By Floyd Amphlett
Introduction
Starting today, to be continued every Tuesday, we will be running a lengthy series of articles on breeding.
Regular readers to the Greyhound Star newspaper will remember that we ran a breeding column every month until ceasing publication. That feature hasn’t transferred to website previously for three main reasons.
1) Breeding articles, particularly pedigree related items, are very time consuming. One article every couple of days is unlikely to sustain a website.
2) I was always conscious that many readers of our greatly expanded audience would be less ‘main stream’ and have little interest in such a specialised area compared to our ‘grass roots’ readers. More specifically, will I be turning off readers with a personal vanity project?
3) The sheer volume of ground to be covered is daunting. Ten articles wouldn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Will this project crash and burn? The recent couple of breeding articles have produced terrific feedback, so we’ll see how it goes. . .
Personal
A major factor in deciding to take the breeding plunge is purely personal. Among the many different aspects of this industry: racing, betting, veterinary, retirement, history, politics, and more, nothing comes close to breeding from a personal interest point of view. (Industry politics would always be last on the list.)
In fact, my fascination with breeding goes way beyond interest to something bordering on obsession.
As a kid, I would keep records of how many runners the top sires would have at the big tracks by reading my dad’s Sporting Life. Somewhere there are seconded school exercise books with figures for Monalee Champion, Newdown Heather, Spectre and the rest.
But why were they so good? I needed to know more about their breeding and background.
By 1982, I was sharing my facts and observations with Greyhound Magazine readers. By 1986, I had a weekly breeding column in The Sporting Life and in 1992, I produced a compilation of information to date in the book In The Blood.
I knew that none of this would ever make me ‘an expert’. (It is the same principle in spotting an idiot trainer – they are the ones who ‘know’ everything.).
But what I was, and still claim to be, is a breeding student. I have been blessed to spend time and pick the brains of some of the greatest greyhound breeders of all time. Many became good friends, many others are no longer with us.
I’m a good listener, have an excellent memory and meticulously record what I learn.
So if, in the coming weeks and months, you find yourself thinking, ‘who the hell does this bloke think he is making these statements?’, you can be sure, the research is solid and the original concepts and theories belong to some of the greatest names to have bred greyhounds worldwide.
So why breed?
There is a very good argument to suggest it makes no sense whatsoever.
If your aim is simply to own a greyhound to run at your local track, go and buy someone else’s failure. It will be much cheaper.
Breeding makes no financial sense; Irish breeders have been subsidising British racing for over 50 years.
But it wasn’t always so.
Go back to Aldridge Puppy and Sapling Sales for the first 30 years of the tin bunny and there was good money to be made breeding hounds of all abilities.
But from the mid-1950s onwards, the commercial British breeders dropped away leaving it to the Irish with their cheaper land, and an abundance of meat and milk.
Prior to EU farm subsidies, a litter of pups could prove an additional cash crop – and not a word to the taxman!
British racing could not survive without Irish greyhounds and never more so. When I started writing, the Irish provided 75% of our racers. These days it is closer to 90%.
Breeders have changed too. There are no commercial greyhound breeders in Britain, and only a handful in Ireland, of which the Portlaw ‘Droopys’ kennel is the biggest.
So – for the second time of asking, why breed?
No one provides a better answer than John Mullins.
He said: “There is nothing quite like it. You bring a pup into the world, watch it grow up, try to spot the special one in the litter, and then see them through to the track.
“I’ve had a little bit of luck in big races over the years, but it is a far bigger buzz when you have brought them up from a baby. Ask Rab McNair, he will tell you the same thing.”
Now John wouldn’t portray himself as being a particularly soft touch. And there is certainly nothing novel about his interest in breeding.
Mum Linda whelped down and reared two Greyhounds of the Year in Sports Promoter and Palace Issue and dozens of her Walthamstow open racers (plus a couple of top trainers) at her kennel in Mistley.
Aunt Jean Chapelle produced dozens of open racers from her kennel in Lambourn. Including the USA’s Hall Of Fame inductee Julius Caesar.
John rears three or four litters a year for other trainers. Sometimes litters were bred at his Suffolk premises, quite often they arrive at 12 weeks and leave when it is time for schooling.
He has had hundreds of success stories. One of his favourites is 2011 TV Trophy winner Knockies Hannah.
He said: “She was a bit special because I also trained her mum and dad. I remember taking her to Romford for her first open, and was just so excited to see her win her first race.”
In fact, John had reared Hannah’s sire, Maxie Rumble and sister Keltie Sparkler, from three months too – along with their various brilliant half brothers and sisters, Jack Spark, Manera Spark, Mora Star . . .
He reared the Ardrine Lunar litter that included Badabing. Then there were the Blonde Jeannie litters, or the Star Of Dromin litter that included the brilliant Jogadusc Ace and the ‘Mountjoys’
As for recent successes, there was a treble on Sunday for the Lee Field trained ‘Snooty’ treble out of Arthur, Kelsey and Bella.
John said: “I couldn’t wait to see them run. That is the attachment you get to these pups. In fact, there is another in the litter, Snooty George, who is several lengths faster than those three.”
He also has his eye on a six month old pup by Ballymac Inspeed out of Rackethall Jess.
He said: “There is something about him. He stands out from the rest. He will either be absolutely brilliant or completely hopeless, and I don’t know which.”
John rears for a small group of friends including Kevin Hutton and Patrick Janssens, but never advertises.
In fact, most litters reared in Britain are not for sale beyond the immediate kennel.
John said: “I wouldn’t just rear for anyone. If I don’t know the people, I may turn them away. Its never been about money.”
So what is the cost?
As soon as you start talking about cost of breeding and rearing, the figures don’t add up.
So John – I bring a bitch for you to whelp down and rear the litter of six pups (the average litter size is between six and seven) to schooling age, what will it cost me?
He said: “It would be £1,500 to six weeks, and then £30 per day. Probably in the region of £16K.”
Add in a stud fee and keeping the brood for the next year and the pups work out at around £3,000 each.
It makes no sense – but when did greyhound racing finances ever make sense? People breed greyhounds for the same reason they might spend £15K to win a £300 open.
Most Irish breeders expect to lose money. But they buy into the whole experience and maybe one day, they will produce ‘the special one’.
Their longing to produce champions is no different to their British counterparts. Sure, they want top dollar for the special ones, because they might help pay for the one you are buying at the sales for £800.
So why spend £3,000 on a pup?
Because there are two elements that your £800 sales buy will not deliver:
1) The journey from the whelping pen to the track that takes every aspect of ownership to a different level.
2) The odds of the £800 buyer ever owning an exposed ‘special’ racing dog are negligible.
Every greyhound pup comes with a dream!
Next week – the three fundamentals
Last week’s ARC St.Leger victory for Space Jet represents another significant success for the most successful marathon dam line of the modern era.
Jet was bred by Pat Dalton from a dam line that he had nurtured through nine generations. In fact it is the most successful Irish/American bloodline of all time.
Dam Volcano was a supreme marathon runner who set a Clonmel 790yd track record and won the €9,000 Harolds Cross Marathon (1010yds) by a distance. She was also runner-up to Golden Jacket winner White Soks Roks in the Barrys Tea 750 Final at Cork.
Her own dam was the greatest marathoner of her era, Flying Winner. Successful in the same Harolds Cross event as her daughter (when it was called the Ted Hegarty Marahon) – she won the final by 17 lengths in a new track record, she raced for Chris Lund in England and landed the 2008 Regency and TV Trophy.
Most of Winner’s family would not be known to UK and Irish readers as they raced in the USA. But Flying Winner’s grand dam Wise Plan did make an impression in Ireland as the dam of a certain Premier County. There were others too, notably Plan’s litter brother Wise Commander who broke the Thurles 570 yard clock and then became a huge prize money winner at Lincoln Rhode Island.
Trace the dam line back another four generations and we arrive at one of the ten greatest broods in the history of racing – globally – the brilliant Maythorn Pride.
HARRY FINDLAY and his family, wife Kay, daughters Jade (part owner) and Ella-Rae join the celebrations after FLYING WINNER’s success in the 835m race on Gary Baggs’ benefit night. Part owner Grant Devenish is to the left and trainer Chris Lund holds the winner. Walthamstow 5.7.08 Pic Steve Nash
