If rumours coming from bookmaker circles are true, Britain’s hard pressed greyhound industry could be on the verge of receiving somewhere between £4-5m from a combination of off-shore betting receipts and BAGS streaming income.
Neither deal has been done, but behind the scenes, these two subjects are being discussed at a high level.
(Unfortunately, but understandably, nobody at this stage wants to go on record)
But one source with an ear close to the BAGS board believes the £2m from live streaming will be split between all BAGS tracks with a target of no runner going to traps for less than £40. One Northern promoter told me yesterday, “I would certainly hope that every penny from streaming would go directly into prize money and benefits for trainers”
Meanwhile, any additional revenue from the £2-£3m due to be handed over from the industry’s Gibraltar accounts will almost certainly have strings attached.
The EFRA report makes it clear that they want more funds channelled into welfare, specifically retired greyhounds.
What will that all mean for the greyhound industry going forward? Even if we reached £11m, we would still be a lot of small change short of the 2008/9 BGRF income of £13.8m.
How you benefit – as ever – might depend on where you are.
As things stand, the most lucrative contracts in the industry are dished out by Ladbrokes and Coral tracks and it is hard to imagine they will not be better off still. Indeed it is impossible to imagine that all BAGS tracks won’t benefit in some form.
The problem is though – even the extra cash won’t be enough to suddenly make greyhound racing a wealthy industry.
If every penny of the possible £3m in off-shore cash went to prize money, it would work out at around £9 per dog per race.
Is that going to change anybody’s life?
The industry will need to be brutal in its resources targeting. But there is scope to do so.
I have always argued that the industry cannot afford massive subsidies to small professional trainers with no independent income.
A GBGB employee whose job was to firefight welfare issues once explained it to me in these terms:
‘A guy has a job and two or three greyhounds and decides that he wants to make a living at it. So he gives up his job and devises a plan to rent a kennel and keep 40 dogs. Except, he soon discovers that he can’t get owners to pay kennel bills for all those dogs. So he takes on slow and cheap dogs and runs them for the prize money. The prize money doesn’t even cover running costs, standards drop, and he is in trouble.’
What the industry really needs is a finite number of ‘true’ professionals who can train volume efficiently with no loss of welfare standards and be subsidised accordingly.
It is also essential to offer continued support to the small professional or large owner/trainer kennels with some form of supplementary income from outside the greyhound industry. These guys are the lifeblood of greyhound racing.
Then we have the hobby trainers.
The hobbyists are the easiest group to sort since, In general, money is not a huge consideration in their participation. Those of us who raced on the flaps for £10 to the winner know that prize money is almost irrelevant to the smaller handler.
It is all about the hands-on involvement and the buzz of training your own dogs.
Besides, life ain’t too bad for the small guys. If greyhound racing is your hobby, with a couple of dogs, you pick up a minimum £40 for turning up at a track like Yarmouth, plus an extra £20 if you win the bottom grade on a non-BAGS meeting, plus free admission and racecard.
No – its not a fortune, but most anglers or golfers don’t get a red cent return from their hobby.
As for the ‘yes but the track is making money out of their dogs’ argument – most non-BAGS meetings make a loss and are subsidised. Fact!
The biggest problem has been that the numbers of small trainers has been falling.
Prize money will always be THE most significant factor for the big professional and owner/trainer kennels.
An extra few bob towards diesel, food, vet bills or even replacement greyhounds is desperately needed; even more so when it comes to the ‘sole income’ professionals looking to pay kennelstaff.
But the cash – assuming it arrives – will never be a game changer.
The reality is – greyhound racing needs owners. Even the once mighty GRA decided in the very early, and much more lucrative days, that they were better off selling or leasing their dogs to owners rather than footing the bills themselves. (Professional trainers certainly can’t afford to own their own dogs.) Compared to their 1950s counterparts – who were whingeing back then about low prize money – the modern owner faces a far bigger gap between prize money and kennel bills.
And – the modern owner will usually be told, ‘your dog will run at whatever morning, or afternoon, or twilight, meeting we decide (55% of all races are at BAGS meetings). Whenever you race, don’t expect help with veterinary bills and he is your problem when his career is over. BTW – you matter less than the Six-Packers! Have fun!’
The point is this – owning greyhounds is a hobby like all others and involves a straight forward equation: Is the level of enjoyment I receive worth the amount of money and aggravation that it costs? The same applies to all hobbies.
An extra £5m certainly tweaks the ‘thrill per buck’ equation. But does it go close to balancing it?
