CRITICISM of the Wimbledon management to extend the pick-up point at Plough Lane continues to gather momentum and the latest trainer to take a swipe at what he calls a “pointless and ridiculous” thing to do is up and coming handler, Dean Childs.
“As as far as I’m concerned it’s utter madness,” says Childs, “the Wimbledon management are subjecting greyhounds to run not so much over the Derby trip of 480 metres but more like 680 metres but didn’t anyone tell them these are not staying dogs?
“I speak from experience at Wimbledon last week when I had seven dogs running in the Derby and all came off very tired. True, this was partly due to the heavy going but the unnecessary long run to the ‘new’ pick up had a lot to do with it.
“A greyhound doesn’t know where the winning line is so he will run just as fast after the line as he would in the race itself but, as middle distance dogs, they don’t have much left in the staying department and this absurd long run to the pick up is detrimental to the dogs and their welfare.”
Childs’ views on the matter are shared by leading trainers Dolores Ruth, Charlie Lister OBE and Nick Savva, all of whom have publicly slammed the distance to the new drop. Miss Ruth said here a month ago that the extra distance the dogs are now asked to travel “tears the guts out of a greyhound.”
Childs, whose kennels are at Ockendon near Upminster in Essex, is saddened by the fact that, to the best of his knowledge, no trainer was ever consulted by Wimbledon over the contentious re-siting of the pick up.
“It’s a disgrace, after all us trainers are the ones who know our dogs and can easily spot if they have over-exerted themselves and this is happening at Wimbledon,” Childs continued. “Trainers are the ones who should be listened to instead of having this foisted upon us as a fait accompli! It’s all wrong and all so unnecessary.
“Did Wimbledon, I wonder, consider the possibility of the risk of injury to the dogs by running them further than really they are capable of running? After all we are talking middle distance dogs here, not Scurlogue Champs!
“I dread to think how exhausted the dogs will be when we get to the stage of three Derby runs in a week to the extended pick up, especially if the going is heavy again. It will particularly affect the short runners who gasp for air over 480 metres! It’s all wrong.”
On a happy note, Childs has six of his original seven Derby entries still standing their ground at Wimbledon. Whether they will be able to stand if the ground comes up heavy again this weekend remains to be seen!
“They should stop the hare as soon as they can after the line, in fact the sooner the better. Running to the new pick up runs all kinds of risks, injury, exhaustion and a greyhound is more liable to play or fight if the hare is whipped away and the dogs are left with virtually nothing to chase.”
"It's a great buzz for me and my owners," he says...
WIMBLEDON racing manager Gary Matthews is out with the news of a new trainer there a day or so before anticipated, confirming that Chris Mosdall, currently attached to Harlow, will switch to Plough Lane within the next couple of weeks.
Mosdall will have up to 30 dogs available for grading at Wimbledon, 10 to 15 of them at the top end and the rest currently A2/A3 graders. "It really is a great buzz for me and my owners," he said, "Harlow have been very good to me and I would like to thank them for that but I’m thrilled to be doing something I love at a top track like Wimbledon."
'Well schooled' was Mosdall, who spent a number of years with Joe Cobbold, who he described as "a genius with greyhounds" and was also a close friend some years back with Pa Fitzgerald, head man to Patsy Byrne back in his Wimbledon days and renowned for his ability with coursing dogs.
But an announcement expected soon from racing manager Gary Matthews...
THAT Wimbledon have re-advertised the position of a trainer, or two is our understanding, to replace the out-going Norah McEllistrim to Hove, doesn’t say much for the esteem in which the GRA’s flagship track is now held by trainers.
In the present climate of course, and considering also the instability of the industry as a whole just now, it would be a tough decision indeed for any trainer to contemplate jumping ship, even if such a jump would land him or her on the higher ground.
There was a time when a potential contract at Plough Lane would have had trainers swarming for the post, but not any more it seems, better the devil you know might be the thoughts of those who are already gainfully employed elsewhere, and can you wonder at it?
Hall Green and Oxford-based handler to quit training...
LIFE has rarely been more difficult in the business of training greyhounds and what drives home that message here at GOBATA is the number of owners, trainers and kennelhands we hear of who are turning their back on the sport in search of an alternative and worthwhile living.
Okay, so nobody forced them into greyhound racing but the vast majority of them got involved at a time when things were infinitely better than they are now and Aylesbury-based trainer Mick Peterson, son of another top trainer in his time, John Peterson, would vouch for that.
Peterson jnr, 28, followed his father into the sport but he has been forced to wave the white flag like others before him and will have had his last runners at GRA tracks Oxford and Hall Green, or anywhere else for that matter, come the end of May.
NO frilly bits and pieces in tonight’s Sky coverage of the Betfair Trainers’ Championship meeting at Perry Barr but wall to wall coverage of the big event with interviews throughout with the six competing handlers and snapshots of some of the runners at home at their kennels.
“I hope the competition is exciting as it has been for the past two years when we had to wait for the very last heat to determine the winner,” said producer Dave Lawrence, “I’m fingers crossed it goes right to the wire again!
“Charlie (Mr Lister OBE) has a very strong team and looks the one to beat but I’m hoping our dog gives him a run for his money in the third leg.” Lawrence owns Guinness Kev in partnership with brother Clive, Hobbsy, Darrell and a “couple of Wimbledon owners” and the lads fancy their chances from the outside box.
They have backed him and one live wire snapped up the 12-1 early doors this morning, none of that was left by the time the rest of the gang rang their bookies! “The price went immediately after one of us got the 12-1, I’ll just have to get up earlier in future,” threatened Lawrence.
Also in the show will be recordings of last week’s Puppy Derby won by Pat Rosney’s Newinn Rocket at Monmore and Saturday’s SIS Gold Cup final at Shelbourne where Milldean Panther, winner of his first 12 races, has now been beaten in his two most recent!
PERRY BARR are anticipating their biggest crowd for some time when they host the Betfair Trainers’ Championship meeting on Wednesday.
With more than £30,000 in prizemoney to play for, five of the top six trainers from last year competing (Dean Childs replaces Kelly Findlay), and with a canine line-up of the highest class the place will be buzzing.
“The restaurant is as good as sold out already,” said racing manager Martin Seal, “a good number of the runners on Wednesday have been round here in trials and it promises to be a brilliant night’s racing.”
The meeting is live on Sky Sports 4 with the first of the eight Championship races due off at 7.40pm and the last at 9.45. First blood in the opener may go to Charlie Lister OBE’s Mottos Blue, a fast winner at Galway in December but beaten on his only British run so far at Sheffield last month.
Joining Lister and Childs in the fray are Seamus Cahill, Nick Savva, Chris Allsopp and Mark Wallis, all of whom have brought out their heavy artillery and thus making it nigh on impossible to predict the outright winning kennel!
GRA expected to advertise for two trainers following McEllistrim’s decision to move on....
WIMBLEDON won’t want to spend too much time looking for a replacement trainer for Norah McEllistrim, who last weekend handed in her notice at Plough Lane and is on her way to Hove where she will fill in the gap about to be vacated by Brian Clemenson’s impending departure.
As soon as Clemo moves out so Miss McEllistrim will move in down at the seaside, taking with her the 30 runners she currently has on the Wimbledon strength, a strength which temporarily will be depleted to the point whereby the track will find it difficult, if not nigh on impossible, to maintain their current schedule of two 12-race meetings a week.
NORAH McELLISTRIM told GOBATA on Sunday that she feels “very attached to Wimbledon” but her association with the GRA flagship track will come to an end on March 31 when she will take up the position vacated by the outgoing Brian Clemenson at Coral-owned Hove.
The move will mean more miles from her Walton-on-Thames kennels, more meetings, more diesel no doubt, but countered by the added attraction of better prizemoney would have swayed her decision while the uncertain future of the GRA as we know it would also have been close to uppermost in her mind.
THE withdrawal of Kelly Findlay from the Betfair Trainers’ Championship at Perry Barr on March 21 has opened the door for Dean Childs, who was yesterday invited by the GBGB to take her place in the competition.
“It’s a bit short notice but we’re delighted to be asked, especially after coming so close to qualifying by right last year,” said Childs. “This is only a small kennel and we need eight runners for the Championship, we normally have no more than about ten runners a week so virtually all my dogs will be taking part.
“But I think we’ll have a team good enough to do ourselves justice and I’ll be expecting to see Freedom Cache improve a bit on his first six-bend race at Monmore last month when he got turned over. He will be all the better for that blow out and he’ll be our main hope in the six-benders.”
John Mullins kennel goes on the market....
AS if more proof was needed of the struggle it is nowadays to make it pay as a trainer, Jim Cremin’s three-page feature in today’s Racing Post drives home the message even further, with the likes of Wimbledon trainer Richard Rees, Crayford’s Barry O’Sullivan and former Mark Wallis assistant Patrick Janssens all expressing their views – and they are as one, it is becoming increasingly difficult to make ends meet.
O’Sullivan, who is contracted by Ladbrokes, one of the better paymasters in the game, nevertheless admits “there is not a lot left after the bills have been paid” and adds that of the 100 dogs in his kennel half of them are owned by, and consequently paid for, by him. “I’d love to find owners for them,” says O’Sullivan, Easier said.
Rees says that if he “had a mortgage” he would have to walk away from greyhound racing tomorrow. “There’s a constant worry,” he continues, “an unexpected setback might finish us” and he also points the finger at the scourge of greyhound trainers, namely bad payers. He says he has been owed thousands by the knockers, those who turn their back on the game and walk away without paying their dues.
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