Anyone leafing through the latest GBGB Calendar might not readily appreciate the significance of the ‘situations vacant’ advert contained within. It is actually a clue to a major project to re-home ex-racers which will soon be wheeled out by GBGB writes Floyd Amphlett.
The job title of Greyhound Retirement Scheme Coordinator is a new position that will be essential to the Greyhound Board plan to introduce the most radical home finding scheme in the industry’s 94 year history.
It is a very poorly kept industry secret that for many months, GBGB has been exploring the practicalities of a new bond scheme which would free up funding to assist in the re-homing of every ex-racer.
Traditionally, the governing body has put all its home-finding eggs in the one basket – the Greyhound Trust, formerly the Retired Greyhound Trust.
However, in addition to GT, many tracks have operated their own schemes while others have used independent homefinders.
With finite resources, some respected homefinders have questioned whether GBGB, and its predecessor BGRB, has been getting maximum bang for its buck.
This website has published the frustrations of people like Kevin Stow (Lincolnshire Greyhound Trust) who have argued that there have been countless homing opportunities lost by the industry’s failure to look beyond the Greyhound Trust.
Stow pointed out that many independent homefinding charities have developed great resentment at the greyhound racing industry for apparently ‘dumping its cast offs’ without so much as a penny of support. Stow argues that the action is responsible for a significant level of anti-greyhound racing sentiment.
(And quite frankly who can blame them!)
Another contributor to the site, GBGB stipendiary steward Pete Rosney, recalled the tale of visiting homefinding kennels who would have taken in ex-racers, but had never even been approached.
But for many months now, GBGB have been attempting to coordinate a scheme that would be both financially robust and capable of delivering the safe re-homing of a potential 7,500 greyhounds each year.
GBGB Director Rachel Corden was asked to shoulder the responsibility of creating a financial model that could be both practical and acceptable to the different industry stakeholders. Her commitment to the project would now run into hundreds of hours.
The GBGB bond scheme she has put before the Board is believed to require a payment of £200 from each owner at the time of registration. When the greyhound is retired from racing, that payment will be supplemented by a further £200 from GBGB coffers (sourced from ‘The BGR Fund’) and will assist in the re-homing.
There are a number of caveats and rules to ensure that the system is not abused or defrauded. This is where the new position of retirement scheme coordinator comes into play.
At this point it is important to make one point absolutely clear. The responsibility for re-homing the ex-racers remains throughout with the registered owner of that greyhound – not GBGB.
The coordinator’s role will be to assist the owner by possibly recommending potential re-homing kennels, to verify the integrity of any potential home finding kennel/charity, and ultimately sign the cheques. The one-off payments will be paid directly to the homefinding organisation.
Although the direct funding to Greyhound Trust will remain in place for three years, ultimately the organisation which currently homes around 3,300 greyhounds per year, will also be paid on results. Given its current grant is £1.4m, that would relate to 3,500 hounds.
Two more points. Although the original concept of the bond scheme would have only been open to dogs at registration – in other words, dogs due to retire in the next couple of years, careful housekeeping has opened up the scheme to include runners due to be retired from now onwards.
Secondly, GBGB Managing Director Mark Bird has already indicated that should additional funding be made available from BGRF, he would hope to boost the each dog’s ‘retirement package’ beyond £400.
So, given his previous reservations of the GBGB’s funding mechanism, and given that the charity that he heads is now Britain’s leading independent home finder with a back catalogue of 1,909 ex-racers, what does Kevin Stow make of the new scheme?
He said: “It is excellent and very good news for greyhound racing. It would be interesting to see how some of the anti-racing charities view the scheme. It is all very well them saying, ‘we disapprove of racing and won’t take their money’. So how do they answer the charge, ‘how many more dogs of all breeds could you have re-homed with the greyhound money?‘
“This is a great opportunity for those charities who never see a penny from other breeds to view greyhounds as a huge windfall to their overall financing. The antis will hate it.
“I do have a couple of points which I would like to air though. Firstly, the job description requires ‘a professional financial qualification’. Some of the best people who I can think of, good experienced people with drive and understanding, but may not be professionally qualified in accounting. Is a qualification really necessary?
“The second point is, I have long argued that the industry shouldn’t be seeking people who want an ex-racer. They will track them down themselves from existing retired greyhound kennels. The industry should be targeting people who want a dog, but still don’t yet realise that they actually want a greyhound.
“We shouldn’t be too insular. Hence the person doing the job should spend much of their time sourcing re-homing centres that may never have considered taking in a greyhound.”
And the multi million pound question? Is your opinion, is it feasible for all ex-racers to be re-homed?
Stow replied: “Excluding that minimally small percentage who can’t be re-homed due to severe injury issues – absolutely it is.”
