What single issue goes under the ‘welfare radar’ more often than any other? I would argue that it is ‘incorrect seeding’.
Whether it is the ‘bang railer’ who swerves left at the boxes, or, far worse the inside runner who can’t hold his line at the bend, the outcomes are the same. Ruined races and injuries. Often bad ones.
The worse thing is – these incidents can be avoided or reduced.
Or can they?
Now this is a different type of editorial. Instead of airing an idea and coming to a conclusion, I want to throw this discussion out to the readers.
As a result, there will be all kinds of thoughts, opinions and theories. By definition, they can’t all be right, since some are opposing viewpoints. At no point is Greyhound Star taking any stance of this, we are simply airing the debate.
This is a starting point, which hopefully you the readers will feel compelled to challenge and add to.
Any views you have, please send to [email protected], and I will attempt to compile and reproduce some of them in a future article.
History – the seeding of greyhounds has always been a divisive issue.
‘Old school’ thinking was that it led to false champions, greyhounds who can only win when things went their own way. In fact Wimbledon’s Con Stevens was so against seeding that he held out until ordered to introduce it following an NGRC rule change.
As you may have read in our recent Derby feature – it was introduced, scrapped and re-introduced.
The reason for it being scrapped was because the system was being abused – there is no way around saying this – by specific Irish trainers at White City who asked for wide seeds on early paced railers who didn’t stay, and hoped to benefit by first bend trouble after they had crossed to the rail.
It was only overcome by the White City racing manager taking a firm line where he thought the system was being abused.
A decade later, Peterborough racing manager Mike Middle persuaded the industry to introduce middle seeding to reduce trouble in races.
(It should be added that the same man famously submitted a trap draw for a puppy open containing six wide seeds).
In terms of historical context, it would appear relevant to the argument, that the practice of trialling runners around a new track, prior to entering in an open race, has been in huge decline for some time.
Point one – is wide seeding, a physical or mental issue?
I ask this since there are undoubtedly fewer wide runners than there were maybe ten or twenty years ago.
Why is that?
Is it because tracks have changed in their shape and preparation? Not for me, particularly since we seemed to have many more wide runners even before the tracks switched from grass to sand and started to bank their bends.
In SAVVA, I quoted Nick as predicting that track records would fall with the increase in sanded tracks which were able to be banked. Nick speculated on a full second for a standard trip and was proved to be spot on.
Personally, I think there are mental and physical reasons why some greyhounds are wide seeds.
We know, for example, as was explained many years ago by vet John Kohnke, that there are ‘right’ and ‘left’ handed greyhounds. The difference is the inclination to lead with either leg.
Maybe some greyhounds are physically not able to take such a tight turn as others and rely on taking a wide router, faster.
Is that something in the rearing? Unlikely, since you can get great versatility in a litter. Compare one of the best wide runners in training, King Sheeran, to the rest of the litter.
But before dismissing the ‘mental’ aspect, is it relevant that some greyhounds refuse to pass on one side or another?
A personal theory is that the decline of wide seeds may have something to do with breeding.
How often did we used to talk about wide runners ‘coursing the hare’? Prior to the Australian invasion of bloodlines in the early 1990s, most track greyhounds had some ‘coursing cousins’.
I am not talking about the pure coursers, I am referring to those hounds with a grand dam who would have been as successful on the field as the track. Among our champions from that background were the likes of I’m Slippy and Desert Pilot.
Not forgetting of course, the most famous of them all – Skipping Chick and Millies May.
I have already suggested that the ‘softening’ of temperament was accelerated by the Australians (Top Honcho, Brett Lee, Frightful Flash, Smooth Rumble etc) and Americans (Sand Man, Hondo Black, Kinloch Brae) whose offspring are predominantly running on ‘chase’ and not ‘kill’ instinct.
Not so hard to imagine if you consider pet dogs. They aren’t chasing the ball or stick to kill it.
Australia and America both race to inside hares where there is a natural funneling in at the bends. Dogs do get forced wide, though that appears more to do with lack of options – with possibly four dogs running abreast in an eight dog contest.
If there is a breeding angle, it would of course affect mental and physical attributes. Let us bear in mind, most racing greyhounds in Ireland are completely dominated by Australian bloodlines within three generations.
Newcastle’s Ian Walton happened to be on the phone when I raised the subject and he added another possibility.
His view was also breeding related, and certainly seemed valid.
He said: “Is it because there is less variation in running styles? There is now so much early pace, right across the grades, that the wide runners struggle to get around at the first bend.
“At Newcastle, most of our more successful wide runners don’t have early pace, and the trainers would rather run them in handicaps because they are more likely to get a clear run.
“There are some outstanding wide runners, like Dilly Dilly, but not so many.”
Two points to add to Ian’s observation. If you think of the likes of Holdem Spy or King Sheeran, who had brilliant all round pace but both lacked a yard to the bend. How often did they fail to clear their field and were then forced to the outside fence?
The railer advantage was certainly magnified over shorter distances. Who remembers the obscure ‘short four bend’ distances such as the ‘412’ at Wimbledon of the ‘415’ at Walthamstow where railers held a huge advantage.
Can anything be done to reduce trouble caused by seeding? Most of the following observations are questions, rather than solutions, but hopefully may lead to an interesting debate.
- Is the issue bigger in open racing than graded racing?
- Who should decide seeding for open race runners, the track or the trainer?
- Should tracks insist, as Peterborough did for their Derby, that every entry for a major event should have trialled over the course and distance?
- Should a greyhound be made to trial if a trainer wants to change its seeding?
- Should seeding changes be allowed throughout a competition?
- Many racing office officials believes there are ‘ultra railers’ in graded racing who will always run from trap one. Should the same thing happen in opens?
- But – all things taken into consideration – how do you explain the 1-2-6 bias in the Irish Derby compared to the 2-3-4 at Nottingham?
One final point raised by Ian Walton. In his view, if you asked most trainers which trap they would prefer for their ‘non-wide’ runners, they would probably select trap three.
If you check last year’s most prolific winning traps in 2019 from the 20 tracks racing predominantly level breaks, it is a dead heat between the white and the stripes. In fact, between them, they account for 10 of the 20 GBGB tracks, with the eleventh track, Sunderland, producing identical percentages for three and six.
Yet, when it comes to asking for a seed for open races, most trainers would opt for ‘rails’ over ‘middle’.
There are two reasons for this
- they would rather risk trap one than trap five, where so many middle seeds find themselves.
- if they are up against another early paced runner, they would rather be drawn on the inside of it.
Which leads to our final two questions.
- If trainers can’t be trusted to seed honestly, should the decision be taken away from them?
- Unless it is properly policed, is there any real benefit to having middle seeding?
Over to you guys.
The SAVVA story has been concluded but I thought I would hold over a couple of pictures for this editorial.
Some of you may recognise the top photo that we used in the review. It was taken at Westmead and shows Westmead Harry at home in his favourite environment. Below it, is a picture taken after Harry had won the Select Stakes. I have cropped out the rest, just to concentrate on Harry himself.
So why two photos of West
It follows a post on the Your Greyhound History site of Facebook where a large percentage of the members are people who have adopted greyhounds as pets but have had little interaction with the racing side of the industry.
I have mentioned YGH before as a brilliant bridge for connecting retired hounds and their past and I recommend you check it out.
One particular lady wrote about her pet who is particularly nervous and assumed ‘it was because he was abused as a racer’. I don’t blame the well meaning owner for that view. If you listen to the antis, ‘it’s what we do’
I responded to the lady’s observation and explained that while possible, it seemed unlikely. The most probable explanation was that the particular dog was just born that way.
That view was backed up by a load of people with ‘hands on’ knowledge of hounds. I thought Livi Noble expressed it brilliantly describing the boldest and most timid bitches she had handled, and they turned out to be litter sisters.
Well, I don’t think that you need to be an animal behaviour expert to speculate, from the picture, that Harry was probably the most nervous Westmead ever handled by Nick.
He wasn’t mishandled or beaten. He was just ‘different’. A spook!
It happens.
In fact, if you are looking to understand the difference between blind ignorance and understanding animals it is the idea that any unhappy animal will perform to the best of its ability. Or indeed, perform at all!
Harry was happy in his own environment, but not necessarily out in public. Rather like a nervous performer who feels safe on stage, Harry was quite comfortable when he was on the track.
An unhappy racer doesn’t get to be Greyhound of the Year.
Which leads me onto a pic that didn’t make the book. This is Westmead Odd.
By I’m Slippy out of Westmead Move, he would have been worth his weight in precious metals when he was born. In fact, he was from a brilliant litter of four which included Westmead Chick, Hazzard and Mystic.
The 37 kilo Odd was a decent open racer himself.
Which all leads to the question – what would have happened to an Odd character that was born into the show world?
He wouldn’t need to be ‘cosmetically challenged’, perhaps just have the wrong eye colour? Or alternately one of the thousands of physically or mentally muted in-bred freaks that the Kennel Club sweeps under the carpet.
Over to you antis. . . .
