In 20 months no more @Yankiwi....I mean Greyhounds are Banned!

[BitofaLegend]

14 minutes ago, bamboozla said:

Spot on, factory farming dogs was a model that should never have been encouraged, permitted or allowed. No such operation exists in Australia, the closest thing to it is probably the Wheeler operation but they don't train and spread dogs out across a number oftrainers. Farmers love their animals but in reality they are a commodity, be it sheep, cattle or dogs. The small trainers while not being as professional in their methods or having the facilites only trained and bred the number of dogs they could handle and could home or keep as pets themselves. To the factory farmers and their owners they were a balance sheet liability at day 1 of retirement and dealt with accordingly. Becuase they were enabled to do that it forced the hand of other participants who needed to compete to stay above water and a race to the bottom was swiftly enacted, periodically interepted by bouts of accountability forced upon them by the various reviews and negative publicity.  The small trainers were inevitably forced out leaving the farmers to mass produce dogs, fill an ever larger racing calender and push those dogs to breaking point. Dogs racing 3-4 times a week in numerous instances, dogs racing at 13 months old and thrashed until they broke then disappeared with seemingly little accountability. Stewards not even bothering to do their jobs, a board stinking of self entitlement and a head office all seemingly happy to let it happen. 

The fact that the previous administraitions let that happen is terrible, but I am guessing no one is going to put their hand up and say they got that wrong. Ditto the farmers still feeding off the beast they created. 

I have no doubt if trainers were limited to say 30 dogs max and strict racing protocols around dog management had been implemented a decade ago the industry would be thriving. 

Yep. And if the industry ban isnt overturned, id say 12 mths from now, they will be nearly the only ones racing because everyone else will be trying to rehome before the spca are involved

[BitofaLegend]

1 hour ago, the galah said:

I'm just an outsider looking in,but i thought its obvious current greyhound administrators are not to blame for the industries impending fate.

they were dealt cards that they couldn't win with,no matter how they stacked them.

simply,the industry, since 1981,when it had its first tab meeting,had evolved to become an industry that financially rewarded the factory type large scale breeders,large scale trainers,large scale owners.

so thats what you got.

with that you got an increased number of meetings,increased numbers racing and with that obviously went increased numbers being injured followed by large scale population management problems.

so the industry evolved into something which inevitably lead to the perpetuation and increase in scale of all its issues.like a runaway train.

one trainer in the 2021,2022 seasons reportedly euthanised 174 dogs. He may well have been accurately reporting their numbers,but were they. And what about the others large scale operators,were they being accurate,as others must have had the same rehoming issues. And thats without going into injuries.The same year newshub reported mr mcinerney dropped off 11 greyhounds at a rehoming kennel,with 8 reported having substanial injuries,which he denied they had at the time.

so the industry had become set up to reward the large scale operators,the very ones who,given their scale  couldn't possibly handle the poplutaion management once dogs had finished either because they weren't good enough,had been injured or had retired.

should people have seen the greyhound industry evoleving in a way that would lead to their demise,of course,some obviously did,but to me its too late now to change.sa.

how can greyhound have a future beyond 2 years,as the reasons for their closure will still be there in 2 years.

To be fair. 21/22 was very different to now. While im extremely against people putting dogs down like that. You simply could not do it now. Rules were still very laxed then due to poor leadership and late rractions by grnz.

Now, there is a euthanasia policy in place, a proper system to track greyhound population and a fund taken from stakes to cover serious injuries to dogs.

Ironically, i remember talking to schoey back in the early 2010s who argued we needed these things back then.

When he raised them then, not to many people took them seriously then.

[the galah]

3 hours ago, BitofaLegend said:

Many of the current people in the administration have been there for a long time. Not all of then sure, but alot have

well then those that have been should have seen it coming and bear some responsibility.

i was meaning people like edward rennell,as hes only been there a couple of years. seems a bit unfair to place much blame on him.the ship was already sinking.

i don't know the personalities involved that you refer to,but did some benefit financially,thus tainting their judgment? Thats often what happens .People work their ways into postions of influence as they see themselves influencing decisions fromn which they personally benefit,not the industry as a whole. 

i do remember david scott,a greyhound nz board member, making headlines when he got disqualified for supplying his trainer with performance enhancers. Instead his trainer,nathan udy didn't use them and reported him. I don't know how that effected nathan udy thereafter,but sounded like udy was just trying to do the right thing.Of course scott had other trainers and seemingly they must have been happy to use the performance enhancers as they didn't come forward.

i guess that was a story which seemed to sum the greyhound industry up.

you had someone(udy),who represented the majority who were in it for the love of the sport and the dogs,willing to stand up and do what he thought was right. But in reality,that just turned into a temporary leveling out of the downard spiral of racing integrity and standing.

then again,maybe there was more to that ,maybe udy had a fall out. i don't know, others may know. 

all industries have a bit of dishonesty and corrupt practice based around financial gain,just the greyhounds seemed to have more and it was  the big names that often created greyhound racings worst headlines. Those big names may not have represented the majority of licence participants,but they sure represented the control of the majority of dogs racing.

Edited December 14 by the galah

[the galah]

2 hours ago, BitofaLegend said:

To be fair. 21/22 was very different to now. While im extremely against people putting dogs down like that. You simply could not do it now. Rules were still very laxed then due to poor leadership and late rractions by grnz.

Now, there is a euthanasia policy in place, a proper system to track greyhound population and a fund taken from stakes to cover serious injuries to dogs.

Ironically, i remember talking to schoey back in the early 2010s who argued we needed these things back then.

When he raised them then, not to many people took them seriously then.

but then you had the cole case of all those fake people.Things like that just undermine your whole system.

they said the trainer who officially put down the 174 in 2 years,only put down 6 the following year(2023) after he was talked to by the rib.Seriously,can anyone really believe that he all of a sudden he had an epiphany,after years of the same practice,and  all of a sudden they cared more about their dogs and had somehow tapped into a rehoming service.My guess would be they just came up with a way to reclassify what was rehoming or euthanising.

From my observations,people who do things like that become dehumanised to what they are doing and it just becomes pert of their every week routine. once your mindset becomes like that you don't change.  

 

Edited December 14 by the galah

[Chief Stipe]

21 minutes ago, the galah said:

i was meaning people like edward rennell,as hes only been there a couple of years. seems a bit unfair to place much blame on him.the ship was already sinking.

 

Two years is ample time to have turned things around.

[Yankiwi]

43 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Two years is ample time to have turned things around.

Exactly.

2 or 3 years ago they hired the "sub-par" Track & Infrastructure Manager based in Australia that had a history of failures over there.

Serious injury rates have been on the rise ever since then.

Just recently, the Southland track, under his watch, went from the safest tract to the least safe track overnight, after they added new sand to the track that hadn't been screened properly & was full of rocks & stones.

Major injuries skyrocketed immediately, the track had to be shut down for a complete rework of the surface & yet the same T&I Manager is still on the books.

I guess GRNZ is still hoping that he'll improve his results going forward.

The industry needs to lead with strength, not weakness.

 

[curious]

1 hour ago, Chief Stipe said:

Two years is ample time to have turned things around.

I agree and I think the last quarterly data I saw showed injury rates to be double what they were for the same quarter last year. Then you have a bigger problem with the public perception and surveys showing that 75% would support a ban if there were a referendum. Hard for politicians to go against that I would say.

[BitofaLegend]

24 minutes ago, curious said:

I agree and I think the last quarterly data I saw showed injury rates to be double what they were for the same quarter last year. Then you have a bigger problem with the public perception and surveys showing that 75% would support a ban if there were a referendum. Hard for politicians to go against that I would say.

Yep - this is the biggest hurdle. It is partly because public perception is based on incorrect information provided by groups such as the spca or safe based on data from the US of A and from a decade ago, part of it is also the media bias that GRNZ only started challenging last year, but apart of it is also deserved to, i wouldnt disagree with that either

 

Edited December 14 by BitofaLegend

[BitofaLegend]

2 hours ago, the galah said:

but then you had the cole case of all those fake people.Things like that just undermine your whole system.

they said the trainer who officially put down the 174 in 2 years,only put down 6 the following year(2023) after he was talked to by the rib.Seriously,can anyone really believe that he all of a sudden he had an epiphany,after years of the same practice,and  all of a sudden they cared more about their dogs and had somehow tapped into a rehoming service.My guess would be they just came up with a way to reclassify what was rehoming or euthanising.

From my observations,people who do things like that become dehumanised to what they are doing and it just becomes pert of their every week routine. once your mindset becomes like that you don't change.  

 

Definetly not. Your guess regarding this is incorrect. Every single dogs origin is tracked now. Its why those 7 dogs they "misplaced" were raised. You would not get away with this behaviour anymore.

Regarding the person you mention. The less i say the better. I will only get in trouble if i speak the truth on this trainer. I will say, luckily, the rules are very tight now and they cant get of with alot of the things theyve done historically. Is that ideal? No. However, its a major improvement.

[the galah]

1 hour ago, BitofaLegend said:

Definetly not. Your guess regarding this is incorrect. Every single dogs origin is tracked now. Its why those 7 dogs they "misplaced" were raised. You would not get away with this behaviour anymore.

Regarding the person you mention. The less i say the better. I will only get in trouble if i speak the truth on this trainer. I will say, luckily, the rules are very tight now and they cant get of with alot of the things theyve done historically. Is that ideal? No. However, its a major improvement.

well thats good to here. However i'm still a little skeptical as to what they classify as rehoming,as i am of the other racing codes.

but,assuming the figures i saw are correct,then in the 2020/21 and 2021/22 seasons, a single trainer accounted for over half the official number euthanised.

then,as to the numbers rehomed in the abovementioned racing season,shown on the official greyhound nz website, for  2020/21 is 665 and 2021/22  577.

then this trainer x, only euthanised 6 dogs in the first half of the 2022/23 season.

so in effect it was inferred he would have rehomed looking at the figures,about another 80 dogs that year. Yet that year,the official number rehomed for the 2022/23 season was 96 less,being 481.

so hes provided about  a 15% increase in dogs to be rehomed,but instead of the number in that time frame going up,it officially went down about 15%.

like i said,i'm just going on the figures that are said to be accurate,so looking at them its hard to believe that there has not been a reclassification of the definition of rehoming,euthanising or maybe it was something like the trainer got disqualified.

who knows ,but the numbers look dodgy.

then look at where they are being rehomed. in the october 2024 report from greyhound nz,it says in the 3 month period between august and october- 138 dogs were rehomed,being 72 domestically,11 privately rehomed by participants,1 retained by an owner and 54 sent to america to a rehoming place there.

so looking at that,doesn't it seem obvious that if you having to go to the expense of sending 54 to america just to keep your figures looking good,doesn't that tell you can't find enough homes in nz. And only 1 being retained by an owner compared to the 54 sent to america.

i don't know,it indicates to me that greyhound nz have gone to extreme lengths to rehome them and to have the numbers classified so as to minimise the perception of euthanisations.

good on them for that,but doesn't that just all seem a bit extreme and an indication of how difficult the problem is and always will be.

i'm going to give up on reading all these figures and commenting again, as the whole thing is just sad whatever way i look at it.

i can tell the people on here care,so at least there are many who do everything they can to make it all turn out as best it can.

Edited December 14 by the galah

[Chief Stipe]

11 hours ago, curious said:

Then you have a bigger problem with the public perception and surveys showing that 75% would support a ban if there were a referendum. Hard for politicians to go against that I would say.

What was the question asked?  Then again what about the poor minority of 25% who supposedly support the industry or don't care?  

Obviously enough support to sustain an industry.

But you just keep banging on about a purely made up construct called a "social license"!

[Yankiwi]

On 13/12/2024 at 1:22 PM, That Girl said:

Rendle was the wrong choice.

Rendle was the wrong choice.

[curious]

13 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

What was the question asked? 

if the call for a referendum was held, 74.8% (992/1327) would vote in support of a ban on greyhound racing. Furthermore, 58.8% of respondents stated they would be disappointed in the government if they did not ban racing (780/1327), 68.3% (906/1327) agree that a ban on the greyhound racing is the right thing to do, and 65.5% (869/1327) believe it would improve New Zealand’s reputation for animal welfare.

Edited December 14 by curious

[curious]

[Yankiwi]

 

Quarter 1.

Major injuries - 24/25 on 23/24 season comparison.

Red numbers reflect the percentage increase (bad).

Black numbers reflect the percentage decrease (good).

 

 

Cambridge consistence rates.

Other tracks - far more major injuries & they were far more severe than the previous year.

[That Girl]

37 minutes ago, Yankiwi said:

Rendle was the wrong choice.

During this era an LP election was held, which was completely rorted, Calverley got voted out, but Holden/Rendle etc put all the voting papers through the shredder and said "G Calverley is the winner". 

I saw this as one of the last nails in the coffin, if corruption could happen at the highest level, and all the LP's rolled over and accepted it.

Rendle, emboldened by this rort of an LP election,  has not looked back since, making as much money as he could whilst running the industry into oblivion.

[BitofaLegend]

1 hour ago, Chief Stipe said:

What was the question asked?  Then again what about the poor minority of 25% who supposedly support the industry or don't care?  

Obviously enough support to sustain an industry.

But you just keep banging on about a purely made up construct called a "social license"!

As someone who is removed from racing somewhat these days, I can tell you this does not surprise me at all. The sentiment goes beyond greyhounds too. Most people seem to be anti racing generally these days and it will only get worse with time I feel. I work in alot of private companies and it seems the only groups of people with positive thoughts towards racing are those in their late 50s+.

The last few places ive been at do not even pay any attention to the Melbourne cup

 

Edited December 14 by BitofaLegend

[Chief Stipe]

14 hours ago, Yankiwi said:

Major injuries skyrocketed immediately, the track had to be shut down for a complete rework of the surface & yet the same T&I Manager is still on the books.

No a point in time BS analysis without any statistical normalisation by someone who has little understanding of statisics was done to presumably undermine the industry aka @Yankiwi.

GRNZ shot themselves in the foot by choosing some stupid metrics not based on any science or historical data.  Essentially they hoisted themselves by their own petard.

[Chief Stipe]

1 hour ago, That Girl said:

During this era an LP election was held, which was completely rorted, Calverley got voted out, but Holden/Rendle etc put all the voting papers through the shredder and said "G Calverley is the winner".

So did anyone consider a judicial challenge?  Or did you all go "oh well its a rort" and then constantly moan about it for the next two years?

[Chief Stipe]

1 hour ago, curious said:

As a social scientist @curious surely you can see the weakness in the poll and the question asked.  Still don't the 25% who don't want a ban have rights?  We give every other minority rights.  327 individuals polled in 2022 and 817 polled in 2024. 

Anyway the key part of the question is "If a referendum was held tomorrow..."  An event that was never ever likely to happen.

I'm surprised @curious knowing your working background that you would give any credence to such a poll.  BTW half the population want the Treaty Principles Bill concepts to be introduced as Law.  I gather you are advocating that it should go to a referendum as ACT want it to?  Or does the imaginery construct of a social license not allow that?

[Chief Stipe]

1 hour ago, Yankiwi said:

 

Quarter 1.

Major injuries - 24/25 on 23/24 season comparison.

Red numbers reflect the percentage increase (bad).

Black numbers reflect the percentage decrease (good).

 

 

Cambridge consistence rates.

Other tracks - far more major injuries & they were far more severe than the previous year.

Note to everyone @Yankiwi's statistics are misinformation aka bullshit.  Note that by comparison to other jurisidictions NZ Greyhound Racing has better statistics than most of them.  In one case at least half.  It has always been like that.  

So even if Chazza's stats were accurate, which they aren't, they are better than most.  The reality is if you race animals some will die of injury or sustain injuries that mean they can't race again.  It happens to pets too.  If you don't like don't race a Greyhound and don't own a pet.

As for the complaints about the large trainers - if you didn't have those trainers you wouldn't have had an industry because there wouldn't have been enough numbers to sustain a commercial industry.  Yes one trainer can sustain 100's of dogs just like one trainer in horse racing can.  Why?  Because they have dedicated and often well trained staff.  Don't forget the 1000 people employed directly!!

[BitofaLegend]

12 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Note to everyone @Yankiwi's statistics are misinformation aka bullshit.  Note that by comparison to other jurisidictions NZ Greyhound Racing has better statistics than most of them.  In one case at least half.  It has always been like that.  

So even if Chazza's stats were accurate, which they aren't, they are better than most.  The reality is if you race animals some will die of injury or sustain injuries that mean they can't race again.  It happens to pets too.  If you don't like don't race a Greyhound and don't own a pet.

As for the complaints about the large trainers - if you didn't have those trainers you wouldn't have had an industry because there wouldn't have been enough numbers to sustain a commercial industry.  Yes one trainer can sustain 100's of dogs just like one trainer in horse racing can.  Why?  Because they have dedicated and often well trained staff.  Don't forget the 1000 people employed directly!!

Re your last point, the population now is less then it was 15 yrs ago when Cole had less then 50 dogs. The population didnt grow, he just replaced all the grassroot trainers that left because of him.

[BitofaLegend]

29 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

So did anyone consider a judicial challenge?  Or did you all go "oh well its a rort" and then constantly moan about it for the next two years?

Unfortunatly, many people then saw this as a good thing back then. Not everyone, but many did

[bamboozla]

8 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

Note to everyone @Yankiwi's statistics are misinformation aka bullshit.  Note that by comparison to other jurisidictions NZ Greyhound Racing has better statistics than most of them.  In one case at least half.  It has always been like that.  

So even if Chazza's stats were accurate, which they aren't, they are better than most.  The reality is if you race animals some will die of injury or sustain injuries that mean they can't race again.  It happens to pets too.  If you don't like don't race a Greyhound and don't own a pet.

As for the complaints about the large trainers - if you didn't have those trainers you wouldn't have had an industry because there wouldn't have been enough numbers to sustain a commercial industry.  Yes one trainer can sustain 100's of dogs just like one trainer in horse racing can.  Why?  Because they have dedicated and often well trained staff.  Don't forget the 1000 people employed directly!!

There were cerainly efforts made to right the ship from well meaning people who could see this day coming. By that time Rendle had annoited himself as king he had no interest but self interest. Contributions to charity for the betterment of the image of the sport were made, did head office show the slightest appetite to build on that goodwill. ZERO. 

The road from small trainers in the 90s supplying the majority of dogs racing for $600 to the farmers supplying the bulk and racing for thousands is a rather long journey. My memory is probably a little hazy so others might want to fill in some of the gaps. Some might disagree entirely, but this is my take.

Prizemoney back in the day really wasn't enough to sustain many 'professional' trainers so most operations were small affairs where participants mixed racing with day jobs. I can't recall the numbers but I would guess on any 10 race card you likely had 20 or more trainers represented. Around the time dogs moved to Addington in the early 2000s you started to see a lot more opportunities being provided to greyhounds in terms of race dates and prizemoney started to increase paving the way for more people to race as a full time occupation. The bigger operations like Homebush were just emerging but there was a wide spread of small to medium sized trainers up and down the country with maybe 10-20 dogs max. Greyhound racing was something to be proud of and certainly not sneered at by the general public. Crowds were good and public perception was good.

The mix of NZ bred and Aussie bred dogs was starting to skew pretty heavily towards Aussie dogs as NZ didn't breed in sufficient quantity or quality to match what you could get off the plane ready to race. In reality most kiwi dogs were probably 6-8 lengths behind what you could source from oz for less than 5k landed. The overall percentage of dogs that raced compared the total population of dogs in NZ was likely reasonably high and the dogs not good enough to race never made it to NZ as opposed to breeding litters and the inevitable losses from slow dogs or dogs that never made it to the track for various reasons. Most small trainers kept a few as pets and a few were probably adopted out, there was unlikely a large number seeking rehoming on an annual basis.

As the volume of meetings picked up and the prizemoney improved, the prices being paid for dogs duly rose. The emergence of the Opawa and Thrilling kennels arrived with better breeding lines and training operations. The trend to NZ breeding was underway but I'd guess in the mid 2000s it was probably 50/50 in terms of AUS/NZ breeds contesting most races and skewed towards the AUS dogs in group races. Around this time or maybe a bit later the NZ breeding bonus scheme started which in addition with the increased costs to bring in imports put a rocket under the NZ breeding industry and permanently shifted the economics. From then on breeding to race was the most cost efficient method to get a racing stock and the real farming operations took off. With an ever expanding number of racing dates it seemed like the winning strategy, with that kind of industrialisation of the sport the smaller operations struggled to compete on an economies of scale basis, not to mention the vast improvements in facilities and methods. The ticking timebomb started about then, animal welfare wasn't really a thing, live baiting was relatively commonplace as it had been historically and what people did with dogs after racing wasn't discussed much either. With more dogs being bred an ever growing number of dogs were surplus to requirements every year and after the small trainers left most can guess where the majority of those went. 

The NZGRA were pretty happy with the growth of the sport and seemingly had no objection toward the farming model that was emerging. Prizemoney was on the rise, kiwi dogs were proving their worth and going to Sydney and Melbourne to take on feature races. The governance structure which didn't seem to be such a problem in the amateur days never moved with the proffesional age. Clubs become fiefdoms of trainers and their cronies as did the board as money took over. Most of the CEO's from that period on were pretty happy to punch a meal ticket, fill in a line of their resume and jump ship at the earliest opportunity when the problems started to emerge. NZGRA never wanted to acknowledge a problem or show any foresight, they were obstinate to change and completely out of touch with what modern professional administration should be. The clubs fought and retained too much control for too long in my view, when the sport needed a strong leader there was none.

Scoot along to the modern era and kiwi dogs are winning the lions share of big races and the race cards are stacked with incredible quality on feature nights and the prizemoney is scarcely believable compared to the amateur days. Kiwi dogs are more than capable of mixing it with dogs abroad which is a real succes story that a lot of people wouldn't have believed possible 20 years ago, if only the governance had moved with that same speed.

When dogs were banned in NSW some decade ago, instead of being the wake up call it should have been, standards continued to erode and the rot continued with more instances of crap decisions than I could care to mention. The farmers kept on farming, welfare became an unsustainable liability in the scale NZ was continuing to breed. In my view at least there should have been a complete reset in terms of objectives and sustainability a decade ago. Success has many fathers and failure is an orphan as the saying goes, but this sure isn't one of those. 

 

 

 

Edited December 15 by bamboozla

[Newmarket]

On 14/12/2024 at 7:01 PM, the galah said:

well then those that have been should have seen it coming and bear some responsibility.

i was meaning people like edward rennell,as hes only been there a couple of years. seems a bit unfair to place much blame on him.the ship was already sinking.

i don't know the personalities involved that you refer to,but did some benefit financially,thus tainting their judgment? Thats often what happens .People work their ways into postions of influence as they see themselves influencing decisions fromn which they personally benefit,not the industry as a whole. 

i do remember david scott,a greyhound nz board member, making headlines when he got disqualified for supplying his trainer with performance enhancers. Instead his trainer,nathan udy didn't use them and reported him. I don't know how that effected nathan udy thereafter,but sounded like udy was just trying to do the right thing.Of course scott had other trainers and seemingly they must have been happy to use the performance enhancers as they didn't come forward.

i guess that was a story which seemed to sum the greyhound industry up.

you had someone(udy),who represented the majority who were in it for the love of the sport and the dogs,willing to stand up and do what he thought was right. But in reality,that just turned into a temporary leveling out of the downard spiral of racing integrity and standing.

then again,maybe there was more to that ,maybe udy had a fall out. i don't know, others may know. 

all industries have a bit of dishonesty and corrupt practice based around financial gain,just the greyhounds seemed to have more and it was  the big names that often created greyhound racings worst headlines. Those big names may not have represented the majority of licence participants,but they sure represented the control of the majority of dogs racing.

Well said, those in the game just have to look at themselves