SFF Greyhound Branch meeting and fundraiser will now be re scheduled.

How are owners and trainers expected to have any faith in the people running this sport ?

We have a young couple who train our dogs and they are meticulous with their training and racing programs for each dog they train. They are not a big kennel, but each dog is set a program for a race and trained to the minute for it,

Then about 7 hours before the races are about to start, GRNSW decide that the track is in no order to race on !

Surely that could have forecast that the track was below par, and cancelled the races yesterday, allowing trainers and owners to re-arrange their dogs program, not to mention their own plans for those who travel from afar to race and watch their dogs,

They could have transferred the meeting to another track even, they just have to think ahead a little !

The same applied to the Lithgow shutdown announcement. No details at all.

No details of the Gosford reconstruction were ever announced by GRNSW - not even new distances - nothing about why or how (An earlier GBOTA release contained a little more). Ditto for Gunnedah work.

Much the same applied to the original Wenty announcement although later there was a casual mention of "camber". How much or how little, or what else is unknown.

Ozchase results omitted Wenty completely so anyone who missed the Media Release will still be in the dark. At least they might have entered Abandoned or Cancelled as a courtesy.

There exists an inbuilt culture in GRNSW to say as little as possible about anything. Very odd for an organisation that is responsible for "promoting" the industry.

The PTB desperately need to make a statement immediately, even if it is just an educated guess, as to when the track is likely to be back in action.

They cannot continue to treat the participants like mushrooms.

7 of the 9 winners broke 30 sec and the other 2 nearly did. I can't remember that happening ever at a secondary meeting. Therefore something good must have happened to the track. It would be nice to know what it was.

It means that anyone interested in form (punters and trainers) would have to put an asterisk against the run to remind themselves it was not real.

In passing, I see that GBOTA got the sectionals wrong (again). For race 5 they omitted all 1st sect times but shifted all the 2nd sect times into the 1st sect column. Those incorrect times will now go into career records and be repeated in future formguides - as do all incorrect Tasmanian sectionals. Ozchase IT system has no checks and balances to address this sort of error. Anything published in Ozchase should be denoted "Buyer Beware".

Quick times = something good?? doesn't have to be the case Bruce. I thought tracks were going to be slower and safer for dogs and give some dogs with strength a chance to run down the front runners, so long as dogs got around safe with no injuries I suppose everyone is happy.

True enough although I am not aware that there was a policy in place to make tracks slower. Did I miss a media release?

However, this is a multi-layered subject.

If you make the surface softer you will penalise small dogs/bitches (which is precisely what happened when they first changed Wenty to loam - it was later corrected).

Soft tracks will also tend to wash out quicker and more often. Pooling and holes will be more common.

Equally, if you look at, say, Casino, it favours smaller, nippier railers due to its truly circular shape. Angle Park has some similarities and militates against wide runners. Etc etc.

Speed, of itself, is a critical measure but it is far from the only one. However, it is essential to record it as it is the only readily available measure of the track or the dog from one day to the next. From clubs to trainers to breeders, people are wedded to times, especially record times - read any ad.

More important is a track which allows minimal interference - re shapes, radius, cambers, box positions and so on. In part, this was probably one justification for moving to the wide lure - ie to encourage the field to separate a bit.

Anyway, that Wenty experience was out of character, so to speak, in which case I would like to know why. What changed following the replacement of sand? Did they steamroll it? Did the cambers change?
Will it continue? The hot times signalled that change and everybody with a keen interest is entitled to know what actually happened.

As a matter of interest, those Wenty times did not apply to many of the unplaced runners. Interference was considerable and winners included a couple of (quick) bolters.

Had that happened at Randwick you would have noted pages of comments and much talk amongst punters, trainers, jockeys, stewards and media about why and how. At Wenty, the subject was ignored.

Another point is that 6 dog races with an outside lure creates just as many injuries as an 8 dog race with an inside lure.

I do agree with you that many other factors impact the safety of a track such as the shape, radius of the bends, length of the straight before reaching the bend, the cambers etc. But the first point all tracks have to get right is the running surface.

"From clubs to trainers to breeders, people are wedded to times, especially record times" Absolutely wrong Bruce. Yes people like to see track records broken and this is pumped up by the media but I am sure all in the sport are more interested in seeing their dog come off the track safe and sound regardless of it's time or where it has finished.

I think we are all saying much the same thing.

However, in this country the media is effectively irrelevant or non-existent. In part, that's why we still don't know the detail of goings-on at Wenty or anywhere else.

In any event, the two subjects are being confused - speed and safety. There may be overlaps but they are two different things. Both tell a story.

On 6-dog races - I have repeatedly said such actions or experiments are a waste of time, and explained why. (UK injury rates are not readily available but no doubt you have inside running there).

(I will watch carefully for the next time a club, trainer or breeder says something without quoting a time).

Simon it never happened when we raced on grass, they have know idea what they are doing and it's costing a fortune.

Steve, sweet memories? What I remember most are the bare donkey tracks along the rail made by hundreds or thousands of dogs all digging in to the grass surface. Often repaired but never quite the same.

I guess in those days we had curators who knew a bit about grass or could learn from council staff or golf course landscaping people. Once loam took over (which had to happen) there would have been a lot of trial and error, varying sand quality and mixes and theory and practice of watering. Lots of rain or little rain? Possibly never solved would be the maintenance of the specified camber from week to week.

Bill Wilson at GRNSW knows about this stuff but I am not sure how much he gets involved in the day to day operations. One man in a big state cannot work miracles.

My reference to Randwick concerned what was reported or spoken about, not so much the maintenance of the track itself. In practice they clearly have many technical hassles, which is why meetings sometime get transferred to the Kensington circuit or Warwick Farm. Melbourne is no different although they do have artificial options in Victoria - Geelong etc. They also tried that for dogs at Shepparton but it turned out to be so hot that pads got fried and they had to return to straight loam.

Anyway, I don't want to return to the days when you had to ring the club during the day to find out if the meeting was still on - often it wans not.