable’ omissions, but you get the idea.
They all seem a bit onerous don’t they?
I would argue that it wouldn’t take an unimaginable leap to get the logjam moving.
So – just imagine that SIS and PGR could actually reach agreement on a combined greyhound broadcast service.
I accept that it is a biggie – and I was more hopeful a few weeks ago than I am now – but I am convinced that it remains in both of their best interests.
The first priority – by far – would be to set-up a new TV channel to drive industry income on a cost/profit share basis.
To gain maximum advantage, it would need to be innovative, offer more betting opportunities, primarily of the ‘digital’ kind which has been disgracefully neglected.
Increased betting volume would inevitably lead to an improved product and greater opportunities for owners to ‘get on’.
A TV channel would lead to an increased profile for greyhound ownership. It would also enhance open racing which might then be spread throughout the week.
There needs to be a major re-think of minor open racing because as the likes of Romford, Hove and Sheffield have found out, throwing increased prize money at it barely creates a ripple.
You would also hope that the additional TV exposure should also increase awareness for weekend racing.
An end to the media rights war would lead to a reduction in the current repetition of fixtures. That would naturally allow racing managers to make racing more competitive and offer a greater variety of race distances.
How many stayers are there currently residing in trainers’ kennels but never getting a chance to perform over their preferred distances? Racing has become so monotonous.
We also need less appearances from inconsistent/dodgy runners who ruin races as a betting opportunity.
How about some ‘lateral thinking’ in relation to welfare?
There was a time when tracks who were struggling for trainers would simply poach off a neighbour. But that doesn’t really work anymore does it?
There is a finite number of trainers that is unlikely ever to increase and as we have seen in the Kent/Sussex roundabout, nobody gains in the long run.
How long until one of the big companies says to its trainers, ‘we know you are struggling due to having a third of your racing spaces taken by retired dogs, so we will buy/rent a kennel to take some of your retired dogs.’
It is a short term respite, but the cost is easier borne by the track than the trainers. It is then up to a coordinated funded re-homing campaign to move the dogs on.
The numbers are not so daunting. Last year there were 5,899 greyhounds registered with GBGB, so two and a half years on (on average), 5,899 dogs will leave the industry.
Twenty years ago the figure was more than double that (2004-11,912).
There are over 12 million pet dogs in the UK and taking 12 years as the average lifespan, that is 1 million dogs going to a home every year. The rehoming of greyhounds doesn’t sound that daunting hearing those numbers. Only a small bit of positive PR for our greyhounds, which we know are excellent pets, should result in a queue of people wanting them as their next dog.
More owners through higher TV profiling would also mean more re-homing opportunities. We know for example, that RPGTV attracted new owners who didn’t live within 100 miles of a track.
More available greyhounds would mean less scraping of a stretched graded strength to fill a card. Racing managers could prioritise trainer-owned dogs running at the daytime meetings.
But the Brailsford approach would go further.
What else can we do to reduce greyhound numbers for rehoming?
Starting with – how do we get more races from the dogs that we already have?
That means, improved monitoring of track preparation and veterinary treatment.
Just one example of the latter. Nick Savva once reviewed his kennel’s policy on expensive hock operations costing between £5,000-£10,000 per surgery. He determined that the expensive operations were no more successful that the traditional method of immobilising and setting in a plaster cast.
It means training kennelstaff in injury detection and treatment. Training them to perform things like flexibility and stretching, something that the Star’s vet of many years, John Kohnke was particularly keen on.
It means, tracks subsidising veterinary treatment and setting aside a section of their retirement kennel purely for treatment and rehab of injured dogs.
Those freed up spaces would negate the need to poach trainers from another track.
The re-homing/treatment kennel could be rented and would no doubt attract local volunteers and be a great training venue for kennelstaff – under supervision – to learn how to correctly use laser, faradic and ultrasound equipment.
We know that many older dogs are not retired due to career ending injuries, but because of the short-medium cost of treatment and kennelling.
Subsidising treatment is cheaper and more effective than premature retirement surely?
We need to look unbiasedly at the ‘four day rule’ and see if it has actually improved welfare.
It has been in operation long enough to collect worthwhile data.
Or has it actually reduced the number of opportunities for racing so that it become virtually impossible for a dog to reach 200 races?
Let’s not kid ourselves that a greyhound will automatically be found a race every four days. Quite often the track isn’t racing on that fourth day, or there isn’t a suitable grade or seeding for it.
Now I can imagine critics of this article muttering something along the lines of ‘you are delusional mate. Where is the money supposed to come from?’
I would argue that some of the money is already there – it is just being spent badly.
What if a major promoter said to its trainers –
‘There will be no 4% increase in prize money this year. But within six months we will take all your retired dogs freeing you up to take in more racing dogs.
‘Each of our tracks is going to be on a new TV channel on at least two evenings per week and the racing office will prioritise non-trainer owned dogs’
‘We will extend the injury recovery scheme to allow greyhounds who have suffered broken hocks to return to racing without repayment of surgery costs.’
‘We will monitor and review injuries on a ‘per meeting’ basis. Every serious injury saves us £5,000.’
No – that still wouldn’t cover the bill.
So the bigger question is – who is currently covering it?
We all know the answer – the greatest contribution, by far, is from the people who can least afford it – the trainers.
Every day of the year – because dogs eat on Bank Holidays too – trainers are subsidising greyhound racing to the tune of several thousand pounds.
(At £8 per day, that’s £2,920 per dog per year)
It is not sustainable and it is only a matter of time before something goes horribly wrong.
Personally – I don’t see a complete solution to greyhound racing’s problems – but I can suggest a few incremental gains.
I am very sorry to hear that former Champion Trainer and BGRB director John Haynes is very poorly.
John has been battling with serious illness for several years, and quite frankly, isn’t winning.
He is a man for whom I have enormous respect. But for a small group that included John, Stuart Locke-Hart, John Curran, Billy King and Bob Gilling, I am not sure that there would still be a greyhound industry. Quite frankly, it would have disappeared as dividends to shareholders of a group of companies that have since hit the fan.
A greyhound man all his life, his commitment and courage as a Board director was never less than 100%.
I know that he and Donna will be in many people’s thoughts at this difficult time.
