What is the future of greyhound racing? In this post I try to answer that question and offer some suggestions to put us on the right track.
The BoyleSports Irish Greyhound Derby final week is here and from what started as a field of 156 dogs during the last weekend of July, we now have our six finalists who will be vying for the biggest prize in the sport this coming Saturday Night.
https://twitter.com/shelbournepark/status/1695538659011834308?s=20
One of these dogs will stamp themselves into Derby Final history which we spoke about further in-depth here.
With all that fanfare and hype in the last few days/weeks, it's gotten me thinking about the bigger picture, about what is the future of Greyhound Racing, how can we capitalise on this hype and build an even future for the sport? Let’s have a look at the bigger picture.
It’s been a difficult few years, from the closure of historic stadiums like Harold’s Cross, manipulative media hit pieces and a pandemic it’s fair to say the sport has received a battering from multiple fronts for some time.
Despite these challenges, it’s always around Derby time following the English Derby and most importantly during the BoyleSports Irish Greyhound Derby that I gain a renewed sense of seemingly blind optimism for an even brighter future. But to be honest, I think the marketing and the consistent pitching of the sport leaves a lot to be desired.
For argument’s sake, I’m going to title myself a “Greyhound Racing purist”. I’ve been involved in the sport for as long as I can remember. Owning, raring and racing dogs formed a huge part of my childhood and that remains today as an adult. This has extended today to completing my recent Master’s research on the sport.
One of the primary reasons I chose to work for BoyleSports was their active relationship with the sport. Some of the biggest and best advocates of the sport are employees of BoyleSports. The likes of Sarah Kinsella and Kevin Hennessy who thanks to their dedication, work and coverage have put us in a much better position with than we would be without them.
There is certainly merit to this argument and logic. That being said, if the sport is to have any sort of future (by my reckoning) it is far more important that Greyhound people like myself, put more time and effort into training and taking pride in your “average” A4 grader than it is it is searching for that special sort that might come along once in every thousand dogs, if even.
https://twitter.com/DavidJMitch/status/1623712055541788673?s=20
The reality is that the detail and guidance for nutrition/massages/rest and exercise put into your “average” A10 dog takes the same amount of time and effort as your Open Class superstars across the kennel. In fact, those A10 dogs very often take more time and are more complex (I speak about that from experience).
Despite the care that these greyhounds get, media misinformation campaigns and agendas from some organisations have left the general public having a distorted perspective of what racing is all about. For as long as I have been involved in racing, trying to explain the hobby to my uninformed/uneducated peers was often an uphill task.
However, to Greyhound Racing Ireland’s credit, this situation has improved dramatically in recent years, specifically with their welfare and care videos on YouTube. Whether those snippets of information have been long overdue and forced due to the pressure of certain outside forces is another argument. But they’re there now and the sport is all the better for the existence of such videos and that is all that matters.
https://twitter.com/greyhoundcommun/status/1494733452695932930?s=20
In fact, the reality is if you took away the clock from your casual race attendee I reckon they couldn’t differentiate between a “lowly” A10 or an “Open-Class” Classic. By extension, if you asked someone actively involved in racing, removed any information in front of them and asked them “by their eye” to judge how quickly the dogs were clocking in I reckon more would get it wrong than right.
To put the unique form of canine athleticism on display at Greyhound Racing into a human perspective, the fastest 500m time ever for a man is David Rudisha 57.69 (2016) and a woman Femke Bol 1:05.63 (2023) both athletes are only clocking in speeds of 19.38 miles per hour and 17.75 miles per hour respectfully. So it's fair to say that even the “slowest” dogs show absolutely remarkable amounts of pace that in my opinion can and should be marketed better.
We need to ask ourselves questions like “What can we learn from Great Britain/Australia/so on and so forth?” What can we do differently in the product we’re currently offering?”. Or even, what can take from other sports and walks of life that could be applied for the betterment of racing?” We’re genuinely only limited by our imagination, but hey? Perhaps that’s the biggest limiter of them all if creativity is absent in the sport.
“It’s time there was a Netflix-style series to bring new fans to the sport”. Graham mentions what the series has done for the likes of motor racing and golf, “You might not be a fan of those sports, but those programmes engage you, tell you interesting behind-the-scenes stories, and draw you in. They grow the fan base".
This is the type of thinking the sport needs to be aspiring to. And we can sit idle and wish these things come but we will end up wishing into our graves. It’s all about personal responsibility, lobbying and everyone doing their bit to try and get ideas like this going, only then does it become a possibility.
Maybe with a show like such showcasing inside the industry and marketing the training methods, the laughter, the joy and the heartache that all come with this wonderful sport, maybe that’s the way to attract new bodies because we have to do something.
https://twitter.com/GaineBill/status/1567158047482544133?s=20
These are just some ideas, to improve the racing product in Ireland, plenty of which are offered in other jurisdictions, namely the UK and Australia, but are seemingly not offered in Ireland for whatever reason. I’m not saying that they’re all viable ideas, but they’re all surely worth some sort of discussion? I’d like to think so anyway.
Other ideas that I’ve since come up with would be “Match Racing” (where two similarly matched dogs’ race directly against one another) something we’ve seen recently in Shelbourne Park, or even different tracks offering different types of racing surfaces? Introducing and encouraging different greyhound ownership models, increasing the influence of science in all areas of the industry, and upgrading stadia to modern-day standards. I could go on forever.
https://twitter.com/shelbournepark/status/1687901953882308608?s=20
I appreciate, that many of these ideas may or may not be possible due to a multitude of reasons, namely finance and the prioritisation of different projects. With that said, we need to ensure that the sport is seen as a welcoming, exciting and prosperous industry not only for those actively involved today, but also for those who want to work in or with the industry in the future.
Despite the sport offering all of this and more resulting from daily meetings across the country, no career portal exists for the sector, (aside from a vacancy page on the GRI Site) if you want to get involved you may have a broad idea, get dogs, get licenses etc, but to my knowledge no proper guide exists at the moment.
The joy of training greyhounds is something quite unmatched in my opinion, even with my part-time/hobby experience with the sport. However, there’s probably a condescending attitude to those unaware of the work involved in training a dog, but be under no certain terms, greyhound trainers are no fools.
A trainer will know about accounting, animal physiology, people management, logistics, planning and unforgiving long work hours, with no off-season. But you can ask anyone, all those hours of graft are quickly forgotten and replaced with joy if you’re fortunate to see your dog race, and maybe even win on track!
We should even be doing more to attract the biggest and best talent from across other disciplines. If a promoter from another sport, for example, you have the communication, sales, and marketing skills which could be transferred over into our industry! You may love them or loathe them, but I can only imagine how prosperous the industry could be under the promotion of an Eddie or Barry Hearn, just to name two. The point of the matter is that with a correct, effective career framework in place our sport could thrive even further.
I recognise how fortunate I am in my current position with my position as a Content Writer for BoyleSports, while not directly employed in the industry I love, by proxy of my role and the company's tireless dedication to covering the sport I can write articles like this. It’s one of the reasons I chose to work for this company.
This is particularly the case when our “National Broadcaster” has decided to blissfully ignore this wonderful sport in favour of an agenda based on complete and utter misinformation. The truth of the matter is that this sport is home to the most regulated and stringently monitored animal in the UK and Ireland, certainly breed of dog anyway. I suppose the truth is far less “newsworthy”.
This is a long read (so sorry for that) but there are a lot of things which needed to be said and I didn’t feel anyone else was saying these things (in public anyway). This sport has been apart of my life for the best part of two decades and I feel some sort of personal responsibility to the industry, something that I hope can inspire others to look for change and innovation for a proper future. I’m not saying greyhound racing will cease to exist within 15-20 years - not by a long stretch.
I’m not saying everything, or even any of the ideas I’m proposing are the “quick fix” or the “solution” but God Knows some outside-the-box thinking wouldn’t go astray.
*Prices Subject To Fluctuation
Remember, always gamble responsibly. Here’s our Safer Gambling Guide.
The BoyleSports Irish Greyhound Derby final week is here and from what started as a field of 156 dogs during the last weekend of July, we now have our six finalists who will be vying for the biggest prize in the sport this coming Saturday Night.
https://twitter.com/shelbournepark/status/1695538659011834308?s=20
One of these dogs will stamp themselves into Derby Final history which we spoke about further in-depth here.
The Future Of Greyhound Racing
This week promises to be the most exciting in the Irish Greyhound Calendar with plenty of build-up, debate, articles, podcasts and much more! This is absolutely how it should be; this is the premier event of the year, and it should rightfully get all the build-up that it will receive.With all that fanfare and hype in the last few days/weeks, it's gotten me thinking about the bigger picture, about what is the future of Greyhound Racing, how can we capitalise on this hype and build an even future for the sport? Let’s have a look at the bigger picture.
It’s been a difficult few years, from the closure of historic stadiums like Harold’s Cross, manipulative media hit pieces and a pandemic it’s fair to say the sport has received a battering from multiple fronts for some time.
Despite these challenges, it’s always around Derby time following the English Derby and most importantly during the BoyleSports Irish Greyhound Derby that I gain a renewed sense of seemingly blind optimism for an even brighter future. But to be honest, I think the marketing and the consistent pitching of the sport leaves a lot to be desired.
For argument’s sake, I’m going to title myself a “Greyhound Racing purist”. I’ve been involved in the sport for as long as I can remember. Owning, raring and racing dogs formed a huge part of my childhood and that remains today as an adult. This has extended today to completing my recent Master’s research on the sport.
One of the primary reasons I chose to work for BoyleSports was their active relationship with the sport. Some of the biggest and best advocates of the sport are employees of BoyleSports. The likes of Sarah Kinsella and Kevin Hennessy who thanks to their dedication, work and coverage have put us in a much better position with than we would be without them.
An Obsession With The Open-Class Dog
However, on the whole, I feel there is plenty room for improvement for everyone actively involved in the sport (including myself) we have become a little obsessed with having the “top-class” or “open-class” type dog. This thought process (in my opinion) comes a lot down to the prize money currently on offer at the varying grades of racing.There is certainly merit to this argument and logic. That being said, if the sport is to have any sort of future (by my reckoning) it is far more important that Greyhound people like myself, put more time and effort into training and taking pride in your “average” A4 grader than it is it is searching for that special sort that might come along once in every thousand dogs, if even.
Marketing of Greyhound Racing In the UK & Ireland
On Twitter I saw an interesting tweet once by David Mitchell, syndicate owner of Blue Tick Racing, comparing the marketing of Australian Racing vs. how it is marketed in the UK/Ireland.https://twitter.com/DavidJMitch/status/1623712055541788673?s=20
The reality is that the detail and guidance for nutrition/massages/rest and exercise put into your “average” A10 dog takes the same amount of time and effort as your Open Class superstars across the kennel. In fact, those A10 dogs very often take more time and are more complex (I speak about that from experience).
Despite the care that these greyhounds get, media misinformation campaigns and agendas from some organisations have left the general public having a distorted perspective of what racing is all about. For as long as I have been involved in racing, trying to explain the hobby to my uninformed/uneducated peers was often an uphill task.
However, to Greyhound Racing Ireland’s credit, this situation has improved dramatically in recent years, specifically with their welfare and care videos on YouTube. Whether those snippets of information have been long overdue and forced due to the pressure of certain outside forces is another argument. But they’re there now and the sport is all the better for the existence of such videos and that is all that matters.
https://twitter.com/greyhoundcommun/status/1494733452695932930?s=20
The Speed Of Greyhounds
You see the truth of the matter is that no matter what grade of racing is on display you’re guaranteed to witness incredible feats of animal athleticism. Even the “slowest” Greyhound (A10) for the 525-yard trip, will still be clocking in at over 31 miles per hour.In fact, the reality is if you took away the clock from your casual race attendee I reckon they couldn’t differentiate between a “lowly” A10 or an “Open-Class” Classic. By extension, if you asked someone actively involved in racing, removed any information in front of them and asked them “by their eye” to judge how quickly the dogs were clocking in I reckon more would get it wrong than right.
To put the unique form of canine athleticism on display at Greyhound Racing into a human perspective, the fastest 500m time ever for a man is David Rudisha 57.69 (2016) and a woman Femke Bol 1:05.63 (2023) both athletes are only clocking in speeds of 19.38 miles per hour and 17.75 miles per hour respectfully. So it's fair to say that even the “slowest” dogs show absolutely remarkable amounts of pace that in my opinion can and should be marketed better.
How To Improve The Marketing of Greyhound Racing
For me, I feel the sport in Ireland has been held back by conservative thinking (an attitude certainly not held by all, but by plenty). We’re seemingly afraid of being bold and daring in our thinking and vision for the sport. There has been a preference to consolidate the existing situation or “status quo”, for want of a better phrase, rather than thinking more innovatively, looking at what other jurisdictions do and are thinking.We need to ask ourselves questions like “What can we learn from Great Britain/Australia/so on and so forth?” What can we do differently in the product we’re currently offering?”. Or even, what can take from other sports and walks of life that could be applied for the betterment of racing?” We’re genuinely only limited by our imagination, but hey? Perhaps that’s the biggest limiter of them all if creativity is absent in the sport.
Time For A Netflix Style Greyhound Racing Series
One man involved in the sport who isn’t afraid to be creative or bold in his ideas is leading trainer Graham Holland. We sat down with him in advance of the Derby Semi-Finals in a post which can be viewed here. But one quote in particular stood out to me.“It’s time there was a Netflix-style series to bring new fans to the sport”. Graham mentions what the series has done for the likes of motor racing and golf, “You might not be a fan of those sports, but those programmes engage you, tell you interesting behind-the-scenes stories, and draw you in. They grow the fan base".
This is the type of thinking the sport needs to be aspiring to. And we can sit idle and wish these things come but we will end up wishing into our graves. It’s all about personal responsibility, lobbying and everyone doing their bit to try and get ideas like this going, only then does it become a possibility.
Maybe with a show like such showcasing inside the industry and marketing the training methods, the laughter, the joy and the heartache that all come with this wonderful sport, maybe that’s the way to attract new bodies because we have to do something.
Thinking Outside The Box
To a similar end here is a tweet I put up a little under a year ago in which I suggested a potential strategy/strategies for tracks in Ireland and the UK.https://twitter.com/GaineBill/status/1567158047482544133?s=20
These are just some ideas, to improve the racing product in Ireland, plenty of which are offered in other jurisdictions, namely the UK and Australia, but are seemingly not offered in Ireland for whatever reason. I’m not saying that they’re all viable ideas, but they’re all surely worth some sort of discussion? I’d like to think so anyway.
Other ideas that I’ve since come up with would be “Match Racing” (where two similarly matched dogs’ race directly against one another) something we’ve seen recently in Shelbourne Park, or even different tracks offering different types of racing surfaces? Introducing and encouraging different greyhound ownership models, increasing the influence of science in all areas of the industry, and upgrading stadia to modern-day standards. I could go on forever.
https://twitter.com/shelbournepark/status/1687901953882308608?s=20
Time For An Irish Track Championship?
One idea I’d love to see brought into Irish Racing is a “Track Championship” something we’ve seen previously done in the UK. In a Track Championship, you would see each track represented by a dog in each race and ultimately the track with the most wins/places after the completion of the race card would be the “Track Championship Winners” for that given year. Yes, the ownership and model is slightly different in the UK, but it would be very easily adapted and would add an interesting spectacle to the greyhound calendar in Ireland.I appreciate, that many of these ideas may or may not be possible due to a multitude of reasons, namely finance and the prioritisation of different projects. With that said, we need to ensure that the sport is seen as a welcoming, exciting and prosperous industry not only for those actively involved today, but also for those who want to work in or with the industry in the future.
The Value Of Greyhound Racing
Per Economist Jim Power, the industry in Ireland helps support at least 4,150 full-time and part-time jobs, a €132 Million Value to Ireland but most importantly a priceless enjoyment for those involved in the sport which simply cannot be quantified.Despite the sport offering all of this and more resulting from daily meetings across the country, no career portal exists for the sector, (aside from a vacancy page on the GRI Site) if you want to get involved you may have a broad idea, get dogs, get licenses etc, but to my knowledge no proper guide exists at the moment.
The joy of training greyhounds is something quite unmatched in my opinion, even with my part-time/hobby experience with the sport. However, there’s probably a condescending attitude to those unaware of the work involved in training a dog, but be under no certain terms, greyhound trainers are no fools.
A trainer will know about accounting, animal physiology, people management, logistics, planning and unforgiving long work hours, with no off-season. But you can ask anyone, all those hours of graft are quickly forgotten and replaced with joy if you’re fortunate to see your dog race, and maybe even win on track!
National Greyhound Racing Job Portal Overdue
Even if “training” isn’t your cup of tea, the sport requires the work of vets, track managers, track condition experts, statisticians, journalists and so much more! The GRI hires some of these individuals but not enough, at the very least I think they should be facilitating a “National Job Portal” with information, candidate qualifications/background required for different roles, vacancies placed from kennels and related businesses and jobs across Ireland so we can have a hub to go to for anyone looking to get involved in the industry in whatever that capacity may be.We should even be doing more to attract the biggest and best talent from across other disciplines. If a promoter from another sport, for example, you have the communication, sales, and marketing skills which could be transferred over into our industry! You may love them or loathe them, but I can only imagine how prosperous the industry could be under the promotion of an Eddie or Barry Hearn, just to name two. The point of the matter is that with a correct, effective career framework in place our sport could thrive even further.
I recognise how fortunate I am in my current position with my position as a Content Writer for BoyleSports, while not directly employed in the industry I love, by proxy of my role and the company's tireless dedication to covering the sport I can write articles like this. It’s one of the reasons I chose to work for this company.
Media Coverage of Greyhound Racing
In this week leading up to the premier event in the calendar the “BoyleSports Irish Greyhound Derby Final” I’d like to give some praise to Virgin Media for their coverage in recent weeks of the Derby and to RGPTV for their constant commitment to our sport. I think I speak for everyone in the industry in saying that it is very much appreciated by enthusiasts like myself.This is particularly the case when our “National Broadcaster” has decided to blissfully ignore this wonderful sport in favour of an agenda based on complete and utter misinformation. The truth of the matter is that this sport is home to the most regulated and stringently monitored animal in the UK and Ireland, certainly breed of dog anyway. I suppose the truth is far less “newsworthy”.
This is a long read (so sorry for that) but there are a lot of things which needed to be said and I didn’t feel anyone else was saying these things (in public anyway). This sport has been apart of my life for the best part of two decades and I feel some sort of personal responsibility to the industry, something that I hope can inspire others to look for change and innovation for a proper future. I’m not saying greyhound racing will cease to exist within 15-20 years - not by a long stretch.
What Next For Irish Greyhound Racing?
For as long as people like myself remain in the world the sport has a future, and I am absolutely certain of that. However, how bright that future will be remains to be seen and it will require some innovative, bold and daring thinking and marketing rather than the conservative “what we know” if the sport is to have the future it truly deserves.I’m not saying everything, or even any of the ideas I’m proposing are the “quick fix” or the “solution” but God Knows some outside-the-box thinking wouldn’t go astray.
*Prices Subject To Fluctuation
Remember, always gamble responsibly. Here’s our Safer Gambling Guide.
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