A group of pro greyhound racing supporters broke new ground on Sunday when going head-to-head with a bunch of ‘antis’ outside Henlow Stadium.
Ten anti racing protestors arrived at the Lower Stondon circuit to find that around a dozen and a half greyhound fans had already set up a demonstration extolling the virtues of greyhound racing.
Promoter Kevin Boothby said: “We were originally notified by the police that a protest was planned, but then I had to tell the policewoman that a bigger protest group would be protesting against the protestors. I think she found it quite funny.
“But it was a great success and very well organised.
“I have never seen anything like it before but I would hope it would be the sort of thing that would catch on.”
One of the organisers, owner and enthusiast Viv Clements, might once have found herself in the ‘anti’ camp.
She said: “When I had my first ex-racer it is fair to say that I was a lot more ‘anti’ than ‘pro’.
“It originally started with Greytxploitations who told me that my dog had suffered all its life. But the more I found out about my dog, and his life, I realised that so much that the antis tell us was absolute lies.
“I traced his career back to his breeder, a lovely Dutch couple living in Ireland, Cees and Hettie De Snoo, who never have a dog put to sleep. I followed him through his English career, through Mark Wallis, Barry O’Sullivan, all the way to my sofa. It was rubbish. When I told them what I had found I had nothing but abuse. It was horrible.
“CAGED also lie about absolutely everything, from how the dogs are treated to the numbers that have to be re-homed. They will say anything to get donations.
“Henlow have a great record on welfare and we thought it was important that they should be supported. We actually had more ex-racers in our group than the total number of antis who turned up. They even lied about the number of their supporters, but we videoed them.
“It also fantastic to see Mark Bird (GBGB Managing Director) turn out and be so supportive. He was very enthusiastic and had some good ideas. It meant a lot to see GBGB involved.
“As a small group, we are not in a position to travel around the country to challenge other protests but would hope that similar groups of enthusiasts would get together and show people that we really are a caring industry.”
