Have you ever wondered how different the big race Rolls of Honour might have been different, but for dope testing? 

Certainly the rise and fall of certain trainers’ careers were mirrored with improvements in drug detection.  

But then how many race titles were won and lost due to the rules on kennelling times? 

 

It is a fundamental of our sport that greyhounds love to race. And some REALLY LOVE to race. 

Not all hounds are the same, but every top trainer can list hounds who became so excitable on race day that it became a significant challenge to ensure that they didn’t lose their race long before they got to traps. 

Greyhounds can be very perceptive in terms of habitual behaviour and there is often a battle of wits between them and the trainers.  

For most, the giving of a ‘race feed’ in the early afternoon, when the rest of the kennel is fed, is enough to placate them. 

For the shrewder ones though, there is a noticeable difference between the regular bowlful and the smaller portion that just covered the bottom of the bowl. 

So they kick off! 

The barking doesn’t stop until they leave for racing probably three or four hours later and the nervous energy is always draining away. 

I’ve known trainers legitimately give a full feed to do dog knowing that he isn’t running for eight hours and that the amount they will have digested will offset the energy loss if they aren’t fed. 

You will struggle to find a breed with a greater propensity for habit forming. Nick Savva would stagger the shift between GMT and BST by ten minutes a day until the dogs made the adjustment. 

Eight years after adapting to a sofa, our ex-racer Ribble Rush would excitedly attempt to get into any white van coming up the drive in the absolute faith that Mark Wallis had changed his mind about her retirement. 

There are tales of hounds being put on the scales immediately before they go on parade having lost two-three kilos in nervous energy in the three hours or so since they were kennelled. 

As the trainer or kennelhand goes to the paddock at around 20 minutes or so before a race, they never know what they will find. 

Sometimes the floor is awash with liquid. As though someone has emptied a bucket of water. It is drool caused by incessant panting though the issue might have started many hours earlier. 

Some will have destroyed the beds or mats in the kennel. Some attempt to dismantle the kennel.  

Most older kennels had a ring for a chain, to reduce the activity, but that brought its own risks of the dogs ending up with chains wrapped around their legs and bodies. 

A number of trainers have secreted radios into the kennels to keep the dogs calm. I remember the late great Matt O’Donnell famously facing a stewards inquiry for doing it. 

Not one toss was given! 

Sometimes trainers will put cotton wool in the dog’s ears. I remember spotting Ger McKenna kennelling up Lartigue Note on English Derby Final night, and seeing Ger quickly slip a full-face black mask over the dog’s head to keep him calm. It worked like a charm. 

The opposite is true too. I recall the trainer of one particularly hyper Cat 1 finalist losing his spit after being allegedly stitched up by the track owner. 

During the heats and semi finals of the competition, the dog had been allocated a kennel in a quiet range at the back of the paddock. 

For the final, his kennel was directly next to the tap, buckets and water bowls where all the previous race runners were washed off. By the time the runners emerged for the tenth race, the dog was a drooling mess and when he finally got to traps, he was never seen with a chance. 

 

So why have kennelling? 

For a start, let’s dismiss any suggestion that it has anything to do with ‘welfare’. That particular term is used to justify some of the most ridiculous passages in the rule book. 

Real welfare was dogs laying on their beds at home for most of the day and being driven onto the carpark of a flapping track 30 minutes before a race. 

The flaps saved the careers of so many dogs whose reputation as bad kennellers meant they could never star ‘under rules’. Hence the reference to the Roll Of Honour. 

The reality is – kennelling is all about betting. It was designed, in the first instance, to ensure that no fast acting drug could be given soon before a race. 

That evolved into chromatography testing. In the first instance, in the times of doping gangs, when whole kennel complexes were targeted during the 1940s/1950s, it did serve a purpose, though – like airport scanners – more as a deterrent than a serious detection opportunity. 

But as the stadium owned kennel complexes were replaced by contracted trainers, many millions were literally pissed down the drain on a pointless procedure that was limited at best, often inaccurate, and easily beaten. 

It detected a very limited range of drugs, sometimes led to incorrect withdrawals, and was bypassed by unscrupulous trainers who opted to administer a banned substance within minutes of the test and long before it would be detected in the urine.  

Why are we getting so many post race positives with dogs who have passed the chromo? Doh! 

Besides, pre race kennelling brought its own security issues. For the first time all the dogs would be in the one place and could be identified. 

Doped food was left in kennels by bribed track/kennel staff or pushed into holes drilled through walls. Tracks attempted to counter this by random kennel selection though that didn’t stop the practice, it merely made the doping less prepared. 

Overall, the UK kennelling system is way more manic than it need be. The Australians developed a far better model where each race was designated its own secure room and all bar the impending race are off limits. 

 

But for many years, kennelling has been more about practicality than integrity (or welfare).  

If is easier to kennel 72 runners in an hour with paddock/racing office staff and vets in situ, rather than have them backwards and forwards throughout the meeting. 

However trainers of a particular vintage may recall the days when NGRC track Rye House would allow trainers to turn up and be kennelled mid-meeting. 

All is down to Rule 112 which stipulates that kennelling should not commence more than 105 minutes before the first race or trial of a session. 

Furthermore, greyhounds must be kennelled for a minimum of 45 minutes, but “a greyhound should not be kennelled for more than five hours.” 

Yes – FIVE HOURS! 

At what stage did that ever become humane? 

Small wonder that racing managers take it into their own hands to introduce second kennelling. 

 

All of which leads us to the case of Towcester’s Andy Lisemore who was subject to a recent enquiry regarding kennelling procedures. 

The full details of the inquiry are yet to be published but my understanding is as follows. 

Over a period of time, kennelling procedures unravelled at the track. The standard kennelling times were largely ignored with some of the runners from the trainer’s on-site kennels turning up mid-meeting, or pretty much whenever they chose. 

I understand that during the course of the inquiry there were allegations that some trainers were informing the paddock stewards of dog’s weights rather than putting them on the scale. 

I understand that evidence was given at the enquiry of dogs identities not being electronically verified before they raced or trialled. 

The Towcester management – and Lisemore – had already been given a warning but the practice continued. In all honesty, more than one high profile trainer warned me on more than one occasion, ‘it is only a matter of time before someone pulls a huge stroke at Towcester because security is so lax.” 

There are though, two sides to this story, and while not defending Andy Lisemore’s culpability, certain things also need to be said. 

  • My first question is why the racing manager was sanctioned and not the racecourse executive? While the RM is responsible for an initial kennelling. . . . assuming he is dealing with matters in the judges box, how can he be held to vicarious liability for dogs not being correctly checked to go out on parade? Or for incorrect procedure during a second kennelling? Or insufficient numbers of experienced staff? This is not a pop at promoter Boothby – I am talking ‘principle’ not ‘personal’. Small wonder, Lisemore has been reluctant to resume the title of Racing Manager. 
  • The GBGB issued the following nebulous statement –  https://greyhoundstar.co.uk/lisemore-suspended/. How does that look to the layman? Google ‘Andy Lisemore’, it is the first subject that you come across. Between that press release and the enquiry there was a four month gap, and the mental anguish on Andy and his wife and three kids was horrendous. I wonder whether this was the sort of thing that the GBGB Director Of Regulation Phillip Law had in mind when he wrote a Racing Post Monday column extolling the importance of protecting the wellbeing of industry stakeholders? 
  • Lastly – what was Andy Lisemore to gain from all this aggravation? Yes he broke the rules but at no point do GBGB ever suggest that he was up to anything sinister. He was trying to appease trainers with a second kennelling for no personal benefit – only aggravation for himself. How would the trainers of old have responded to being told, ‘oh by the way, it isn’t eight races anymore, it is 14 and your dog will be in kennels for nearly five hours.’ Racing managers have always been ‘flexible’ when it comes to kennelling. They have turned a blind eye to dogs arriving late, they will even delay races if necessary. 

 

I feel the matter could have been handled differently by the GBGB with human wellbeing more prominently considered, both in how things were communicated and the length of time the matter took to be heard and decided.