Michael Watts MRCVS
Then came still evening on, as the man said. It was just your average Saturday night at the track. There was the usual biggish card but we were rightly through it. The shadows were beginning to lengthen, the last of the tea in my mug had got way too cold to drink and I was just starting to think about going in search of my coat when it all kicked off. Now I like to kid myself that I am not the lazy type. Others may disagree. It is after all still a free country, pretty much. When you are the vet on duty at the track, a good night is always a quiet one, one when you are not called upon to do anything above and beyond the usual routine integrity stuff.
That is not to say that I no longer enjoy the intellectual challenge of a difficult case. I would not be human if I did not take a certain pride in pulling one back from the brink when all seemed lost, an’ shit.. On the whole however I can get through an evening at the track the very best without seeing a greyhound injured and in pain, without having to make optimistic arrangements for its continuing care when it leaves the track and without having to tell anxious owners that The Next Big Thing’s next run is likely to be next year rather than next week, or maybe after a ball in the park, rather than on the track. An old geezer like me can definitely get through an evening the best you ever saw without having to tell distressed owners that I am only human and that nothing short of a miracle will save their pride and joy who is not going to be heading home in the van with them tonight or any other night. Anybody who thinks vets get their money easy might like to give that one a try sometime.
I digress. There I was, just starting to think I had got away with it one more time and starting to think of home, hot food and maybe a wee drop of the crayture, when the sight of one of the stewards gesticulating frantically from afar brought me back to reality with a bit of a bump.
By blind luck, a bitch being led out of the kennels to warm up for one of the late races had happened to urinate right under his nose and had passed a fair few streaks of blood in her urine. Was she fit to run, or should she be withdrawn? The decision was down to me and the buck could not be passed in any direction that I could see. Sure isn’t that what I get paid the big bucks for? Aye, right! Worse still, the dogs were due to go to traps anytime so a decision could not be long delayed.
It goes without saying that the welfare of the greyhound is the first consideration every time, no question. If there was even a ghost of a suggestion that the welfare of the bitch would be compromised by her being put in a box to race then out she has to come. On the other hand what if she is fighting fit and jumping out of her skin? What if she had not urinated where and when she did? It was by the merest chance that anybody even noticed the blood in her urine, although like many dogs down to run in the later races she had likely been standing in her kennel with her legs crossed for long enough while waiting for her turn to race. Are some greyhounds kennelled way too long? I reckon they probably are, but that is another story for another day. Between the long wait and the usual pre-race adrenaline kicking in, it was always probable that she would spend a penny soon after leaving her kennel. If the blood had gone unnoticed and the dog looked the part she would have gone out to race without anybody giving the matter a second though. Given the fading light and the number of dogs going back and forth, if the bitch had not been caught in the act and if the bloody urine had only been spotted later on when the culprit could no longer be identified for sure, the race would have gone ahead as planned. There is no armour against fate, innit?
Now if the bitch was in season then the decision is a no brainer. Rule 56 of the G.B.G.B. Rules of Racing is entitled “Bitch – In season, not to run” which cuts pretty much straight to the chase. “A bitch may not run in any trial or race after coming in season, for a minimum period of 21 Days” it reads “nor until, in the opinion of the Racecourse Veterinary Surgeon, it is fit to do so subsequently”. The longest journey starts with a single step, they say, and so it is with a bitch’s season. One minute she is quietly minding her own business, the next you spot those first few tell-tale drops of blood and all plans are on hold. Not to tell a word of a lie, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that you could leave home with a bitch who seems not to be in season only to find her staining when you land up at the track. Now if you have had the bitch in your kennels for a good while you probably have a fair idea when she is due to break but this does not apply to new acquisitions who have not been in your place long enough for you to suss out their seasonal pattern. It does not apply to that older bitch whose heats have been suppressed in the longer term, where the timing of her next heat may depend on her own individual response to the drugs used to suppress it and to the rigour with which the medication is administered. Then there are the bought-in bitches who have probably been suppressed in the past but nobody is very clear at this stage what they were given and when they were given it. A particularly hard one to call is that young bitch trialling in whose first heat happened while she was on the rearing farm way back when and where the stress of training may effectively suppress her next one.
The mischievous side of my character might be tempted to suggest that racing a bitch in heat alongside some of the devout non-chasers that are all too common in these parts might but just what is needed to concentrate their minds and stiffen their resolve. In more sober mien, clearly a bitch cannot run when she is amiss for fear of causing a riot among whatever blue-blooded male greyhounds are down to run in the same race.. Then there are the punters, bless ‘em. They are entitled to expect a run for their money, so a bitch who is likely to run as if she had four flat tyres and quickly consign their hard-earned to the depths of the bookies’ satchels needs to be kept at home. For how long should she be kept off the track? Each case has to be considered on its own merits but I wonder how many get away with down time as short as 21 days. Three weeks after being first detected in season many bitches will still attract more than just a passing sniff from their male competitors. While of course it was be nice to get bitches back earning their keep without having to trail them back in, after three weeks of poor appetite and of walking the boards, how many of them are likely to be fit enough to give a good account of themselves, if indeed their weight has not dropped too low for them to race again without completing a trial as stipulated under G.B.G.B Rule 52? Rule 52? The boys back home in God’s Own Country don’t know they are living. The Greyhound Race Track (Northern Ireland) Racing Regulations 1962 & 2012 only run to sixteen pages and thirty-four individual rules, as compared to the G.B.G.B’s two hundred and odd Rules which cover over one hundred pages. I digress. Then there is that infamous dip in form which occurs after a bitch has been in season. A canny man probably trials his bitch sooner rather than later, gets her regraded and embraces the rare opportunity for a bit of legitimate time-finding later when the money is down. Those more inclined to play a straight bat may need to keep their ladies on the sidelines for as much as seventy days after their season, which is a lot of board and lodging to pay for when there is nothing coming in. Then again the longer a bitch goes without a race or trial the greater her chance of pickling up an injury on or shortly after her return as she races back to full fitness. Small wonder then that breeders grumble about bitch puppies being hard to cash in.
So if she wasn’t in heat, why would there be blood in the bitch’s urine? It might be the result of a lower urinary tract infection, cystitis or the like. An infection like that would probably not be very serious but she would not run the better for it. On balance you would have to argue that her welfare might be compromised by racing her under such conditions and that the punters might not get an even break if they backed her and her not well. Any way you look at it you would have to withdraw her. The same argument would apply to a bitch passing blood in her urine because of a bladder stone or because of external trauma of some sort. When the welfare of the dog is not best served by allowing her to run, she should not run.
Now we might be putting two and two together here, and making five. What is the red material in her urine was not blood? It could perhaps be myoglobin which has been released into the bloodstream following a muscle injury, although it has to be said this is an unlikely eventuality before a race. Again, if the problem at back of it all in a injury likely to be causing her pain or distress or likely to adversely affect her form, then out she must come.
What would be the effect on the betting market of a withdrawal at the eleventh hour? Back home the rule is that “should any greyhound whose number is shown on the public indicator or runner’s board be withdrawn by permission of the stewards before the start of a race, all bets on all greyhounds in the event concerned made previous to such withdrawal shall be void and a new market shall be formed”. That seems like the fairest approach to the problem from the standpoint of punter and layer alike, but there may not be much time in which to form another market. As a track vet my responsibility is to the health and welfare of the greyhounds entrusted to my care. The health and welfare of the bookies and their customers thankfully does not come under my remit. Besides, in this world of on-line gambling, the punters could be half a world away in another time zone, maybe even another season, and definitely way outside my pay grade.
If you have stuck with me this far in the hope of finding out whether I let the wee brindle bitch run or not you are going to be sadly disappointed. That is something for me to know, and you to find out.
Twitter @GSUnderTheRadar
