EDITORS CHAIR – SUPPORT THE GTA????

Welfare, welfare, welfare

I am not going to bother with a dictionary definition, because it seems to me that it means whatever anyone wants it to mean.

Some might say that the betting industry regards ‘welfare’ as simply something that damages the bottom line. Possibly true, and no doubt there are mean-eyed accountants at corporate headquarters who hate signing cheques for greyhound re-homing or the RGT.

But then the best track homing scheme in Britain is at a bookmaker owned track.

It is voluntary bookmaker cash, paid into the Fund (though not by Betfair), that pays for tractors, veterinary facilities with an additional big wedge going straight to the RGT.

Whether the bookies’ contribution could be considered ‘fair’ is a debate for another day.

Welfare is also an additional cost to racecourse promoters. Again, no doubt paid grudgingly at some, but by no means all, with some of the track owners and managements among the hardest working homefinders and fund raisers at their respective venues.

Moving on. Welfare if the preferred nuclear weapon of choice with which Dogs Trust raises £90m a year.

Drowning in cash, their army of six-figured execs clearly believe that welfare extends to buildings and paintwork. Maybe forests of cobwebs or the wrong shade of pastel paint make the dogs unhappy?

Or is it because the greyhound industry is meticulously ticking off its extensive list of concerns and the PLC sized charity is struggling to find a find a way to keep having a pop (and raise money from) an ‘exploitative’ industry?

The same thing applies to the League Against Cruel Sports. They’ll soon be lobbying for funds because an owner has registered a dog with a slightly mean name.

All of which brings us to the Greyhound Trainers Association. Now they also apparently want better welfare.

So they team up with ‘the welfarists’ as the saviours of the racing greyhound and produce a submission to Government slamming the industry from which their members earn a living.

I wonder how many trainer have actually read it.

The official body representing trainers makes allegations against:

-corrupt vets who break their oaths of care by putting the demands of track owners in front of their dogs, including failing to put badly injured animals to sleep when necessary.

– racing offices using misleading comments to disguise trouble in racing

– tracks for failing to provide trained track staff

– The GBGB for a catalogue of corrupt practices including systemically ignoring cases of doping, fiddling of retirement forms, cover-ups over incidents at bookmaker owned tracks, suppressing evidence over greyhounds being put to sleep, the practice of greyhounds being put to sleep for commercial reasons, greyhounds being kept in bad kennels. . .and so it goes on.

Now why would the GTA write this crap and feed the antis with lies, lies and more damn lies.

Why would they seek to convince the welfarists that the greyhound industry is rotten to the core?

There will be no doubt in the minds of the majority of industry insiders reading this tripe that the GTA are acting like a bunch of spoiled kids, who have thrown their dummy, toys and blankets from their pram because they haven’t been able to bully their way onto the GBGB committees.

‘Let’s play the welfare card’ and we will give the ‘welfarists’ every bit of ammo to bring the sport to its knees.

Now just remind yourselves – this is the GTA, in many cases making allegations against its own members.

Can you imagine the National Union of Teachers rallying the Education Minister because too many of its members were paedos?

There may be many on the GTA committee whose greyhound knowledge exceeds my own, but in over 40 years in the business I have known many types of vets: from brilliant to incompetent, from charming to ignorant, from charitable to money obsessed, but never ever, have I met one who would roll over and be threatened or controlled by a track management.

Sure, I’ve seen cases where they’ve cocked up by allowing meetings to go ahead when the tracks weren’t safe, but I would always have excuses those errors due to incompetence, or lack of expertise. Never corruption.

As for track managements covering up race distances, I really think they have better things to do.

As for paying incompetent track staff – I can remember when track staff had no training at all. Now they go to seminars and are given an equipment budget that would arm a regiment. Any issues soon surface – excuse the pun – in veterinary reports.

Okay, we know the vets reports have their limitations, but throw us another £15m each year and we can have the vets check over each dog at the trainer’s kennel the next morning too.

Corruption at the GBGB? By whom? Who would benefit? How would it possibly help the industry to lose its UKAS accreditation?

Or maybe UKAS are part of the conspiracy? Or is it the people who monitor UKAS? Love a conspiracy, the GTA.

No, my biggest concern is the trainers themselves. Greyhound racing has been engaged in an 80 year struggle to remove bad apples from the barrel.

Trainers come and go, and the odd one will survive until they are thrown out.

Shouldn’t it be the GTA’s job to defend the bad, or bruised, apples in the same way a defense lawyer defends his client? At least until a conviction in proven! Instead they are at the front of the lynch party.

Which moves us onto kennels – the latest juicy prize by which Dogs Trust are trying to justify themselves.

(Personally, I would prefer that they spent more of their time and huge resources homing all the Staffy crosses sitting on the RSPCA death row.)

Now we have a situation whereby the industry is desperately trying to channel money to help trainers raise kennel standards.

There are many nearly as old as greyhound racing itself, though as an industry, we pride ourselves more on the condition of our dogs than our properties.

I wonder how many family pets or Dogs Trust inhabitants are checked by a vet probably four times a week?

Of course, a badly stretched Fund, with its commitments to vets, doping control, prize money, RGT etc, has very little left over.

Despite having already given trainers grants of more than £1m, I can foresee some trainers kennels as falling below new standards likely to be introduced within two years.

The dogs might be fit, healthy, well fed and well loved, but Dogs Trust and the GTA can take great delight when the kennels are shut down.