The Editor does not miss much. That is why he is the Editor I guess. And I am the gopher. “Was going to do something about Drumbo” he said last Friday. “I wondered whether you fancied writing it?” “I am your man” I replied “any particular angle you had in mind?” “Since the story is already out there – that the track has closed – I am assuming that most people must now be aware. I would really like a personal overview of what went wrong” says he.
Michael Watts MRCVS
That was me told off! Not being aware that the track had closed, I replied “Er…..I am on duty at Drumbo tomorrow night as far as I know”. His parting shot was the truly Churchillian “Nah – take the night off”.
Checking my mobile ‘phone, which uncharacteristically I had left in my car, I found two missed calls from our R.M.
The Editor was right. I was taking Saturday night off, and all the other Saturdays until Kingdom Come. Welcome to P45 country.
As I unpacked my track bag for the last time and stowed my goods and chattels safely in a drawer until whenever, I was overcome by a growing sense of sadness. Firstly as I am now on the cemetery side of sixty, it suddenly dawned on me that I probably was not going to do any more track work in this lifetime and that a door was quietly closing behind me. I had been there before, when the passage into law of the Wildlife and natural Environment Act (Northern Ireland) in 2011 called time on the Winter Game in the six counties and it wasn’t any better the second time around.
Then there were the thirty-four employees of the track who had lost their jobs without warning a fortnight after Christmas. Jobs do not grow on trees in Belfast these days and many of them have young families to feed and clothe, and rent and mortgages to pay. There were the friendships made in a decade of Saturday nights at the track, the faces I would probably never see again. What would become of the owners and trainers who were facing long journeys to Lifford or The Brandywell to get a run for their dogs – if they could get an entry at tracks likely to be snowed under with canine refugees from Drumbo. For some, and probably not a few, the temptation to give up the unequal struggle and drop out of the greyhound game would probably be hard to resist.
Most of all there were the dogs themselves, especially the older greyhounds competing in the lower grades who now had nowhere to race and for whom there was no ready market. In full-on wrist-slashing mode by now, I wondered out loud what was to become of them. I have a few empty kennels back at the ranch, and could give a forever home to a couple of them, but what of the others?
As there seemed little to look forward to, I lapsed self-indulgently into a dander down memory lane. As you do. Historically Belfast played a pioneering role in Irish greyhound racing, Celtic Park being the first stadium in Ireland to offer greyhound racing behind an artificial quarry when it staged its first meeting on 18th April 1927.
Originally a venue for Gaelic games and subsequently home of the famous Belfast Celtic soccer team, prominent bookmakers Joe Shaw and Harry Mc Alinden were inspired to stage greyhound racing at the Broadway site in the Falls area of the city following a visit to Belle Vue in Manchester. No lesser light than Mick The Miller raced there, finishing third in final of the Abercorn Cup in 1928.
It was also the scene of Spanish Battleship’s last public appearance in 1955. Celtic Park was the home at a time of the Irish St Leger, the Trigo Cup and the Ulster Derby. Such was the enthusiasm for greyhound racing back in those early days that a second track, Dunmore Park, opened its doors in September 1928.
Situated at Alexandra Park Avenue off the Antrim Road in the north of the city, it featured a track 575 yards in circumference with a running surface 22 feet across and was the first stadium to feature a hare running on an underground wire. Celtic Park had gone belly up long before I moved to Belfast to study at Queen’s University but I am old enough to have been a small-time punter and sinker of a bevvy or three at Dunmore.
One abiding memory from those misspent student days was of the bookies’ pitches indoors in a long low hall under the grandstand, with the odds being shouted from the gloom somewhere just south of the rafters. In its heyday I am told up to sixty bookies stood in that hall on big race nights, in part because there was no tote betting due to a quirk of Northern Ireland law. The highlight of the racing calendar at Dunmore was the Irish National Sprint which it always took a good dog to win.
The stadium also staged soccer matches at one time as well as speedway and, curiouser and curiouser,, hockey. Both tracks suffered latterly from a lack of investment due to competition from off course betting shops and the impact of The Troubles on night life in Belfast generally. Whether the discussion is of greyhound racing, train spotting or flower arranging, it has become the convention in Northern Ireland in these politically correct times always to suggest that any activity involving more than one person attracts citizens from both sides of the sectarian divide who all endeavour to co-exist in harmony and be a shining example to the rest of our divided society.
I would hate to be branded as politically correct, but The Troubles genuinely did have very little direct impact on the greyhound game other than the risk of car bombs and random sectarian shootings that made people reluctant to stray far from home at night and contributing to a poor economic climate in which most people were skint most of the time. Celtic Park folded in 1983 and the site is now occupied by a supermarket. Dunmore did not last much longer, closing its doors in 1996 and also being sold for development.
This was part of a more general trend during that era, with tracks folding left right and centre all over the country. In London for example the White City closed its doors in 1984, Haringey Stadium disappeared under a Sainsbury’s supermarket in 1987 and greyhounds raced at Wembley for the last time in 1998. In God’s Own Country Dungannon’s Oaks Park track folded in 2003.
Belfast greyhound enthusiasts did not have too long to wait for another opportunity to fritter away their hard-earned. An outfit called NIU Racing Ltd., in which the principal shareholder was local bookmaker Paddy Owens, opened a new track at New Grosvenor Park, the home of Lisburn Distillery F.C., in 1994. Ballyskeagh which I should explain for the benefit of the Sassenachs among the readership is pronounced Bally-skay, used to race three nights a week, on Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays.
It was never going to be easy to pack ‘em in at meeting early in the week but the selection of these nights were not so much a matter of choice as determined by the need to avoid clashes with other I.G.B. tracks. The agreement between the football club and Mr Owens broke down after a few years and ended up in court in April 2000 when the latter was given two years notice to vacate the premises with compensation to be paid by Distillery.
My recollection of the latter years at The ‘Skeagh was of too many three- and four-dog races being watched by spectators too sparse to be called a crowd. The end came abruptly on 24th October 2005 when just before the sixth race, assistant racing manager John Connor announced over the PA system that “in view of the uncertainty and rumours about racing, this meeting is the last under the current management.
What the future holds, we don’t know but we wish you all the best for the future.” We did not have too long to wait to learn what the future held, Racing at the Distillery football ground, now rechristened as Drumbo Park, resumed under new management on 31st July 2008. With the new management came a new emphasis. In the past most promoters were bookmakers but the new man at the helm came from a background in catering and hospitality and planned to try to sell greyhound racing as a social occasion for those who could not have told a greyhound from a poodle, rather than a gambling opportunity for the hardwired greyhound community.
Drumbo Park was well marketed, and soon the stands thronged with revellers enjoying their first taste of the sport while tucking into a rare sirloin and a bottle of vino collapso as part of a birthday party, a stag night or a corporate junket. The business model looked like a good one. The hard core greyhound types who had hung out at Ballyskeagh in the old days knew their dogs, but they bet with the bookies and didn’t spend much at the track.
Success would now be measured in terms of bar takings and the number of bums on seats in the restaurants, with the track retaining a percentage of tote turnover, Initially they raced three nights a week but this time around they had the plum nights, Thursdays,, Fridays and Saturdays. There was a buzz about the new track, and people when had never set foot on a dog track before were talking excitedly about it.
There were some generous sponsors too, notably Tennents Caledonian Breweries who supported the Tennents Gold Cup over 525 yards and the Caledonian Smooth Gold Cup over 550 yards The Northern Ireland Greyhound Derby, a 36 runner event, was first run at the Laganside venue in 2011, initially sponsored by Bettor.com. The £25,000 prize money on offer has never been equalled in Northern Ireland greyhound circles before or since.
The inaugural running was televised and was blessed with some spectacular summer weather .The dogs also rose to the occasion and the track record was broken three times in successive heats. Toal Bookmakers took over sponsorship after a couple of years but the Derby was last run in 2014. In later years the Toolmaker Puppy Cup run over 525 yards was one of the highlights of the racing year at the track.
It was notable that whenever a bit of decent prizemoney was on offer, serious dogs from the major kennels down south in the Republic would appear in droves and on or other of them usually scooped the pool, leaving the local dogs in the halfpenny place. In recent times however the big sponsors were less evident, the crowds had thinned out and the cards had grown smaller.
Thursday night racing was discontinued fairly early on and Friday nights might well have followed suit but for the need to stage enough races to maintain a pool of dogs in the area.so that when the wheels finally came off at Drumbo Park last Friday morning I was not altogether surprised.
So where did it all go wrong? How long have you got? Maybe the location was a t fault, at least in part. At first glance it was the location of choice. It was after all the only place in the greater Belfast area where there was a readymade dog track just waiting to be dusted off and cranked up which could be up and running in a very short time without massive expenditure. It was of course the location of a pre-existing dog track that had already gone bust not so many years previously, which should perhaps have rung a warning bell somewhere..
The location is a very accessible one, just a stone’s throw from the M1 motorway giving easy access for greyhounds and punters travelling from Dungannon and Portadown and points west. It is not much further from the A1, the road to the Newry and Dundalk area, always a hotbed of greyhound sport on track and field, and to Dublin beyond. That said, Drumbo Park is out in the suburbs and a taxi ride from Shaftesbury Square and the Golden Mile in city centre, the heart of Belfast’s nightlife.
This meant that, when racing was finished for the night, the stag party goers and beneficiaries of corporate largesse who had been wining and dining at the track had nowhere where they could go to should they want more drink and more craic, as inevitably one does on such occasions. There is an extensive social club used by the football supported on sight and there was talk of opening it some nights after racing with live bands to keep the punters amused and to keep them spending. This however came to naught, leaving punters few options but to head home at eleven o’clock for their cocoa and an early night so that what started out as a night to remember ended up as a bit of a damp squib and best forgotten.
Northern Ireland’s antediluvian liquor licencing laws probably had something to do with it. These were framed at a time when The Kirk held great sway in the six counties and Killjoy Was Here. Anything in a glass that contained the merest trace of alcohol was regarded as The Devil’s Vomit, consumption of which was guaranteed to lead you to Hell Fire and Damnation, and in double quick time too.
There seems little point in reminding those with fond memories of the infamous Ulster Sunday, when the swings in public parks were locked up lest the little ones dared to enjoy themselves on the Lord’s Day, that the first miracle Christ performed was the turning of water into wine when the boys drank the bar dry at the wedding feast at Cana. Fair is fair. I have no wish to stop these folks attending their chosen place of worship.
Why then in a democratic society should it be acceptable for them to prevent me wetting my whistle of a Sunday? It is only in recent years that gambling has been permitted on Sundays, thanks to pressure from the local horse racing industry. There was occasional afternoon racing on summer Sundays at Drumbo a few years ago but “dry” greyhound sport lacks a certain je-ne-sais-quoi and the experiment was not continued. A lack on Sundays of the intertrack tote betting from Dublin which helped to extend the entertainment on weeknights may have been a contributory factor. A couple of years back there was talk of resuming Sunday racing as certain parties in the gambling industry were looking for televised racing at lunchtime on Sundays to fill a gap in their schedule but this never seemed to get much further than the drawing board.
Maybe it was the economy, stupid. The timing of the new venture at Drumbo Park was unfortunate. The track opened its doors under new management around the time when the solids hit the ventilation as far as the economy was concerned. There were always the professional punters, the high rollers, at the track and there were always those there on a social occasion, the birthday party or office Christmas “do”, who dabbled in each way tote betting as part of their enjoyment of a night out.
It was notable that the middle-level punters who had patronised the track it its early days, typically construction tradesmen who had been drawing big wages while the building boom lasted, largely disappeared after a few years. You have to cut your cloth to suit your measure and if you day job has pretty much dried up that does not leave you much dosh to donate to needy bookmakers.
Of course, if your main interest in greyhounds is in gambling on them pure and simple, you do not have to go to the track to have a bet these days. The advent of on-line gambling has done the promoters of greyhound racing no favours. If you can place a bet on a horse race in Hong Kong, a soccer match in South America, a game of tennis in Oz or presumably in due course two flies crawling up President Trump’s border wall, all on your mobile phone in the comfort of your home or o your lunchbreak at your place of work why would you fight through the commuter traffic and pay at the turnstiles so that you can chance a couple of quid on an S7 race at Drumbo Park?
With virtual reality racing on the internet there is no longer any real need for live dogs competing at real venues. Mind you, I fail to understand people who bet on computer generated imagery. Do they not ever think that the results of such races might be fixed? If I was clever enough to design the software I would make sure that the house had a decent advantage over the punter in the hope that it would encourage the bookies to buy my product. Just sayin’..
Maybe the sport itself did not quite fit the bill. Although technically operating under the rules of the I.C.C, Drumbo Park was effectively in the independent sector, without the government support available to greyhound stadia in the Republic of Ireland through the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund and without the financial security of the BAGS contracts that keep so many English tracks solvent.
The promoters had to come up with the prizemoney themselves if they could not raise it through sponsorship by local business. This meant that prizemoney was poor by comparison with I.G.B-regulated tracks like those at Dundalk or Lifford, the winners of small races typically taking home £120 when they could collect €350 for winning a similar event in the Republic. This meant that the better type of greyhound tended to move to greener pastures further afield leaving the also-rans to race at Drumbo.
In the past couple of years there was a chronic shortage of greyhounds as an upward surge in the previously stagnant market for moderate graded dogs created by a demand for dogs for televised racing in LBOs in England led to a lot of local trainers cashing in their chips. It neds to be borne in mind that the business model for many greyhound owners in Ireland is to bring on young dogs, get a few decent times on their cards, have a decent punt or to on them, then sell them on before they get too old pick up an injury.
This means that the greyhound population on which racing managers can call for runners is in a constant state of flux. At Drumbo Park a shortage of dogs led to cards of ten races or even just eight where once twelve races were the norm on a Saturday night, which meant less time for punters to buy food and booze at the track.
Of course the business model at Drumbo Park was not based solely on the quality of the racing. We have not yet adopted the Australian version where greyhounds race in the background while oblivious punters pounding slot machines earn the promoter the big bucks but the focus at Drumbo was always on hospitality, on filling seats in the restaurant and emptying glasses in the bars.
Maybe there is a-madness in this method. Bear with me a minute. If punters are coming to the track to wine and dine and to socialize as much as to watch dogs race, how do you get them to keep coming back again and again when there are plenty of other restaurants and bars where you can probably get a better meal or a cheaper pint. WE may all be greyhound addicts but we have to realize that watching a race which is dome and dusted inside 30 seconds does not float everybody’s boat.
Perhaps after ten years those social racegoers had seen enough of the inside of Drumbo Park to do them and were in no hurry to go back yet a while. E When push comes to shove, my favourite search engine – others are available – advises me that with a population of only three hundred thousand and some souls, Belfast is the fifteenth largest city in the U.K. Maybe there are not enough punters to support a track there in the long term and that racing at Drumbo Park was simply a nine days’ wonder.
If another track was to open in Northern Ireland another day, what would it need to guarantee success? Apart from a relaxation of the licensing laws. Based on the Drumbo Park experience a source of capital from outside the core business has to be the key, either something akin to a BAGS contract along English lines or government funding similar to that available in the Republic of Ireland. BAGS racing may suit English tracks with attached full-time trainers with large kennels but it might not transfer well to Northern Ireland where most of the handlers are part-timers with a handful of dogs apiece who cannot afford to give up their day jobs to go to the track in the afternoons and may not be able to turn out more than one or two dogs at each meeting. Horses for courses. .
As far as state funding for the industry goes. given that the devolved administration in Stormont has not held a formal sitting in two years, and that at least some members of the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly allegedly profess a moral objection to gambling, government funding for greyhound racing is likely to be a long time coming. The outcome of the current Brexit chaos and of a possible subsequent plebiscite on the Border may change this situation, but I for one am not holding my breath.
Where do we go from here? Sadly the answer has to be nowhere you would want to go. There is no Plan B. Without some major changes in the funding of the sport it looks like greyhound racing in Northern Ireland is dangerously close to the point of no return. If you have a luckless grader in need of an armchair and a fireside I am you man, otherwise I am off down my local to drown my sorrows and cry into my beer. Sayonara.
© Michael Watts / Under the Radar 2019
