That is the world we live in. Get used to it, because it has arrived

The authorities want ZERO wastage so every dog must be afforded the chance to race if it chases

It doesnt matter whether it is a slow dog or a fast dog, races need to be found for it if someone wants to persevere with a racing career for it

Slow dogs go against good dogs all the time.
This has been going on since time immemorial.
They are cannon fodder for the better dogs.
Anyone who has raced dogs would know that.
There wouldn't be a meeting go by without a group of trainers saying that their slower and poorly graded dogs have been used up in a FFA or Special Event.
It is soul destroying for an owner/trainer to see their dog hopelessly outgraded in a race, not to mention for the dog itself.

The greyhound is a competitive animal and if you think they don't know when they get beaten then you don''t know much at all about what makes these animals tick.

Same applies to horses who get flogged by Winx, ask John McDoonald how Le Romain felt when Winx went straight past him while he was giving everything to win a George Ryder Stakes.

That is why there needs to be a change to an effective grading system that grades dogs of similar ability together rather than giving them a number and let them run against all comers until they display improvement in their times

"Anyway, given a fixed income, equalisation would mean a bonus for slow dogs but a reduction for good dogs. I doubt many would vote for that.""

I don't think anyone, including myself, ever suggested that better dogs shouldn't get better prizemoney

All that was mentioned is that Non-City TAB Racing prizemoney needs to be equalised cross all TAB tracks so that a better return is given to participants, so that TAB C is not differentiated to TAB B

So that if you are racing at Dubbo or Richmond in a Wednesday, you get the same prizemoney as Richmond Friday night and so on

Of course higher graded dogs at TAB tracks should get more money otherwise there wouldn't be a'just reward for the effort or luck in having a faster dog

Participants are now expected to keep their dogs longer, put them into retraining programs for eventual rehoming, however long that process may take

For that they need greater compensation

Its all about the return to the participants at the grass roots level where most of the dogs fall into

""Moreover, strategically, my view is that good, solid provincial 5th grade racing is the guts of the industry. Eggs and Cups are all very nice and display excellence, which is good. But they can never replace competitive week-to-week contests throughout the year. They warrants kinder treatment, not downgrading.""

Now you are just being hypocritical to save your Ar$e in this discussion

Bruce,
Sorry, but I get a headache reading your stuff.

You now claim that ...
"I don't think anyone, including myself, ever suggested that better dogs shouldn't get better prizemoney".

But your original theme stated ...
"In my opinion ALL TAB Meetings should be at the same level of prizemoney and grade".

It seems that you acknowledge that different Grades within a given meeting should attract different prize money (which is not a change at all). But since you want all meetings to be at a common level you are therefore proposing that slow dogs (ex TAB C) attract the same money as better dogs (in the one size fits all category).

That makes no sense and, in any event, would be virtually impossible because there is not enough cash to go around - short of reducing prize money everywhere.

And, I repeat, if all meetings become TAB X (or whatever) it follows that there would be an even greater mixing of slow and fast dogs. That makes even less sense. Slow dogs would tend to get knocked around and lose confidence and winners would tend to be at ultra short odds.

Separately, you have introduced comments which refer only to grading policies (which is off topic - your topic, I might add). There is much to think about there, but I note that no two trainers have exactly the same idea so the discussion always goes nowhere.

You may be too young, but when I started off we had 5 Grades plus Maidens - full stop. It seemed to work well enough and all Grades were used regularly, unlike today. Fields were sorted out by the club secretary according to experience and wins. Sadly, the system got abused and so the computer took over and everyone (particularly Victorians) spent half their time adding more and more weird
options but never cutting out any. I imagine that, relatively speaking, grading costs must be a hundred times higher as the secretaries and offsiders never got paid more for doing the grading themselves.

I clearly said that TAB C Meetings should be at the same prizemoney levels as TAB B Meetings

At no point did I ever say that each race must be at the same value

How come everyone else except you can understand what I wrote?

Therefore, you are either playing the devils advocate just to be a smart ar$e or you are just stupid.

I don;t believe oyu are the latter, therefore, I think you just like to be argumentative for no reason at all.

I have been going to the dogs for 50 years now when my father was a bookmaker at Lithgow

I have seen enough to know that wastage of greyhounds was caused by the grading system you are so fond of

As stated we live in a different world, dogs are born to race and are demanded that they are raced for as long as possible and then be recycled as pets where possible

Its an additional cost we as participants have to bear thus the call for greater prizemoney across the lower levels is somethign that has to happen along with a fairer grading system that aims to put dogs of the same current ability in races together

It has happened in horse racing with the increase in country and provincial prizemoney and the big races are still being patronized as well.

Horse racing has far more funds at its disposal than greyhounds, but that was ensured and put in place during the McHugh inquiry and the subsequent ban of greyhound racing in NSW

Our road may be a bit tougher on that score but we need to uplift the grass roots to ensure that our industry remains strong and relevant

GRNSW still hasnt embraced bitch or dog only races (excluding feature races) but not for all lower graded races; just some in each region. VIC does it deliberately or by accident, but it happens.

So, the draft grading for provincial meetings should be the same amount of p/m. That could be the future announcement of a p/m increase.

I just realised the terminology used in the draft is similar to the Tbreds.

"I clearly said that TAB C Meetings should be at the same prizemoney levels as TAB B Meetings".

Yes, you did. I disagreed with the principle. I also pointed out that it could not happen unless you reduced prize money for the higher class meetings.

"At no point did I ever say that each race must be at the same value".

Nor did I. In fact, I said the opposite.

I have never indicated my "fondness" or otherwise for the grading system. You just made that up. I don't have the time or the data to investigate it properly. However, it seems there are 3,300 trainers in NSW and 3,299 opinions about what it should be. Very difficult!

Verballing is not a good practice, and even worse when you get the facts wrong.

You then digressed into horse racing but the truth is that (a) the code has long lacked turnover growth in real terms and (b) they benefit from several millions pa from greyhounds over a decade and a half, and (c) it had little to do with McHugh and lots to do with shortsighted greyhound administrators.

Quite a tricky track at Lithgow (and a hard surface) so it should be a good gig for bookies.

It can be done because we get paid separately from The Corporates for profits they make from TAB Racing plus we are getting Tax Harmonization funds released from Trust

That's why there are prizemoney increases happening now.

It's heading in the right direction but more needs to be done at the grass roots'to keep participants alive in the game, that is the point

The thoroughbreds comparison was a means of comparison to show how Country racing which traditonally has the lower grade of horses, has thrived in participation ad popularity since Racing NSW has directed their additional funds to the grass roots racing. The only difference is that they have access to more funds to add prizemoney to their top grade races.

My point is that we need to do the same to bolster the grass roots participation in our sport.

I have read regularly now that sons/daughters of country horse trainers are following their families into racing rather than pursuing other careers because their situation and outlook has improved dramatically

We don't have many young people following their parents into greyhound racing.

Its going to be a big problem for us in the future.

At the moment we are concerned that we are not breeding enough dogs to fill racing calender's.

The bigger picture is that to provide these greyhounds you need humans to turn the wheels and invest in the future of the sport.

This revolves around a number of factors, broadly speaking, having a market/owners to sell pups to, adequate prizemoney returns, cost-effective facilities for re homing of non-breeding greyhounds after they are finished racing, less red tape etc

They are all related to each other, but the common denominator is money and that money mainly comes from prizemoney for racing of greyhounds

You can dress everything else up, but like all endeavours, unless there is an adequate return for the funds and time invested then like any other industry it will collapse on itself

The masses who races greyhounds in the lower grades (approx 90%) are the lifeblood of the industry and are those that keep it going for the top 10%

The time is now to better their position is now, its obvious that the powers that be are starting to realize that

They need to do more and the creating one TAB grade with a flatter grading system with increased prizemoney for all grades would repair a lot of damage done to the structure of the sport