Former greyhound and racehorse owner, professional gambler, and former promoter at Coventry, Harry Findlay believes greyhound racing should see the outbreak of Coronavirus as an opportunity to return to the sporting mainstream.
HARRY FINDLAY
He writes: “NRL Australia are playing round 2 of the Premiership behind doors using private planes or coaches for travel but surely no sport (at this stage of proceedings) is easier or safer to run behind closed doors than greyhound racing .
“With no football guaranteed for the next few months I’m sure this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for greyhound racing that must not be missed and anybody within the sport suggesting that The Derby might not or shouldn’t be run because some Irish dogs have cancelled trials and won’t be coming over are in my opinion clearly missing a trick .
“Greyhound racing is surviving by its finger tips from the money it generates from betting, and believe me if dog racing continues the Derby at Nottingham this year will be the greatest thing that’s ever happened to the sport.
“At least 100 times the money traded on last year’s Derby will be bet race by race by the night of the 3rd round. Everybody knows that Nottingham’s biggest weakness is the bad viewing and sponsors and bookmakers Starsports are tech savvy.
“They will have one man on course to return prices etc, bookmakers or a crowd are almost irrelevant. And the dogs will provide the perfect desperately needed betting product. While horse racing talks of one owner, trainer, jockey, etc for each horse – when racing behind closed doors you could easily have one person looking after half a dozen dogs.
“I didn’t even know greyhound existed the first night I went aged 15 and so many newcomers will see dog racing for the first time because of the lack of football and other live sport (The Derby will be guaranteed to be on TV when there is literally nothing else to show and absolute fortunes are being traded on every race )
“So easily hundreds of jobs within the betting industry and many out of it could be saved by greyhound racing and just as importantly Ice on Fire would have his chance to become the most famous greyhound since Mick The Miller! (Ice on Fire and Lenson Bocko being the fastest front 2 going into any Derby that I can remember)
“The No1 rule in life is ‘never look a gift horse in the mouth’and football and more recently football betting has destroyed greyhound racing.”
