Sickness, departing trainers, and now unconfirmed rumours that the stadium is back on the market have not, so far, fazed Hall Green racing manager Rob Coulthard.
He said: “We haven’t been officially notified of the sale but I understand that the owners Euro Packaging are inviting potential buyers to register an interest by March 2. Given the way rumours fly around the greyhound industry, I am expecting that it will be talked up to something that it isn’t.
“Firstly, the owners are not house builders. So once they obtained planning permission it was always likely that they would eventually want to sell it on to a builder . But with all the Brexit uncertainty, there must be some doubts whether this is a good selling market.
“Whatever happens, we have a contract here until July 2018, and even if the place was sold tomorrow, it would be some considerable time before anybody would be ready to build. Apart from anything else, the place would still be paying its way in rent.”
Coulthard’s bigger short term headache is a shortage of runners caused by sickness.
He said: “We’ve lost 35 dogs though coughing, though there are 20 who should be due back this week. We have also lost Dave Firmager from the graded strength. His dogs had been off with the cough too, but he is struggling to find staff so is not going to bother with graded racing and concentrate on half a dozen open race runners.
“Although Dave only had a handful of dogs with us, there were a lot of wide seeds among them. Stuart Buckland also had an above average number of wide seeds so we are a bit short in that department.”
The full extent of all the woes sees the York Road track down to a kennel strength of around 234. Although that should soon bounce back to around the 265 mark, this time last year they had 350.
On the plus side, the track are expecting their first owner trainer runners next week.
Coulthard said: “Francis O’Hare’s first runners are due to complete their trials. Tom Hollie and Kevin Knight are also trialling dogs with Tony Steel the next one due to start.”
