The Greyhound Forum have responded to a piece in various newspapers (and) calling for the closure of Scotland’s remaining tracks due to cocaine dopings. The statement reads:
In response to reports of the doping of racing greyhounds in Scotland, Clarissa Baldwin CBE, chairman of the Greyhound Forum said:
“It is a poor reflection on the Greyhound Industry to hear reports that racing greyhounds are being given stimulants to help them win races. Specifically, the Greyhound Forum hope that the regulators will come down firmly on the trainers who have allowed this to happen. Across the whole of the UK and Ireland there is a voice saying that welfare has to take priority, but there are clearly pockets where welfare plays an insignificant part. Those that abuse their dogs should be rooted out of this Industry once and for all.”
While it is understandable that Greyhound Fourm feel to the need to respond to this anti-driven ‘news’ story, driven by click-bait hungry websites pertaining to be reputable news services, the implication that greyhound racing is either indifferent to, or failing to act on these type of cases is naive in the extreme.
Cases of cocaine positives are extremely rare, even fewer are deemed to be deliberate attempts to cheat. (There are huge variations between levels of metabolite found in the two alternatives with single digit parts per billion estimated to be due to contamination of a drug in wide use is society).
In the case following a finding in March 2019 at Shawfield, the owner trainer was warned off all racecourses. Short of being able to foresee or predict an act of doping, or assume the powers for a criminal prosecution, it is hard to see what other course of action the GBGB might have taken.
Ed
