Have you ever thought how much it would cost to keep every ex-racer for the rest of its days?
Let’s assume it would cost £5 per day, per dog. That is £1,825 per year. Multiply that by say, seven years, as an average length of retirement and that comes to £12,775.
Put another way, with roughly 7,500 dogs coming in every year and a similar number passing away, it would mean an ageing population of 52,500 and an annual bill of £95.8m.
Ever thought how much it would cost to breed a greyhound population?
If we assume that the average racing career is two and a half years, it would mean we would need around 18,750 dogs.
If they cost £500 each when born, and another £1,000 to get to the track, the total cost would be a little over £28m.
On the opposite side, the betting industry probably ploughs around £40m into greyhound racing each year, via BAGS payments (around £30m we think), Fund (£7.5m), Streaming (£3m we think).
Before going further I should clarify two points.
Firstly, my statement in a recent column that the betting industry makes £237m a year from greyhound racing was seized upon by a couple of Rotties in that industry.
I quoted a figure issued by MPs, though the right honourable expense fiddlers failed to mention that that figure was gross profit, prior to tax and greyhound racing’s share of operating costs. Fair point, duly noted.
Secondly, as again observed by a bookmaker friend, ‘£40m is a lot of money, maybe the big issue is how it is being distributed throughout the industry?’ Another fair point.
Now some of the chalk monkeys would claim that they aren’t responsible for all of the racing greyhounds.
But given RPGTV and BAGS commitments, we can probably afford to knock off the 300 or so dogs racing at Mildenhall, Pelaw Grange and Shawfield.
Also, if you were breeding and retiring on an industrial scale you would make significant savings. You would also shut a few tracks to condense the product (sound familiar?).
But then, should we add in, kennel and vets bills, registration costs etc etc?
So where is this going? Well, I think it puts into context last week’s statement about LadbrokesCoral paying a percentage of internet greyhound profits into the BGRF.
Only a handful of accounts and senior execs within the Plc know how much this week’s agreement to pay 0.6% of their ‘internet winnings’ will really cost their company.
Any guesses? £500,000? £750,000?
The reality is, the company might be a High Street giant, but it is an average sized kid in the world of internet betting.
Assuming that Hills, the major independents and the worst culprits of all, Betfair, decide to pay up – having saved themselves in the region of £5m in the last five years – how much do we end up with? Around £3m?
I am certainly not being negative about the Ladbrokes Coral move, I just want to put it into perspective how much breeders on both sides of the water, owners, and trainers actually subsidise an industry to make £237m gross profit.
Personally, I think the Ladbrokes Coral decision has far greater significance because it gives greater incentive for the greyhound industry to produce a product that the bookies want and embrace.
That would include RPGTV, which already brings valuable revenue via track payments and broadcast fees. It now also brings more to the Fund. A big asset to the industry.
The next two battles are to push for the other firms to follow LadCor and to push for that rate to increase to a full one per cent. The money is there to do it.
While £3m(ish) is not a huge amount of money, it is extremely significant because while betting shop turnover continues to fall, internet betting rises by the year – and should do so for the foreseeable future.
No one is about to purge the gambling urge or un-invent the internet.
So what do you do with £3m?
The top of most lists would probably read
1) Prize money , 2) Retired greyhounds 3) Track support (guess whose list!)
But they wouldn’t be top of my agenda for various reasons. . .
First of all, £3m in extra prize money wouldn’t go very far.
This year, there will be roughly 335,000 greyhound ‘appearances’ meaning roughly £9 per runner (assuming the tracks didn’t ease back on annual increases).
Nice, but not ‘industry changing’.
For me the £3m looks destined for welfare. The first lump of it will seemingly be headed to kennel improvements.
From then on, it needs imagination right across the board.
When we sat down at the first meeting of the innovation committee and said ‘what would most encourage ownership?’ time and time again, we realised that welfare was the real issue.
Owners and trainers carry a disproportionate share of the burden for the enjoyment of owning a racer and the biggest reason to quit is the high proportion of the moral and financial responsibility of ownership.
How does an extra £9 per run compare with assistance with veterinary bills and kennel injuries? Or averting the fear of paying lengthy kennel bills, unsupported by prize money while waiting for a space in a re-homing kennel to appear?
Or compensation from injury towards a new racer? GRA were doing it 40 years ago.
When it comes to re-homing in general, it is a bottomless pit. Can we save money by being imaginative?
For example, can we extend racing careers with veterans races and more veterinary support?
Do we blame track surfaces for too many injuries when many more hounds might be kept running for longer if trainers were better equipped and trained to recognise and treat injuries?
Although I am sure that the tracks would love a lump of the £3m, sensible distribution might help them more in the long term.
Behind the scenes, many track managements give unnoticed support to their local homefinders. Many others have paid for repairs for their trainers kennels and helped with veterinary operations. Some more than others! Some are even buying dogs for their trainers.
Most have concerns about having enough runners in the future.
We are a grossly underfunded industry dependent on enthusiasm and goodwill to survive. Every extra penny of revenue needs to be wisely spent – surely something that all sides can agree on?
