EDITORS CHAIR – TOO LATE TO START SPLASHING THE CASH?

Shane Warne would be thrilled with the degree of spin that Wimbledon have placed on their ‘increased prize money’ story.

But since this isn’t a forum, so not everything about greyhound racing is negative. And since we aren’t the GTA, so not everything about greyhound racing is corrupt; let’s look at what is actually happening.

The Wimbledon prize money hike is purely a business decision.

The track is short of a valuable commodity and needs to pay more to compete against other businesses.

Basic economics – the relationship between supply and demand.

To suggest the track suddenly has loads of spare cash to share with owners, borders on absurd.

Ultimately, this is a business – not a hobby.

The age old suggestion that tracks “should pay more because they can afford to pay more” belongs in the playground.

Without profit there are no greyhound tracks.

The cold reality is though – prize money hikes have recently become satisfyingly predictable – and there is no immediate likelihood of them abating.

Regular readers of the Star’s Editor’s Chair column may like to wander off and make a coffee at this stage because I have been banging on about the inevitability of this scenario for more than ten years.

You do not need a brain the size of Stephen Hawking’s to realise that from the 1940s onwards, there have been more trainers/greyhounds than the industry needed.

While the number of tracks has declined, the number of greyhounds and enthusiasts lagged behind.

On the day when Charlie Lister or Norah McEllistrim fell in love with greyhound racing, there were probably five times as many tracks as there are now.

Probably 60% were in the shadows as flapping tracks. As the NGRC venues closed at more than one a year, many of the flaps became permits and then fully licenced tracks.

The Charlie and Norah generation battled through decades of declining opportunities.

(This has nothing to do with a decline in breeding – that particular iceberg is still waiting to impact.)

Returning to the current situation – things started to change around ten years ago as BAGS needed increasing levels of wall-to-wall racing.

This demand was rising due to the need for ‘live racing’ to keep betting shops within the law for their hugely lucrative FOBT machines.

No live product – you become an unlicensed casino.

Gradually though, the decline in track numbers slowed while the demand for ‘product’ continued to rise: ‘Sunday racing’ ‘late opening’ etc etc

There is as much demand for product today, as there was 40 years ago when we had four times as many tracks.

Two eight-race meetings per week, have been replaced by as many as six meetings a week and nearly 30 races at a single track in a single day.

However, during the same period, the huge reservoir of owners and trainers was reduced to a trickle. They steadily left the industry, and due to a lack of planning from the NGRC and BGRB, were never replaced.

Don’t worry there are plenty more where they came from!

Yet the refugees from Hackney, Slough, Harringay, Rye House, Reading, Walthamstow and a dozen others have retired, died or found new homes.

While some industry commentators might consider all those closures a bad thing – they have certainly given the surviving trainers a degree of clout that they have never known before.

The days of a cocky General Manager telling a disgruntled trainer, ‘if you don’t like it, you can eff off’ have long gone.

There are trainers who, once upon a time, would never have been given a licence, but are now racing dogs in BAGS races – and the tracks are grateful to have them.

I was told recently of a trainer with two runners who does not live within 60 miles of a GBGB track, but his runners are still beamed into the betting shops.

SO – where does that leave us?

Wimbledon, like 90% of tracks, are short of dogs. They need more before they can stage BAGS meetings.

Their graded racing has been supplemented by £250 opens but that is not sustainable. This weekend, they stage two nine-race graded cards including one empty trap.

With BAGS imminent, Wimbledon have joined the arms race in opposition to any track, or their trainers, within a 90 minute strike range.

Despite the GTA rhetoric, prize money, admittedly decades in the doldrums, has increased significantly in the last two years, particularly in minor open races.

This is just another example of it.

The less transparent trainer’s bonuses have also risen too. Many tracks pay out a lot more than their prize money tables indicate.

One GM recently related a conversation with his strongest trainer. When suggesting the track would increase prize money, he was told, ‘no put it on the trainers bonus’.

Meanwhile pressure is building. Wimbledon’s prize money is still less than Swindon’s – as I gather – are their bonuses.

When Swindon recently dropped their Friday (non-BAGS) nights, it was not because they were unviable – but because they couldn’t spare the runners.

Personally, I will be amazed if Wimbledon can race three meetings per week including a BAGS fixture.

While it is quite a sobering thought that a track like Swindon can’t afford to race on a Friday night, the thought that it is no longer sustainable in a city that once had 16 tracks, is incredible.

Even more so when you consider that the decision would not be bought on by a lack of cash, as a lack of runners.

I do have a solution – but more about that another day. . . .