“I have never re-homed any of my ex-racers. I put them all to sleep. I wouldn’t trust the public to handle them properly.”
The quote is probably 50 years old and the person who made it was Charlie Ashley.
The words were related to me recently by Yarmouth’s Stephen Franklin. The story goes that Charlie, who was a trainer at Harringay during the war years, and handler of the 1940 English Derby GR Archduke, (the only Derby Final staged at Harringay), later retired to the East Coast.
He couldn’t stay away from greyhounds and used to help out at the Yarmouth Stadium kennels which were located behind the current paddock area.
The quote might seem shocking now, but it wouldn’t have seemed so outrageous when it was made.
I bring it to light in view of the recent article with Peter Rosney and his observation that a very small minority of trainers continued to put greyhounds to sleep because ‘it is what they had always done’.
As a young White City kennel lad, I didn’t encounter too many re-homing issues since most dogs were sold onto lower grade provincial tracks while they still had some miles on the clock.
But later in their careers, many were put to sleep but for reasons that aren’t necessarily apparent in 2019.
The first reason was temperament. There is no way to back up this thought process with facts, figures and statistics, but I am 100% convinced, through observation and hands-on experience that back in the 1970s, there were many more greyhounds who couldn’t be trusted, with each other, and certainly with pet dogs.
Why and how have they changed? Theory: prior to the introduction of Australian and American bloodlines, the average Irish/British greyhound was from semi coursing stock and ‘hunted’ on killer instinct (rather than ‘chased’, in the way a pet chases a ball or stick).
They were frequently hard farm reared and grew up hunting rabbits and hares. Many, inevitably grew bored with the poor imitation as they grew older and wiser. Examples include the hugely Skipping Chick or Lady Hunter dam lines, which could be found on either track or coursing field. Or the ‘Smokey’s, or the ‘Tenders’ or Matt O’Donnell’s ‘The Other’ bloodlines.
The breed didn’t even look anything like the modern greyhound.
The trackers, not the coursers, were generally smaller, stockier and different colours. Brindles and fawns were much more common. Blacks didn’t dominate, the way they do now and there were many more ‘coloured’ (white and . . ) dogs.
That is slowly starting to change back as the greater variety from American bloodlines infiltrate the Australian black, black/white, blue influence.
Fights between dogs were common and often serious. One that sticks in my mind, and only because of the fame of the dog concerned, was St Leger winner Stormy Spirit.
He was a big evil looking muscular fawn dog, trained by Joe Pickering, who one day, attacked and killed another dog in the kennel. While fatalities were rare, they certainly weren’t unknown. Kennel fights were daily occurrences at a complex the size of Northaw.
I remember being dragged along the ground by six dogs after a pet owner strayed onto the estate and ran past with his mongrel.
The six agitated greyhounds started on each other and then on me when I tried to separate them. I had to be rescued after being badly bitten and remember coming to the aid of other kennel staff in similar circumstances.
(If you have never seen a dog fight, it can be scary. Walk into a kennel after one and apart from the blood and noise, the temperature is like a sauna.)
At home, I can recall stud dog Autumn Belin slipping his muzzle in a van and half killing the second most vicious dog in the kennel.
Not all greyhounds were vicious. There were soft ones too, but they were in a significant minority, particularly when it came to mixing with other breeds and pets.
Re-homing greyhounds wasn’t unheard of, but it certainly wasn’t common practice. Many owners didn’t want the responsibility for a retired dog who might turn next door’s cat into fluffy mince.
But there were other issues. Back in the 1970s, there was no micro-chipping and greyhound thefts were common. (British breds weren’t even tattooed at that stage)
The flapping tracks offered the opportunity for unscrupulous chancers to try to land gambles. When they failed, the dogs were often abandoned to run the streets – or were killed having had their ears cut-off. They weren’t ‘greyhound people’ who did this but heartless criminals – often people who had attempted something similar under rules and had been warned off by the NGRC. The flaps were anonymous and the dogs almost untraceable.
Sometimes the dogs ended up in the hands of travellers who used them for illegal hare coursing and then abandoned them.
Vivisection was another issue. In one famous case in 1989, anti-vivisectionists, the BUAV, led police to a dog trader in Wales who had 300 dogs, including 30 greyhounds, waiting delivery to laboratories.
Most of the greyhounds had come from RGT kennels who had been duped by the trader that he was re-homing them.
Other greyhounds ended up in Spain. Most were cheap lots from Irish Sales but others were dogs bought by go-betweens and sold on.
(Anyone see the resemblance with trying to prevent conmen from buying dogs to send to China?)
On many many occasions, faced with the option of being unwilling or unable to re-home their ex-racer, and not prepared to take a chance on what might happen once the dog had moved on, the owner came to the same conclusion as Charlie Ashley.
But even if dogs had been deemed suitable to be re-homed, there was no structure to handle it on an industry wide basis.
It was only 22 years ago that the RGT announced it was on the point of bankruptcy. It had annual income of just £55K but had still managed to home 597 greyhounds the previous year.
Double that figure (it’s actually £102K) to allow for inflation and it would be the equivalent of homing 597 dogs at a cost of £171 each, and they had 72 greyhounds being paid for in kennels.
Nothing much improved even with the creation of the BGRF (The Fund) in 1993. It allocated just 5% of its cash (£43K) to the RGT. And the problems weren’t just about money.
As late as 2000, one of the RGT’s mist respected employees Becky Blackmore quit her job and issued a scathing attack on the NGRC for its failure to stop bad practices and censure owners under rule 18 (owner’s obligations).
It wasn’t until 2001 that Lord Lipsey, who had been highly critical of greyhound racing in the House of Lords, shamed the BGRB into boosting its donations to the RGT to over £200K. That figure rose a year later to £500K as Lipsey agreed to become an RGT trustee. By 2004 it was £1.3m
Since then, the RGT has continued to grow, firstly in real terms to almost £1.8m back in 2010. As BGRF receipts began to fall, the RGT and prize money were the two least affected grants.
It currently stands at around £1.4m.
Charlie Ashely’s attitude and logic was of its time. There is no longer any logical, moral or financial justification for choosing euthanasia over re-homing. The world has moved on.
On the subject of re-homing, it was pointed out to me this week that the track with the most fixtures, largest kennel strength and the business that pays most into GBGB in special licence fees, doesn’t take a penny from the industry/GT for re-homing.
I am talking about Henlow where there waiting list for re-homing doesn’t exist.
While other promoters might roll their eyes that promoter Kevin Boothby is one of the bigger winners in the media rights war – that doesn’t necessarily imply that he would do the right thing. I can think of other promoters who would be laughing all the way to the bank.
Following a year where so many nominations for the annual awards turned out to be penalty kicks or each-of-two matches, the selection for the Services to the Greyhound Industry award falls into the latter category.
Kevin Boothby or the man who has also made such a colossal contribution to the reputation of bookmaker-promoters – Ladbrokes Coral’s Ian Smyth.
There are four months to go but the book is closed: 10-11 each of two, 33s bar.
Earlier this week I had a regular chat with Graham Holland and among the things that we put together for his Derby column was a piece about the unfortunate Ballymac Syd who collapsed at Shelbourne Park last week and died of a heart attack.
I thought it was a simple tale of how quickly tragedy can strike. It has happened to me.
It was nearly 40 years ago and I had just stepped over the hare rail for a graded race at Yarmouth with a little white and brindle bitch called Lola Montez. I remember it as though it was yesterday,
Suddenly she staggered and collapsed. I rushed her into the vet’s room and she died within a couple of minutes. To be truthful, I thought she had been ‘got at’. We had a post mortem and it turned out she had a congenital heart condition and there was scarring to show that Lola had in fact had several minor heart attacks previously.
That is it. A tragedy. Like the pup who collapses in a field. Or my daughter’s 40 year old head master who died in front of a class full of kids. Or my dear friend John Gilburn who was taken last year. Or footballer Fabrice Muamba. . . .
So it sickened me beyond words that a group of sick scumbags would try to benefit from the death of a young dog by trying to claim that he was somehow ‘killed’ by greyhound racing.
I take responsibility for being naïve. I apologise unreservedly to the Dowling family who bred Syd’s family over ten generations and to Graham Holland for including the story in the first place.
As for the ignorant filth who are writing such foul abuse on social media (and/or fund raising) on the back of this tragedy, I hope you can live with yourselves.
I am not a deeply spiritual man, but I do believe in karma, kismet, fate, come-uppance . . . .whatever you choose to call it.
If it does exist, I hope you lot get yours. What goes around, comes around.
We are now just over a week away (Aug 31) from the deadline for tracks to ‘submit an interest’ in staging the 2020 Greyhound Derby.
Their detailed proposals will be needed four weeks later and submitted to GBGB. A stakeholder panel with determine the options and make an announcement ‘on or before’ October 1.
At this stage there only appear to be two players. I understand that Nottingham ARE prepared to consider a bid for a second year, PROVIDING they can find a sponsor.
The track are aware of issues on final night with staff. They would also need to address – perceptions or realities – about track bias against wide runners.
As I have suggested previously, my solution would be to ask a top track consultant to take a long hard look and review whether changes should be made.
But let’s bear one thing in mind. I don’t recall any specific injury concerns about the circuit this year. You start messing around with it and . . . .
The other likely player is Central Park. I understand that promoter Roger Cearns is due to meet with a group of potential sponsors within the next few days, so that financial box would appear to be ticked.
The racing circuit is unquestionably one of the best in the country – tick
(To be fair though, who would have predicted prior to this year’s Derby, that a seeding bias would be an issue for Nottingham?)
The biggest issue, as far as I am concerned, is could Central Park cope with a Derby?
It is a tightly run ship with a significant SIS commitment and seemingly little margin to take on a huge additional burden. Certainly they would need to beef us their racing office following the resignation of RM Peter Miller.
To re-iterate a previous editorial, the English Derby is VITAL to this industry. It is incomprehensible that 2020 could be a barren year. If that needs GBGB to dredge up a significant five-figure sum to supplement sponsorship, or help finance a management task force for a one-off project, they need to act now.
