As the person who has written more about the mismanagement of UK greyhound racing drugs policy than anyone else on the planet, I am duty bound to acknowledge the giant leaps made in the last couple of years, and the latest step taken taken by GBGB at the start of the year.
There has been a big shake-up of the GBGB’s Disciplinary Committee – these are the ladies and gents who hear the stewards enquiries. I realise that there is a lot of confusion among greyhound folk, but the simplest analogy is that Paul Illingworth and his stipes are the police, Duncan Gibson is rough equivalent of the CPS, with a bit of Clerk of the Court thrown in, while the DC are the judge/jury/magistrates.
The January shake up saw Adrian Hunt, Roy Coughlan and Andrew Higgins step down and Michael Elks moves to the GRB (the people who make the rules).
The new arrivals are semi retired solicitor Robert O’Donovan, Hove owner Mike Harrod, the hugely respected former racing manager Peter O’Dowd and Dr Madeleine Campbell.
The last named is particularly interesting. She is a vet, who started out with David Poulter, served at Catford and Rye House, but is also acknowledged as an academic whose speciality is the ethical relationship between humans and animals. Infact she is a published author of ‘Animal Ethics and Us’.
I think it sends a strong signal as to the industry’s stance on welfare.
Behind the scenes and away from the limelight, there has been a huge amount of work carried out into drug assessment over the last three years in particular.
A lot of the research is Austalian and GBGB have learned a great deal, particularly from Greyhound Racing Victoria. The combination of more sophisticated testing techniques backed up by an extensive catalogue of admin studies have meant expotential growth of international understanding of the effects of a wide variety of drugs on greyhounds.
I understand that there have been a few shocks along the way. Perhaps the greatest has been an acknowledgement of an ignorance of detection duration. Basically, it seems likely that there have been hundreds of miscarriages of justice over the years.
Trainers said they stopped administering a particular drug on day X, the NGRC/GBGB ‘expert’ accused them of lying and fined them, took away their licenses or simply labeled them as drug cheats.
The most famous villain was Meloxicam which could stay in the system for many weeks on end – but not according to the old NGRC. But there are many others that don’t fit the traditional ‘one size fits all’ rule on the administration of drugs.
There is also an acceptance that the detection of the presence of a drug in a greyhound is not enough to conclude that a trainer was either dishonest, or complacent in the drug being there. In the case of cocaine, it is now prevalent in societly. A recent study of 100 Irish banknotes apparently detected cocaine on every single one.
At one stage, trainers were scratching their heads about pentobarbital positives. It is the classic ‘food chain’ positive and was the reason that trainers were told not to feed knacker meat. It now seems that it can also be traced through biscuit that has been made from rendered protein.
How many trainers were hammered for food chain positives when every ounce of evidence suggested there was no possible reason for administering the drug?
I understand that the latest study concerns Ketoprofen, which apparently isn’t even tested for in human consumption meat. So you could potentially be censured for meat bought at a supermarket.
I would suggest that the increasing sophistication of detection means we need to consider our stance on the ‘holy grail of all cliches’. The one phrase that will always drag this industry down until we remove it from our thinking is ‘drugs free sport’.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A DRUGS FREE SPORT.
Yes – I can see it has a lovely ring to it, something to put a smile on the faces or a welfarist, anti or thick politician – but as I have bleated on about in the past, substitute medicine for drugs and it becomes idiosyncratic.
Which is why this infinitely more sophisticated testing is vital. When a dog tests positive now, the stewards can be told, with some certainty, the precise level of the drug detected, which will help determine the chances of contamination, and a very accurate window as to when the drug/medicine was administered.
Does this mean the end of drug issues? Certainly not.
There will always be trainers trying to cheat or cut corners, and blaming other people. Nobody wants to see greyhounds running on performance affecting drugs or with pain masking.
Ireland still has a significant issue with steroids. Although the current IGB has dramatically raised its game on welfare generally and is also liasing with GBGB and GRV, and numbers of positives are falling, the fact remains that ‘point of entry’ testing is still costing the UK greyhound racing in the region of £200K per year.
It is only there because it is still deemed to be necessary.
And yes, it is the reason that many UK trainers don’t enter dogs in Irish races. Something about a level playing field. A real reason or a good excuse for not getting their arses kicked? You decide. But as in any form of cheating, the innocent Irish trainers risk being labeled along with the guilty ones.
Looking at the overall subject – the improved testing and understanding of drugs and their effect on greyhounds makes it infinitely easier for the stewards to judge each case on its merits and adjust the punishment – if any – much more effectively.
The lesson to take from all this? If trainer A and trainer B both appear before the stewards for detection of exactly the same drug on the same day, and one receives a warning and the other is warned off, you can be absolutely certain that justice is being done.
Read between the lines.
As some of our Twitter followers may have picked up, we recently passed the 12K ‘individual active user’ rec0rd in a single week.
What I find particularly interesting is that Google Analytics also give a breakdown of where the readers are from.
The figures for this week are 84.5% from Britain, 7.8% from Ireland (that was 12% the previous week when we ran a Graham Holland column), 3.4% USA, 0.8% Australia.
Which left the remainder from a mix of individual users: 39 Spain, 37 New Zealand, 22 Thailand, 15 Germany, 14 Canada, 11 France, 11 South Africa, 10 Brazil, 10 Sweden, 9 Greece, 8 Norway, 7 India, 5 Pakistan, 4 Poland, 4 Portugal, 3 Sri Lanka, 2 Chile, 2 China, 2 Iceland, 1 Botswana, 1 Italy, 1 Malaysia, 1 Japan, 1 Mexico, 1 Nigeria, 1 Ukraine.
Which leads me onto an excellent Facebook Group called Your Greyhound’s History.
Given the profile of the Star, we receive many requests of owners of ex-racers looking for the slightest information about their pets. It is so frustrating that the industry hasn’t tackled this centrally. GBGB had a wonderful opportunity when they rebuilt their website a year or so ago. I am sure they could have done deals with tracks, track photographers, Steve Nash, RPGTV, and more to welcome new faces into the industry and show them what we do.
(I have some RPGTV footage on my phone of ‘Rushie’, winning at Towcester, and it has never failed to attract huge interest from friends and family who have never set foot on a greyhound track but suddenly look at the coach potato, lying on her back with plaited legs, as some kind of retired superstar.)
Many of the members of YGH are based in other countries and are desperate for info about their ex-racer and their families and history.
If anyone reading this is interested, I suggest you track down Clare Hadden and request to join.
No nutters!
And now, to quote Monty Python, here are the words of a loonie. .
What can I say to you lot, you inhuman bastard scum. We are coming for you, shut every filthy vile greyhound stadium down for good. you cull and kill our beautiful greys. You race them to death. Tick tock tick tock the clock is ticking, you are finished. That shit hole Belle Vue has been binned. Who next? All you evil Neanderthal scumbags racing dogs that get appalling injuries and the bolt gun, , killing them and exporting them to China choke on your stinking meal on the 25th January. You are feasting on the blood of dogs that you use, abuse and kill. I curse the whole lot of you. Karma will come for everyone of you. Reap what you sow.# You bet they die.
I wouldn’t normally give this kind of letter air time, but thought it might act as a reminder to those who think ‘the antis mean well, they are just misinformed’. Some maybe, but clearly not ‘Bernie’ the author of this message, who appears to be at the unhinged end of the spectrum.
So try not to choke on your Royal Lancaster dinner on Sunday night. And remember, on a nearby pavement, one poor protestor will always be a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic.
Thanks to former Hall Green/Coventry/Wimbledon racing manager Simon Harris who was in touch following last week’s piece about Christine Keeler and the Profumo Affair.
Simon, who is a website regular writes: “Re Mandy Rice Davies (real name Marilyn Davies). Her father Ron Davies was a Hall Green regular (the family lived in Solihull) and a serious punter who attended most meetings and trial sessions and was a very very good form judge. Ron was a smashing bloke, and on occasions in later years Mandy would come to Hall Green with him.”
Finally – an unusual one for you from Urban Explorers.
The film is self explanatory if you stick with it. The greyhound connection can be found at around the five and a half minute mark. . .
