I dont profess to understand it that well ..but tbh im sick of being on the s..t end of the stick ..i have an interest in a reasonable okish bitch spookie magic as a case in point .

We were keen to give her a crack at 520 when she was still quite young and although she had never won a race over 520 distance everytime we nommed her for lismore ..she was put strait into a 4-5th gde with much more expereinced better performed dogs ..so she never really won one there and i gave up . eventually she won her first 520 at the gardens recently in a tight come from behind affair .
So we thought ok lets take her down to wenty on a wednesday night give her a taste of the city and see if she cant go ok ..bearing in mind she has never even seen the track .
She finally drew a reasonabale box.1st time ever there ... in a f...n FFA !!!
Seriously shes won one race provincial over the distance in a very ordinary time and shes racing the Sydney guns ! Outside her is a dog thats won the back top and is 12 from 14 and a few other hot dogs as well !
Seriously im about ready to give up and start maybe sending my dogs interstate , or at least somehwere they can race and have a chance ?
It got me thinking I cant be the only one experieincing this kind of frustration ?
My questions are no 1 _who is this new grading system benefiting ? ...too my mInd the smaller battler becomes canon fodder for the big trainers who have a monopoly on the all the good dogs ..once your dog has won half a doz races it just makes up the numbers so the top dogs can win week in week out .
2 where is a good state to send dogs to get away from this ridculous system ? or does your nsw grading carry over interstate ?
What am i missing here ? surely i cant be the only one expereicng this riduclous BS ?

NSW grading needs a complete overhaul.

From 450m there definitely needs to be a longer run up to top grade

well im not sure what your saying ..i think your saying yes i diont understand grading ...which is fair enough ...but then u say i should never have been put in a ffa ?

Starts 3 2 2 7 5 2 3 4
Wins 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1
Places 1 1 2 3 1 0 1 0
Win % 33% 0% 0% 14% 20% 50% 33% 25%
Place % 67% 50% 100% 57% 40% 50% 67% 25%

.
.
Here's mine..
Box 1 - 0
2 - 2
3 - 3
4 - 2
5 - 3
6 - 2
7 - 3
8 - 7

What Im suggesting David, is with what you have written it doesnt seem right. So, check the Grading Policy and present your case to Stewards. Sometimes, theyre dismissive, but most of the time they are correct. Changing the policy is a separate issue. How you got into FFA is the prime concern. Sorry, but Im a little busy atm to look at his form, but if someone hasnt checked for you Ill look at it in a few days.

I wrote this post some 6 year ago re NSW grading, and not much, if anything has altered.

david deguara wrote:

The way I see it, that due to cost saving measures GRNSW have established a grading policy that creates most of the problems by it's very own nature. Under the current grading system the industry has created an over abundance of 5th Grade greyhounds of which the system struggles to accommodate, and in truth can't. If the system allowed for a better, fairer and more constructive filtering of the grades, then I'm sure "problems" would be reduced ten fold. How many 1st, 2nd or 3rd Graded dogs do you ever actually see, very few in truth, why? not because the calibre of dog doesn't exist, simply because the grading system doesn't really want them to exist, why - Money, pure and simple! they simply don't want to outlay the increased prizemoney that the higher graded races command/demand. Further, the current system does nothing to help young dogs in the transition from Maiden status into Graded company ...as it stands, the system goes from "protecting" a dog one week i.e, they can only race against dogs that have never won a race as a Maiden, yet in theory, next week out of Maiden class it could potentially face a dog that has won 15 plus races ...where is the logic? surely a 6th grade (Juvenile, call it what you like), grade could be implemented whereby the transition process allows a young dog time to learn? The system, in my opinion definitely needs a major re-think and revamp.

Moving on from that post I still maintain that there needs to be the implementation of a grade whereby dogs coming out of Maiden class should race against dogs of similar class, i.e. against dogs of similar wins where possible e.g. one win, but if not, up to say no more than four wins. Yes there will always be dogs within a grade which have better ability but as a participant I would sooner my greyhound just out of Maiden grade race against dogs with four wins as opposed to any number of wins.

If this 6th (or Juvenile), grade was established, then once a greyhound had won it's fifth race (irrespective of race distance(s) it could no longer ever race in 6th grade company again it would be categorised as 5th grade, and then move up (or down) the grades according to form.

Obviously, how a greyhound progressed/retrogressed through the grades from 5th grade onwards would need closer examination and thought, but in my opinion the intervention of a 6th grade, (or altering of the 5th grade classifaction), would allow participants a fairer racing option and also a chance for their greyhound(s) (especially those average to below average greyhounds), to at least have a better chance of winning some races, and those greyhound(s) with better ability, will naturally progress as they normally would.

Now some might argue that my idea would be catering for the mediocre, well perhaps it is, however, as we know average to mediocre greyhounds are far more common than those above average greyhounds, so why should we "shun" the majority? why shouldn't we look to assist those participants who race greyhounds of limited ability and look to assist by giving them a fairer chance by creating a fairer grading sytem ...or am i simply being too naive or idealistic?

The trainer did contact graders and was given the usual dismissive gobbldegook justifications ...needles to say the poor bloke wont be taking the dangerous trip down the freeway from the hunter valley then battliong thru sydney traffic to keenel at 5 and hang around till race 8 in sydney to get his arse handed to him and then drive the 3 hours and arrive home at 1-2 am

yes plan e now

First, some editorial notes. Please get off the good/bad box band wagon. Its the one thing that all authorities have got right as repeatedly evidenced by external professionals auditing the processes. Some recent media releases even outlined the who and how. Random is random is random. Secondly, all states already have Rules defining how to treat an interstate dog - all overlaid on the local grading scheme (WA has some quite radical ones, for example).

The core of the issue is that we moved from a local to a central control over grading. The former generally worked well and avoided the hassles that David mentions. Often I have been there looking over the shoulder of the guy doing that job. Local control also allowed the local manager to innovate the type of races and dogs he wanted to make the program more interesting. But it also generated abuses so it was canned.

The transfer to central grading demanded that a set of rules were put in place to guide the grader(s). In time the job became more complex and so computerisation took over requiring extra costs to pay for the programmer and the gear to use.

As we went on, more and more attention was paid to complaints from trainers, leading to additional rules and more expense. It just grew like Topsy. Nothing was ever deleted, only added. Worse, some states started classifying meetings as well as grades. More expense and more errors or misjudgements.

The recent addition of Saturday morning meetings also demanded more adjustments to the rules.

As mentioned here, the top two or three grades started disappearing, all due to authorities giving preference to ways and means to permit dogs to stay in the lower grades and therefore to keep trainers happy. Victoria was the worst as at one stage a champion could wander round every track in the state picking up 5th grades (subsequently adjusted by adding even more Rules). Tasmania was just as bad (but has made minor adjustments since).

Theoretically, the current system is there to make everything fairer to all. Obviously, it still has problems.

But heres a bright idea. What about making grading rules simpler and applying them across the country? In doing that you would have Maidens and five grades 5 up to 1 and no special categories, especially not the nonsensical No Penalty races, and no exclusion for feature races. Just move the winner up one. By all means divide the 5th Grades up between Novice and Others, but thats just commonsense, which should be Rule #1.

You could them dump most of the computer programs, most of the workers paid to use them and everyone would know precisely where they stand even the customers. Remember when you could rely every week on a Presidents Stake being full of top class dogs?

Management would be the responsibility of the National Greyhound Commission, which would also produce form data, stud data and race results, all in formats the public could use readily. And it would be much cheaper, leaving more cash available for prize money.

Problem solved.