Timing is everything!
I can’t remember who coined the phrase. I think it might have been Jim Buckley. (That’s Jim Buckley the director of Debbie Does Dallas – not Pat Buckley’s brother, Jimmy, the famous Country singer.)
Anyway – even a week ago, it would have been premature to roll out a plan to return to racing.
But that all changed on Thursday. I don’t think it was any coincidence that Bojo assembled the original Dream Team of Professor Chris Witty and Sir Patrick Vallance to announce ‘stage two’ of the Covid-19 response.
Almost immediately, a string of activities and sports, announced their ongoing intentions, headed by the Premier League (what a dogs breakfast that promises to be).
Despite some comments on social media, GBGB already has a plan in place, but wasn’t about to piss off any civil servants by pre-empting Boris. I think we can expect an announcement early next week.
GBGB’s handling of a very difficult situation has been widely respected. The same can’t be said of horseracing’s governing body the BHA.
(One quote from a trainer seeking the resignation of its CEO – “the widespread view is that the BHA is more concerned with public perception than its participants – this cannot continue”)
But even assuming that dogs begin trialling within the next fortnight, we aren’t even in sight of the end of the tunnel.
It will be some time before racing resumes and even longer before the financial situation eases.
How long until betting shops re-open and at what level? The shops ultimately pay everyone’s wages and two thirds of BGRF income comes from the High Street.
Things are going to get worse before they get better.
But given the positive way in which the greyhound industry has come through the last couple of months, we’ll get there.
‘Bigger is better’ might be another Jim Buckley quote.
But is that necessarily true?
I started dealing with the Retired Greyhound Trust more than 30 years ago, when poor old David Poole was trying to do an impossible job with a budget of around £100K per year.
The arrival on the scene of Lord David Lipsey changed everything. Under his stewardship of the BGRB, retired greyhound funding increased ten fold virtually overnight.
There have been some great people involved in the RGT in the interim. For me the golden era was probably came under Ivor Stocker/Amanda Ainsworth/Peter Laurie.
But gradually the Trust head office was taken over by people who didn’t have a heritage in greyhound racing. First it was in the administration, and gradually the trustees also became an unknown bunch.
The aim was to become ‘bigger’, ‘more professional’ and ‘more modern’. The colossus that is Dogs Trust was the role model.
Volunteers who visited prospective homes were told that they needed to conform to new standards and accountability.
There needed to be more attention to verifiable accounting, correct branding (without the ‘Retired). All monies raised belong to head office, including any bucket shaking by local branches.
It all makes perfect sense. Registered charities are absolutely accountable to the Charity Commission.
But most volunteers I have dealt with over the years had only one priority, THE DOGS.
They are all too frightened to speak out for fear that they will lose the last of their funding.
I have pointed out to them, that the greyhound industry is not looking to divert one penny less than the £1.4m to retired greyhounds. It just wants to make sure that the money is spent in the right way, and that the people who spend it are accountable to the industry that generates it.
But that is in the past. I can see no way that the relationship between GT and GBGB can be fixed. The branches have a decision to make. The GT trustees have already made theirs.
I am fed up writing about Greyhound Trust. Let them go and do their thing, and become as ‘anti racing’ as they almost certainly will.
We move on.
John McGee jnr
The industry lost two popular figures in the last week with the deaths of John McGee jnr and Mike Palmer.
‘Young John’ played a huge role in his father’s success early in his career and was an excellent dog man in his own right.
I would get a call every few months which invariably began, ‘Young man, I am thinking of getting a bitch mated, what do you think?’.
The fact that he was a younger man than I always earned some brownie points, and we would spend 20 minutes putting the world to rights before tackling bloodlines.
Despite his premature death, it seems to have been a massive positive in his sometimes difficult life, that ‘Junior’ ultimately met his wife Julia and enjoyed the love of his three daughters, Fay, Jade and Jo.
Mike Palmer
I first met Mike Palmer in his Sporting Life/LBC days, though he and I were never on the same team.
I had a column in Greyhound Magazine, which was a rival to Mike’s original paper, Greyhound Owner, and as I became the Sporting Life breeding columnist, Mike jumped ship to join Racing Post (boo, hiss).
All of which went under Mike’s radar whenever I spotted him at a track or function.
“Fancy a beer?” was his normal greeting. Mike could be brilliant company, never taking life too seriously.
All of which shouldn’t detract from Mike’s ability as a fearless journalist as I was reminded by Pam Heasman’s former head man Pat Quinn this week.
Back in the early 1970s, Pam had fallen foul of the Southend management when three dogs had broken hocks in preparation trials for the Silver Salver.
Pam withdrew the rest and wanted to go on record to say so.
It was Greyhound Owner reporter Mike Palmer who ran the story and the pair were sued by the track.
“It cost £40,000 back in about 1972, and Pam paid the whole bill” said Pat. “It was a lot of money back then, but she never regretted it for a minute and appreciated Mike being prepared to expose what was going on.”
This website couldn’t operate without people being prepared to contribute for the sheer love of the game.
That was highlighted this week when Mark Pierrepont produced a stunner of a profile of Brendan Matthews and his family.
Brendan has never courted publicity but kept everyone enthralled with his observations and tales. I absolutely loved it.
Well the good news is that I have another massively popular figure prepared to share some time and great stories.
We are talking Harry ‘The Dog’ Findlay.
Over the years I have spent many occasions in Harry’s company and his passion and enthusiasm for life and dog racing never seem to run out.
I have provisionally written the first piece which is currently awaiting any updates and revisions.
His views on the future of betting are particularly interesting.
