Injuries are a real issue in Victorian greyhound racing. And anecdotally an increasing one.
Below is a Greyhound Monthly President's Report that GRV declined to publish on recent track injuries and better recording them to find solutions.
GRV has declined to publish a report once before - in 2018 on prizemoney. We'll leave you to judge why that is.
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Major injuries after races and trials: the importance of collecting and sharing information
Welfare of the racing greyhound and track safety are matters of the highest priority to all greyhound racing participants. Maximising these things as far as is possible is a common goal of all of us.
Over the summer months, GOTBA Vic has received feedback from members about an apparent uptick in the occurrence of significant injuries – fractured bones, significant tendon or muscle injuries - to greyhounds at the time of, or shortly after, the racing and (particularly) trialling of greyhounds at race tracks. We recognise that not only are such injuries a greyhound welfare issue, but they cause stress and loss to those who are associated with, and care for, the greyhounds involved.
Many of us may suspect as a matter of experience and anecdote that track safety or preparation (admittedly in often difficult conditions) may over-contribute to major injury occurrence, but we do not always perfectly understand why that may be the case.
Getting to the bottom of why major injuries occur is a difficult, but necessary, task that requires cooperation from multiple players in the sport. At the moment, we have at best an incomplete understanding of even the frequency of major injuries – those diagnosed after a race meeting or in consequence of trials may be known only to owners and trainers.
Without that understanding, we hamper our ability to determine root causes so as to best ensure that we minimise major injuries in the future.
Given this, we encourage trainers to do the following for major injuries to greyhounds in their kennel, as a kennel-wide record:
· write down what they are and when they occur or are diagnosed (in addition to any obligation to keep a record of injuries in your Code of Practice individual greyhound record);
· in the same place, note where the greyhound has trialled or raced in the lead up to the injury (particularly if the injury obviously arose as a result of a trial session or arose after a race meeting and was not otherwise included in steward reports);
· be prepared to share this information with GRV and others in the industry.
An example:
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Date of occurrence/diagnosis
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Greyhound
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Major injury
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Trial or race beforehand?
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Track trialled/raced, when
|
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9 Jan 2020
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Extra Fast
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Broken hock
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Trial
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Meadows, 9/1/20
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|
|
|
|
|
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The more data available, the more that potential causes can be analysed and addressed – for example if major injuries occur disproportionately to greyhounds who trial at particular tracks, then the regulator, clubs and participants may be able to better understand why this has occurred and be able to take efficient corrective action.
GOTBA Vic would encourage trainers to let us know the above information for their kennel over the last 12 months – send us an email – gotbav@gmail.com - with the subject line, ‘Major injuries in my kennel: Type, Time and Tracks Raced/Trialled’.
Lynton Hogan
President GOTBA Vic
