TRAINERS TO HAVE THEIR DAY – AT LAST!

Do you remember when you first heard about Covid?

I follow an American website whose only contributors are professional in their fields, mainly scientists. They don’t trust journalists to be accurate (not clever enough) or honest (lies and exaggeration sell newspapers/clickbait) in their reporting.

No – the irony isn’t lost on me either!

Anyway, in late 2019 the geeks were concerned about an outbreak of a new disease in China. They feared under-reporting and press censure, but eventually the outbreak was so overwhelming on a global scale that it couldn’t be covered up any longer.

By January it made the Western media and by March we were in lockdown.

What would you have thought then, had you known that 18 months later, Covid would still be hogging the daily headlines?

Do you remember when Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated?

Sorry – wrong war.

Do you remember when the media rights skirmish broke out?

I had a guess at around three years ago. In fact, we reported the sale of Newcastle and Sunderland to ARC and the formation of Greyhound Media Group on May 22 2017.

Don’t worry – it will all be over by Christmas!

I can’t help but notice the comparisons between the media rights battle and that great black/white TV series, the World At War.

Listen to Sir Laurence Olivier narrating an early episode and it doesn’t look at all hopeful for Blighty.

Wars invariably last longer than anyone anticipates, successes and strategies set against catastrophes of planning and implementation. The final outcome isn’t clear until at least episode 19 in the box set.

Every time we visit this subject there have been unforeseen developments.

Four years and three months on, and it is all still to play for.

I regularly get asked about the ongoing situation – and understandably so.

The future of greyhound racing in Britain is unclear and people’s livelihoods are at stake.

How many tracks will there be?

Do we have enough dogs?

Is my track on the winning side?

I honestly don’t know. There are too many decisions still to be made and every one carries a repercussion.

Back in May 2017, some of the ARC tracks were suggesting SIS wouldn’t be able to get a service together and that the betting shops would choose ARC as the better and cheaper option.

We had the £50m court case over horseracing data that SIS lost. Despite ARC’s best hopes, the betting industry didn’t jump immediately on board for their greyhound service. ARC cut their meetings and we saw the closure of three of ‘their’ tracks.

Covid struck and saw shops close temporarily. That resulted in a rapid expansion of on-line betting. William Hill was sold and their shops were put on the market.

Back in November last year – but kept secret for six months – ARC and Entain (as track operators with 40% of High Street retail betting) signed a five year deal (2024-2029).

Then SIS renewed their deal with the powerful racing group HMG.

That was a biggie!

SIS replaced ARC as the RPGTV provider

Not so much!

ARC bought Central Park. Kevin Boothby announced plans to re-open Oxford and Mildenhall. Talks began for a potential sale of Valley track in Wales which would switch to GBGB rules and join the SIS group.

Given all the above, I am too cowardly to make too many predictions barring the following.

1) There are many more episodes to this box set. We may not even be halfway through it yet.

2) The availability of trained greyhounds will become the next big factor – and it will happen very quickly.

So – off on a tangent now – what do you know about the careers of racing dogs?

Despite having written probably millions of words about greyhounds, I realised that I had no idea of their average racing careers in terms of volume of races or age of retirement.

I guess they retire at about four years of age with about 60 races per head?

Some of the numbers are self evident. We know that GBGB registered 6,820 greyhounds last year. It was the lowest number ever, but we were dealing with Covid.

The historical trend is slightly down though – 7,252, 7,392 in the previous two years compared to say 7,604 and 7,691 in 2015/16. (It was over 11,000 back in 2004/5).

If we guess then, that it is roughly 7,000 in and 7,000 out every year, it ties in nicely with the re-homing figure.

But we need more detail and my thanks here go to Steve Cale at greyhoundstats.co.uk for his input with the following:

Steve was able to confirm that there were roughly 7,000 greyhounds from each ‘year group’ registered with GBGB. In other words, 7,000 (approx.) 2013 whelps (Irish/British combined). With a similar number of 2014 whelps.

These figures came in useful when it came to calculating the average number of races that each dog would contest.

It proved uncannily consistent. Each hound would average roughly 47/48 races each. There are a handful of 2015 whelps still in training, so their average could come even closer to ‘the norm’.

The average age at which they retired was between 40 and 41 months. Put another way, if your racer was born before March 2018 and has contested more than 48 races, he is on the wrong side of the slope.

(Don’t get too despondent though, it isn’t holding back Aayamza Royale at 3yrs 9 months).

Finally, on Steve’s figures, he compared the genders, and although they retire at almost exactly the same age, the bitches averaged an extra two and a half races each. “A woman’s work. . . .”

Having led you down this particular path, I can now reveal that it is pretty much a cul-de-sac.

Well not exactly, as I will explain in a minute, but it is significantly irrelevant in some major ways.

Basically, although the numbers of greyhounds are falling, and will dip further due to a 15% decline in breeding in 2020 due to Covid, the real issue is more imminent. (Yes, even more imminent than 2022, when the bulk of the 2020 whelps will dominate racecards.)

Think of it in these terms. There are no plans from the bookies to demand extra racing next year. The question is, who can best deliver what they want?

courtesy greyhoundstats.co.uk

The key to this again comes from Steve.

He has produced a chart showing the estimated number of greyhounds at each track.

This chart isn’t new. Regular viewers of our Zoom interviews will recall a conversation with Peter Harnden a few weeks ago where we unveiled it.

The problem was, it was flawed. The chart was based on the calculation of the number of individual greyhounds who had raced at the track in the previous month.

It was the racing offices themselves who brought the error to our attention. We had over estimated the kennel strengths. Many of those runners who had raced in the previous 28 days were no longer available due to illness, injury, being in-season or retired.

In some cases, the injuries were minor and only required a few days rest.

So the question was asked, ‘how many greyhounds would you have available to grade – today!’

Working backwards – from the original figure by deducting a percentage who would actually be unavailable – made a dramatic difference.

We went back to several racing offices with our guesstimate of their kennel strengths and in most cases we were within 4% of their own figures.

So this is the table. But it comes with a lengthy list of warnings and riders.

Courtesy greyhoundstats.co.uk

The first is that it is an estimate, made in good faith but we do not claim that it is 100% accurate.

Secondly, the racing strength will, quite literally, vary by the day. A trial session may boost it. Racing injuries, sickness or trainer movement may deplete it.

Other points. The percentage will be affected by open races.

Technically, a track’s locally trained open racer will not contribute to the kennel strength, unless it has also run graded during the two weeks previously.

It might also be argued that a track staging plenty of opens is preventing graded runners from being on the list and driving down its apparent kennel strength.

Or is it a lack of graded runners that is necessitating the opens?

You decide.

What we take from the table depends on our interpretation of what it displays.

For example, it has long been a racing office ‘rule of thumb’ that a grader needs to operate to roughly a 120% kennel strength.

In other words, if he is grading 100 greyhounds, he will need roughly 120 to give him enough flexibility in terms of getting enough runners in the right traps and grades to make racing safe and competitive.

Less than 120% and the gaps appear in one form or another. More than 120% and too many dogs aren’t getting races, much to the frustration of owners and trainers.

If this table is accurate, it would suggest that the industry is operating somewhere close to breaking point.

Going back to Steve’s figures earlier, the margins for increasing the number of times a greyhound can race, or lengthening its career, would appear to be very limited.

In fact, many a dog man might argue that consistently racing dogs more than once a week would actually reduce their racing longevity.

Why is this important?

Because at some stage before the end of this month, Kevin Boothby plans to stage his first trials at Mildenhall and by the end of September, Oxford should also be qualifying runners.

Where will those runners come from?

For the answers look to finance and geography.

Prize money and contract payments vary considerably between different track promoters but location matters too.

Kennel staff spend dozens of hours on the road every week. A chance to earn similar money with reduced travel time and costs may appeal to many.

Trainers have never been in a better position to dictate their own terms.

With both ARC and SIS committed to long term contracts with their customers, trainers have never been better placed to dictate their own terms.