When Mark Bird – the new Managing Director of the Greyhound Board of Great Britain – sits down at his new desk for the first time next month, three issues are likely to dominate his in-tray.
Media Rights Battle
The most pressing first item is the one in which he will have the least amount of influence, the media rights battle between ARC and SIS that threatens to split the industry in two.
So where are we now?
With just over four months until the end of the year, the only certainty appears to be uncertainty, on both sides . . . . with the exception of my recent query ‘what if Coral-Ladbrokes do a last minute deal with ARC?’ – which was met with a response of ‘I’ll pay off your mortgage if that happens mate’ from someone very close to the action.
In fact, both sides have hinted that it is the venture capitalists behind SIS who are upping the ante.
We might be months into this squabble, but there are still so many unresolved issues.
How much more racing will there actually be? How big a role will the small tracks play? How will integrity and percentages be affected? Which side will William Hill join? Will the small independent bookmakers bury the hatchet with SIS? Are we in danger of over hyping greyhound racing’s role in a much bigger war?
And perhaps, one of the most intriguing issues – mentioned previously, but not in depth – what will Towcester’s role be?
The track have been chatting to their trainers and the word on the streets is that they are still to pledge allegiance to either side.
They have few natural allies. The horserace course, who thought they would be welcomed by both the greyhound and betting industries when they ploughed a million quid into a new facility, have been shunned by both.
But now, they may have a significant role that could give them long term security.
Not only do Towcester boast the country’s strongest open race catalogue, they probably have the biggest kennel strength of any non-bookmaker owned track. They have the best quality too – as twice proven in the Track Championships.
Their natural ally, for various reasons, would appear to be ARC. Firstly, the horserace side of the business has deals with ARC through The Racing Partnership. There is also a short term deal with the same firm for their Saturday morning greyhound racing.
The fact that Towcester also had an acrimonious split with SIS in their early days concerning percentages and the number of winning favourites, should make an ARC an odds-on certainty.
BUT – it may not be that simple.
Firstly, the Greyhound Media Group dominates the ARC deal. There has been minimal contact between Towcester and GMG with some promoters seemingly resentful of the greyhound racing’s newest upstarts.
If Towcester were to join them – would they be the offered the bone and gristle of any ARC deal with the prime joints shared out among the existing GMG members?
Secondly, there is also a feeling that ARC, who only recently felt the need to even include greyhound racing as part of their plans, might not understand, or be interested in, the quality that Towcester could bring to the party. (Their horserace portfolio is more functional than flashy.)
The SIS team – appear much more greyhound savvy.
Thirdly, SIS’s need appears far greater than ARC’s. Towcester is a track with three meetings per week PLUS a significant dog surplus that (currently) allows dozens of other runners to be shipped out for inter-tracks and minor opens at several smaller tracks.
SIS are certainly not desperate, but Towcester would become a major asset for their group.
Fourthly – it is strongly rumoured that the SIS contracts are considerably more lucrative than the existing BAGS deals.
Towcester have repeatedly warned that they need to stem their losses going into 2018 or at least have a viable plan to do so.
Four SIS meetings per week @ £15K per fixture and a five year deal, would take all those headaches away.
As to how this will affect MD Bird, it is very difficult to say, though he could definitely have done without it as he seeks industry unity.
We don’t know how the open race calendar will look next year, which meetings will be televised, and which ones scrapped.
You would have thought though, that given BAGS previous support for SKY meetings, that there is surely some demand among the bookies for televised racing.
Quite how that plays out is still unknown, but Bird’s open race planning committee may get embroiled.
For the most part though, Bird like the rest of us non-combatants, can only watch and wait.
Welfare
Of all the issues in which the new MD will have to flex his muscles, welfare is at the top of the pile. Fortunately, his two years on the Greyhound Regulatory Board will give him a chance to learn the problems and formulate plans.
The greyhound industry is currently in a hole of its own making, and my observation: it is more about perception than reality.
In my experience, speak to friends outside the industry and there is a widespread assumption that most ex-racers are put to sleep. Even those with a smattering of knowledge associate racing injuries with euthanasia.
It isn’t good enough to say ‘all antis are nutters’. They are not. In fact, if I believed some of the stuff that they tell each other, I would be an ‘anti’ too.
Sure, there is an element who think that any use of animals is exploitation, from sheepdogs to guide dogs.
But when I explain the numbers to the average industry virgin, the people who eat meat, occasionally run over a mixie rabbit or know that most of the dogs in the re-homing shelter aren’t going home, they are pleasantly surprised.
I explain the numbers registered, the numbers officially re-homed by the RGT and why there is, and must inevitably be, a gap between the two.
The fact that greyhounds are the most protected of all dogs, that we have mandatory veterinary checks, forensic level dope testing, monitoring of ex-racers, detailed injury records, subsidised veterinary projects etc etc, and the usual response is ‘I had no idea!’
Precisely.
What a disgrace that we spend so much effort and money on welfare but are perceived to not give a toss!
I primarily blame the traditional promoter response – so brilliantly executed by recent GBGB staff and the NGRC personnel before them – ‘tell them nothing and hope they go away’.
They won’t.
In fact, the silence is invariably interpreted as admission of guilt. For every inconvenient truth, there are 50 incorrect assumptions – and it isn’t just the ‘nutters’, with whom we barely and reluctantly communicate.
The genuine and reasonable welfarists’ letters and phone calls are frequently ignored. No wonder they lash out in frustration.
That is absolutely not to say that welfare is ‘sorted’. Very far from it. It was by far the most passionately discussed topic at the recent innovation committee.
Welfare clearly badly needs more funding, and some fresh thinking. But being more transparent isn’t a matter of choice.
From January 2018, injury data goes public. Unless GBGB engages and explains, things could get a whole lot worse.
Mindset
How safe is Hove?
I was asked on Monday morning whether ‘the rumours are true’ that the place has been sold.
If I’d had a fiver for every time I had been questioned about Hove’s future, I would have bought the place myself.
My guess? As safe as most.
Probably!
For the time being.
The doom mongers have been looking to close the place for years, particularly after a lump of the site was sold to an insurance company more than two decades ago.
But it continues to trade profitably and is popular with the local racegoers and open race trainers.
Realistically though, there are no guarantees. As soon as Hall Green followed Wimbledon to the chopping block, the inevitable question followed – who is next in line?
Hove is just one of six or seven of the likely suspects, surrounded by developments on very expensive real estate.
You could include Peterborough, Newcastle, Shawfield. . . the owners of Henlow have been waiting for 20 years for local planners to rezone the site. John Curran has turned down several building offers for Kinsley and has guaranteed greyhound racing for his lifetime.
When you run a business that sits on between six and ten acres, and you are gradually being engulfed by the surrounding town, you ARE going to be vulnerable.
But there is another aspect to Hove, and it is as much about the paddock as the grandstand, or more precisely, the people in it.
Without being too indelicate, there are more veterans than pups.
No – it hasn’t always been the same.
While greyhounds might have a three year racing life, that equates to 60 years for a trainer. As an industry, we are disproportionately dependent on the ‘Norah McEllistrim’ generation.
This is the group who were training back in the 1960s and are near the end of their careers.
It isn’t just an ‘age thing’. There is no feeder system.
When Greyhound Star contributed to the Daily Mirror Yearbook, published in 1988, we listed 36 NGRC tracks and 58 independents.
Of those 94 tracks, there are now just 29 trading, including Mildenhall with one meeting per week.
That recycling has seen the likes of Seamus Cahill move onto Catford and Walthamstow. Tony Taylor went to Catord and Wimbledon before Hove.
In those 29 years, GBGB racing has absorbed the best of the independents: the McNairs, Jimmy Wright, Pat Rosney . . . There is no viable ‘independent circuit’ any more.
The supply artery has shut down and bar the 200 new owner trainer licences, very little has been done to remedy it.
Mark Bird’s first priority must be welfare, but his biggest priority must be survival.
For 60 years, the greyhound industry has only had one plan – to survive long enough.
Tracks needed to survive until they had secured planning permission. Walthamstow needed to survive until the second generation Chandler clan could plunder their pension fund.
Trainers needed to patch up their kennels just well enough, or change their track often enough, to see them through to retirement.
Even successful tracks like Hove seem to have formed a view, ‘just enough reinvestment to keep ticking over’.
You can forget expansion or growth.
Some of us believe that technology, primarily internet betting, is the saviour of greyhound racing. It negates the need for expensive locations or even patrons. Betting shops saved punters the two or three bus rides to watch racing. The internet saves punters the walk to the betting shop.
But unless Bird can change the sort term, ‘hanging on’ mindset and negate a seemingly terminal contraction, there won’t be an industry left to deliver.
