The grey and white of greyhound racing
Throughout the years, there have been different perspectives in the minds of the people about greyhound racing. Unfortunately, there is a ghastly image to the sport that has been painted by some, but all those affiliated to the sport have to bear the brunt.
Firstly, the notion that the greyhounds tear apart the ‘lure’ in live lure training is ridiculous exaggeration (it does have a background) . They are kept in complete isolation and are cast away once done with the racing career are all pathetic conclusions
that are actually quite far away from reality.
The following stance was put forward by a representative of National Greyhound Association.
"They'll take a story about something that happened 15 years ago and tell it over and over again."
"They use isolated incidents as being the norm in the industry,"
The sport has been faced with charges like undernourished and grossly underweight dogs which could not be denied, but could only be defended by putting forward the lack of rate in such injustices.
"But none of the dogs, this year, were abandoned," says Jones. "This year, the other trainers told the State, so we got in there fast enough to make sure the dogs were well taken care of."
This was during 1889-90, when allegations such as improper disposal of dog waste, left out dog meat, coupled with many other hygienic concerns were put forth, many times resulting in the closure of race courses.
In defiance, it was stated:
"The sport has made the animal welfare issue the priority issue that needs to be most effectively addressed," notes Guccione.
Mistakes were made, consequences were suffered, but running free from the responsibility is not what the Greyhound Racing Industry resorted to.
One of the instrumental and most encouraged steps was to emphasise on strictly artificial lure training, and not otherwise.
The industry had to react to the demands of the changing time, more awareness and they also got to learn a lot from its own past.
Using the live hares as training actually evolved from the time when the greyhounds were brought for the first time to America in order to help farmers get rid of the jackrabbits who used to destroy the crops.
As is the way of it, time changes everything.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent bettor.com’s official editorial policy.
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