Riverside Radio programme

My British Greyhound Racing Special aired on the 18th, but was almost pulled at the last moment, due to a forceful social media reaction to it being aired.

For balance, there were some further editorial cuts and I read out parts of a statement from Greyt Exploitations.

The show was always intended as an insight into the industry, not an ethical debate on whether the sport should be banned; however, I may have to present that debate on my show at a later date, due to the intense interest in the topic.

Please do pass the link on to anyone you feel may be interested:

https://www.mixcloud.com/riversideradio/british-greyhound-racing-special-on-wilson-says-presented-by-iain-wilson/

Mark Bird doesn’t shirk any probing questions. I interviewed him for 45 minutes and, at the end, he was still willing to answer any further questions to promote the sport in a transparent and detailed manner.

Points of particular interest:

8 mins: MB states the GBGB’s commitment to halving the number of greyhounds destroyed on economic grounds.

8 mins 15 secs:Dispute with Paddy Power Betfair funding & negotiation.

13 mins 30 secs: Prognosis for Belle Vue.

16 mins: Oxford coming back?

MB did talk about the loss of the Sky contract and that the GBGB had to pay, I believe in the region of £200,000, for the last contract to be agreed – that was edited out, so cannot be quoted. Food for thought, though.

Ian Wilson – Riverside Radio

 

It is typical of ‘antis’ in general, and Trudy Baker in particular, to attempt to stifle any debate on greyhound racing. I gave up any kind of dialogue with Trudy when I saw the extent of her failure to present a fair and honest perspective on greyhound welfare. The last time I saw her in person, I told her to her face that she had deliberately, or negligently, presented false figures and distorted material taken from this website.

In my view, we can expect more of the same as Britain leads the world in greyhound welfare. It has complied with all demands of DEFRA, and will soon be in a position to re-home every ex-racer. The only thing in danger going forward is the Greyt Exploitations ‘donate’ button. Trudy is losing the debate and she knows it

Ed

Longford update

Longford will be coming back, its just shut for fire regulation work. Get your facts right before you print. I don’t think the committee who have raised 35k euro in two weeks to pay for the work will appreciate your write up
Stephen Fishwick
I might suggest that you direct your frustrations at the state regulator, the Irish Greyhound Board and Longford themselves. This is their most recent statement on the situation. If either the Board, or the Longford committee, wish to publish a statement explaining the situation, I will be pleased to produce an update.

Ed

China

Well we all know why demand is up! China! Anyone true greyhound lover doesn’t send their animals for breeding nor their sperm that country and claim to not be aware what happens to them there.
You’re a disgrace to the sport!
Gillian Conroy
This is a typical reaction to a complex issue raised on this site before. 1) GBGB has warned everyone over whom it has any control NOT to send greyhounds to China. 2) It is impossible to prevent a ‘member of the public’, possibly using a false identity (though not necessarily) from acquiring and exporting greyhounds. It is not illegal.
Rather than trying to blame the greyhound industry for the culture of a nation with a population of 1.2bn, why not lobby an organisation that could stop it, (or at least make it more difficult), the UK Government? The greyhound industry would support you.

Ed

Welfare Agenda

There has been a few good articles recently on welfare which have been informative albeit worrying as to the future of the sport.
Peter Harnden’s articles are as always informative and good reading giving the latest updates about the kennels on welfare.
Rab McNair’s “Clueless Antis” was to the point, blunt, factual and openly honest, the Star’s “Welfare Evolution carrying on the same message, as also “The Lifespan of a Sport, again the same.
The Greyhound trust’s resignations were not good news, a sign to take heed from and more importantly The Labour Animal Welfare Manifesto that has just been released.
The conclusion is that the sport needs to take control of the Welfare or the Anti Lobbyist groups and Politicians will, make no mistake. Do anyone think that would have a desirable outcome, I think not.
The GBGB have made great steps forward in this regard, but even they say it will take time to change the mind set of the few.
Now I believe they can now accelerate the Welfare agenda because of the momentum that is gathering pace, to achieve what the most of us in the sport want, clean transparency and no euthanasia on the feeble disgraceful grounds that are being exploited presently.
The need for accountability is easily achieved by amending the green form layout with these suggestions, this will enable the GBGB to have sharper teeth.

Section D. Euthanasia tick boxes;

  • Unsuitable as a pet – remove this as an excuse, special dispensation should be required from the GBGB for this.
  • Terminal illness – required
  • No home or retirement placement – remove this as an excuse.
  • On humane grounds due to untreatable injury, required.
  • Injury not treated on economic grounds – remove this as an excuse.
The rest of this section D is I believe correct with this addition of after the tick box “Was the greyhound euthanised by a veterinary surgeon. (incidentally only a vet should do this and this must be put into the rules of racing from the GBGB)
At this point there must be four signatures that sanction any euthanasia,
1/ The track Vet must sign to say they are agreeing with this.
2/ The Owner must sign.
3/ The Trainer must sign
4/ The racing Manager on behalf of the track must sign.

The reason these signatures are required is simply, they are the responsible stakeholders for the welfare of each greyhound and should accountable for this. It is too easy to look away at this moment, but these changes will enable the sport see the whites of the irresponsible eyes.
No more excuses, the sport must take proper control of the welfare of our Greyhounds.

Garry Philips

Correspondence with an anti

The following is a synopsis of correspondence between an Irish lady and myself concerning a recent Editors Chair piece. I was very angry that a group of ‘antis’ had tried to make political capital out of the sad death of a heart attack of a dog at Shelbourne Park. I called those who claimed the dog had been ‘killed’ as scummy. I stand by those sentiments.

But I am not ‘anti anti’ per se. I believe some have valid concerns, which I share. Others are ignorant of the facts and repeat them blindly. The antis who deserve nothing good in the world are those who make claims that they know are untrue, but attempt to manipulate the gullible. So, this was the response from a lady called ‘Billie’. I will not print her full name.
Ed
If you can condone Graham Holland as a verified trainer when he is known for drugging his dogs well
it shows that you need to be shut down for cruelty to animals. I was at a protest when the greyhound trainers decided to have a counter protest and they physically attacked a female protester in front of his daughter and let his “beloved” greyhound run into the middle of the road, his daughter who was in tears was left to look after the dog while he continued to assault the female protester (You Tube video)
So if these are the kind of people you support good luck.
Billie
An exchange of letters took place and I promised to respond to Billie’s view. I will not go into greater detail here since some of her points were covered in previous Editors Chair columns closer to the event. But in summary:
1) ‘Drugging dogs’. As has been reported, this reference is to Clonbrien Hero who tested positive for a metabolite of cocaine (benzoylecgonine) in September 2017. These tests were not random, but expected for a dog in a major competition. The case has still not been heard.
Billie and her fellow protestors may not be aware of, or even care, that the highest of the three samples taken from Graham Holland’s dog was two parts per billion. It is the most obvious case of contamination you are ever likely to come across. At those levels, the drug would have no effect whatsoever. Even allowing for the variables – no two individuals process drugs in the same way, ingestion times can vary etc etc – only an idiot would give a dog cocaine three hours or more before a race (kenneling time). Its efficacy plummets after roughly 30 minutes. As for benzoylecgonine, it takes many hours (variable) for the body to produce. So if you detect it, the cocaine is almost certainly no longer active.
The plain fact is, Graham Holland was thrown under the bus by the IGB executive of the time. I believe they had misguided plans to impress the UK bookmakers with their integrity commitment. These days, in my understanding, would they even consider a cocaine positive for a single digit parts-per-billion. The GBGB in Britain would take a similar view.
2) Protests. The antis are in no position to take the moral high ground on protests. There are dozens of occasions where protestors have felt entitled to scream abuse in the face of people attending a lawful activity. I understand that there is footage (haven’t personally seen) of a well known Irish actress screaming ‘shame on you’ at a father walking his young daughter into Cork track. I have seen footage of people outside Shelbourne Park. In my opinion, it is only a matter of time, before a serious incident occurs. It is one thing to hold a peaceful protest. It is something else to abuse someone. Sooner or later there will be repurcussions. At that points, the Gards might start making arrests.
3) The Holland family. I did inform Billy that the treatment received by the Holland family from ‘concerned welfarists’ was nothing short of disgraceful. She condemned it. It included abusive anonymous phone calls in the middle of the night and vicious comments made to teenagers. Sadly, it has to be said, some of them even came from greyhound folk.
Yet Graham and Nicky and their family are committed animal lovers. They have retired greyhounds in the kennel and two more living in the house. Both of their families have long associations with greyhound racing in Britain and Graham’s late sister Val Trevis was one of the most active homefinders in the West Country.
But it was the next response from Billie which I found particularly interesting. It has been partially edited for practical an legal reason, but hopefully reflects her intent.
Ed
Now I want to explain to you the main reason for outrage at the Irish Greyhound Board. Besides the needless cruelty to the dogs as you can see here in the documentary below, it is the corruption within the IGB that really has me and others angry.
They receive €16.8 million per year from the government, Harolds Cross Stadium was sold to the State for €23 million while it was worth 4-6 million to “help out” the IGB who were in debt.
I’m not sure if you are aware that there is a housing crises here in Ireland at the moment, also special needs assistants hours have been cut so if your child has a learning disability they now have a year long wait to get into a suitable school. I myself was waiting 3 months to see a consultant that I was paying for privately (we don’t have a nice NHS in this country) and cost me €180 euro never mind the cost of the MRI (€240) and €60 a shot each time to get the referral letters from the doctor.
The IGB have been given warnings since 2014 about the welfare of the dogs, the overbreeding and
drugging of dogs.
So Floyd before you go calling people scum on an open page forum I think you should consider exactly why people are angry that the IGB keeps getting funded even though they can’t seem to follow their own rules and regulations and get their house in order.
If you go to 01:21:12 of this video you can see how many warnings they got and still never did anything.
Billie
I think Billie has some valid points. I won’t begin to tackle the Irish (human) welfare state, but the IGB have other issues with which to contend.
Firstly, in my experience, there is a huge disconnect between the Irish urban and rural communities. It is no surprise that the greyhound racing protests are so strong in Eire’s two biggest cities. It isn’t just about population size.
Although Ireland doesn’t have mining towns like the UK, I think there are similarities between the mining and Irish farming communities as highlighted by Rab McNair’s recent article about his upbringing.
When I first started going to Ireland as a kid, it was virtually unknown to see a pet dog in an Irish household. When they owned them, the invariably lived in kennels.
In the country, greyhounds were a cash crop, no different to cattle. There was, and still is, in some pockets, an attitude that could see an old farmer shoot a slow greyhound but then get misty eyed when reciting a poem about Master McGrath.
The IGB are being asked to neuter a section of Irish society that might be questioning what it is doing wrong.
How long does coursing have before the antis zone in on it? The ICC  will be next. This is an Irish cultural issue in my opinion.
As far as IGB, as an organisation, is concerned, it has its own inherent issues. It is a semi-state body attempting to compete in a commercial world.
Over the years, I have seen the power of the unions and civil servants to stymie any real change. I have lost track of the number of new chairman and CEO’s who have filled the roles and then of course, we have ‘The Minister’.  Guys, often with no real interest of commitment, promising plenty and delivering little. Vote for me! Joe Walsh was probably the best of the bunch, they do vary. There have been some shockers too.
The RTE documentary made some valid observations, but as a piece of journalism it was badly flawed since it cynically turned a blind eye to clear and obvious errors in the IGB commissioned, and dumped, report into the greyhound industry.
However, even prior to the RTE fantasy creation, the current IGB faced inevitable track closures. There are too many tracks for the interest and participation in the sport and the targeted venues may have already been identified by the Indecon Report.
It seems inevitable to me that within the next year or so, Billie and co. will have less to protest about.
Ed