Charlie Lister OBE, the most successful greyhound trainer in 92 years of greyhound racing in Britain, is sickened not to have a single runner in next Monday’s RPGTV East Anglian Derby first round.
It is an event that he has dominated in a manner that no other trainer has ever achieved in any other significant open race competition. Starting in 1981 with Swift Band, and most recently successful with Newinn Shadow last year, Charlie has won the East Anglian Derby TWELVE times.
He said: “I took three along for trials and all three finished lame, including one with a broken hock. It will be the first time in 25 years that I haven’t had a runner in the Yarmouth Derby.
“But I am not complaining about Yarmouth, I have always chosen the tracks that I run my dogs on very carefully, and I’ve had others injured at other tracks; Bit View Knight broke a hock at Nottingham a couple of weeks ago.
“It is the worst time I can remember in all my time in dog racing and only five of my 15 open racers are able to run. I have one owner in the kennel, a really genuine decent lad called Simon Taylor who never complains. He has five dogs with me and four of them are finished. I can’t face phoning these owners up any more and telling them the bad news.
“I understand that there are people out there who are now doing tests on the tracks and hopefully that will bring some improvements but the game can’t keep going with this level of injuries.”
