Whatever the shape of the track - and this is not a discussion about the merits or otherwise of the variety of configurations we have - attention to track surfaces including drainage to ensure best practice and modern surface design principles is demanded in all elite sports these days; with the notable exception of greyhound racing.

GRV have recently completed a $6 million rebuild of Traralgon and have flagged upgrades to Sandown, Meadows and Sale; and yesterday we have a catastrophic failure of track infrastructure at Cranbourne ( a 40 year old track) which has closed the track.

GRV say that greyhound welfare is their number 1 priority as it should be.

What they wont tell you is that since 2014 there have been 4 independent reports commissioned on track safety (3 have been focussed on track surfaces, whilst one from an independent DEXIS panel had a broad focus on all aspects of track safety, including design factors).

All reports have been kept from participant scrutiny and some were even withheld from Clubs. All reports, including the 2 most recent - the 2021 Des Gleeson report and the 2018 DEXIS Report contained many recommendations for action and importantly required the engagement of a Soil Science Company to oversee major change to assist our track men with the conditions they have to deal with, week in week week out. Track-men have a challenging job and deserve better support.

Sadly, GRV have failed to implement the key recommendations and have shut out participants including leading trainers in all secretive processes and discussions relating to improving track conditions. Indeed experienced track men also have been excluded from input. The failure to engage a Soil Science Company in an ongoing meaningful role, is the most critical failure.

So what do have? A new track at Traralgon with bog standard and not gold standard track surface design including drainage methodology that has been used for 40 plus years in GRV tracks. Have a look at the picture on the GRV web site of a dog trialing at the new track and observe the channels of variable surface conditions highlighting variable drainage rates. Apologies as I wasnt sure how to link to this photo and article.

We have a major infrastructure failure at Cranbourne closing the track - which has been earmarked for years for an upgrade - with no action. No doubt we will hear an announcement soon

GRV have had the answers from the experts on what to do to prioritise welfare for race dogs - but they have ignored them for a number of years now and any track remediations will not have the benefit of modern design principles for surfaces. Are the MCG or Flemington reflective of 40 year old design principles to deliver conditions for their elite athletes?

Of course not, so why do we tolerate the failure of our regulator to move with the times - and worse still, to maintain secrecy with all these reports that have given them a blue print for significant improvements - ignored to date.

Compounding the failure to act, failure to engage the experts and participants, and the GRV pretence that they havent got the cash to move on a long term plan for track infrastructure, is their action 2 years ago to abolish the Infrastructure Reserve Fund of over $10 million and transfer the cash into Accumulated Surplus. This was quietly done at year end - like most things hoping that it would escape participant and club scrutiny.

So they have the cash ($42 million accumulated surplus and counting) along with 50% government VRIF funding to move on this issue and still address prizemoney returns.

Will they bring in the soil science experts; will they engage trainers and experienced trackmen; and do the work DEXIS demanded 3 years ago to establish a gold standard for track surfaces so more millions arent wasted and our elite athletes arent short changed.

The Minister and Office of Racing do not hold GRV to account for performance on this issue - taking 9 months to respond to correspondence on the failure to implement the DEXIS Report. Their acceptance of the failure in this regards is perhaps not surprising as the GRV Board are all appointed by the Minister and he has many other portfolios.

Dont be fooled by the recent GRV spruikers talking of $18 million to be spent on track infrastructure- a grossly inflated figure, made up to justify withholding deserved further Prizemoney increases, in a PR release that carefully failed to mention that government fund infrastructure 50%. Disturbing in the lack of transparency - but no surprise really.

Stick together, dont be intimidated and ask the hard questions about secret reports, lack of soil science company expertise ongoing, and an absolute refusal to involve participants in a meaningful and transparent way in this critical area central to the welfare of our dogs.

Our elite athletes deserve it and your hard work and passion demand better from our regulators.

What would trainers no about tracks

These are massively important issues raised by you and also just recently - by VGOBTA.

I am a little confused in that your prime concern relates to track surfaces and not to what you term configurations ie track design features. I cant comment much on surfaces as I have no expertise on that subject but I am not aware of (a) any widespread surface failures or (b) how those failures involve safety shortcomings. Please explain. Further, since stewards inspect the surfaces prior to every meeting (and sometimes during meetings) it is surprising that there have been virtually no comments that I can remember.

I have been studying and analysing tracks for decades in some detail, including physical walks around most Victorian tracks (often to the surprise of the local manager). Obviously, there will have been the odd problem but not to the degree being suggested. After all, curators are constantly harrowing, bagging and smoothing their babies. So what I would welcome is some specific summary of the issues and the action taken, if any.

However, whatever those surface problems are, they fade into the background by comparison with design and perhaps maintenance factors. The major issues would be box positioning, cambers and topographic levels. These directly affect race falls and interference and therefore injuries. Much data is readily available and correlates immediately with obvious factors like overcrowding near bend starts.

In that context, GRV (and other states) have been guilty of repeating past errors or failing to investigate and analyse what is going on. The most recent illustrations are the newish drop-in boxes at Horsham and Shepparton which have raised interference levels and increased track bias all due to shoving those boxes up against the rail.

Incidentally, while I dont much like the turns at Cranbourne, your reference to its closure is essentially a mechanical matter rather than a design issue.

Moving on, by far the most critical of your points is the failure of state administrations (with the exception of SA) to inform everyone about what is going on and why, or to seek comment before jumping in at the deep end. This is a pandemic of mammoth proportions carried out by bureaucracies who seem to believe they know better than anyone else. Sadly, as far as tracks are concerned, they dont. They also appear to be mis-using the efforts of UTS studies which involved people who started with zero knowledge of greyhound racing yet have suddenly become the oracles. In fact, these are highly skilled people in their fields but their advice needs to be filtered through experienced greyhound management.

Unfortunately, administrations absolve themselves from responsibility by simply quoting UTS. The role of a proper manager is to gather information from all sources, filter it and then come to a decision. Still, none of that is practical unless they first have clear objectives and then later report on the outcomes of those decisions. Rarely does that happen.

A crystal clear example is the new Traralgon track, where various folk were invited to comment on two possible designs both variations on the same J-curve. A third option that of applying some of the more modern principles to a conventional circuit was not offered. Now, the new track may well turn out to be terrific yet it was biased to the thinking of the designers (UTS and an engineer), so we will never know how good a third option may have been. More importantly, having ignored that possibility, those fresh principles will be barely available to the numerous conventional tracks around the state and the country, most of which need help.

The whole saga serves to prove that current racing structures (all codes) have failed to modernise in line with state-of-the-art organisations, including almost all major sports. The difficulty is that Racing Ministers and state governments are prone to avoiding major changes as they might put off some potential voters. Rather, they side track as occurred in Victoria when the Department of Birds and Butterflies ended up defining how kennels should be built. GRV just said yessir, three bags full.

It's closure is catastrophic but what is disappointing is that so far GRV has not explained anything in any detail. Announcements simply say it is closed. So all we know is that the lure broke - and that from stewards reports. That's not especially unusual and is normally rapairable fairly smartly. It certainly is not enough to justify closing the track for evermore.

Why - because they are not accountable to participants and only to the Minister who appoints them and accordingly dont have to answer any questions or even respond to correspondence or questions about welfare issues.

The cone of silence and refusal to communicate properly on important issues like infrastructure is in stark contrast to the gushing PR spin that flows from GRV every day.

RVL and any professional sports authority would not get away with this lack of information and lack of transparency, and clearly the Minister and Office of Racing have more pressing issues and fail to hold GRV to account.

So we have a government bureaucracy with bloated expenditure on everything but decent participant returns and infrastructure vital for welfare, compounded by a failure to utilise expertise and a short term focus.

What will happen at Warrnambool, Cranbourne, Sandown, Sale and the Meadows which have been identified by GRV as having problems. Who only knows, as secrecy and confidentiality agreements to keep the reports and issues tight within GRV are the hallmarks of our regulator.

What is even more worrying is that three of those tracks = Sandown Meadows and Cranbourne - have had problems since day one.

So that's 15 years or so when no-one has been oversighting what has been going on. Sale was also "reconstructed" during that period without achieving much at all. Warrnambool also had work done it recently.

Today we are blessed with speed indicators (GPS markers) in the city but there is no indication as to what will be done with this information. Possibly it will be parked in the same spot used for broken hocks at Sandown or the fate of "retired" (ie euthanased) dogs.

I also note Cranbourne has had the attention of an unknown consultant yet there is no indication of what he was looking for or what he found.

Many years of GRV administrations failing to involve the expertise of soil science companies to ensure that track surface infrastructure is performing as it should to provide the best possible surfaces for our dogs, and best practice remediations as needed.

Without this expertise and ongoing assessment, even a well designed track can lose its cambers and also deliver variable surface conditions making it tough for the track men to produce consistent conditions.

Other Codes and Sports bodies and venues for elite athletes have ensured that the available expertise is utilised - but not GRV. What is disturbing is that despite commissioning track surface audits in recent years along with an independent external expert panel in 2018, GRV have failed to engage a Soil Science Company in any ongoing basis, as all reports have recommended since 2015.

The missing expertise and analysis that could have assisted our track-men is not there, impacting any track rebuilds and week to week maintenance. The fact that our track-men are not even being provided with best practice measuring tools to assess conditions day to day is unforgivable. This is why these reports dont see the light of day and are kept tight within GRV and bound in confidentiality agreements.

Whilst previous administrations can be questioned as to why they didnt call in the expert advice, this administration has been given the reports and insights and required action, but has failed to act as demanded. We now are paying the price.

Any catastrophic rail and lure failure due to old infrastructure is one outcome of lack of proper investment; whilst failure of track surfaces to provide the best conditions possible in the new environment of huge racing and trialing schedules, is another avoidable fail.

All we can expect is that GRV follow their own independent reports that have laid out a blueprint, bring in the expertise clearly missing to support track-men, and ensure that track remediations GRV have conceded are needed for Sandown, the Meadows and Sale and likely Cranbourne, are completed as a gold standard with modern methodology for drainage and surface profile.

The track shapes and other design factors are no less important as you have pointed out and warrant full analysis of observable outcomes in recent years.

Our tracks, including the latest builds by GRV at Traralgon and Horsham have used base and drainage design that has been used for 40 years plus, with the fundamental surface design principle being that excess water is to drain across the surface towards the rail (with the exception of Healesville which drains to the outside).

Our tracks are designed to drain like freeways into a spoon drain under the rail. The inclusion of an agi pipe under the rail for the more recent builds and remediations doesnt alter significantly the fundamental ability of the track to cope with excess rain fall or over irrigation.

Contrast the modern surfaces for elite athletes in other codes - the horse tracks at Flemington and Caulfield; and other sports - the MCG and golf greens. Remember the VFL grounds we watched footy on compared to the elite surfaces presented now. Player welfare demanded the change and adoption of modern practices for drainage to achieve consistent surfaces that drained well.

In 2018, an independent panel convened by the GRV Board to review track safety made(25) recommendations relating to track surface to assist our track men and included in the list was the need for GRV to review drainage design and importantly involving a Soil Science Company to lead the work.

Currently we have tracks that after rain can deliver boggy rails (Healesville delivers a boggy outside of the track); a variable surface because of uneven drainage rates and a good chance of unstable conditions. Pooled water can often be visible. GRV refuse to release moisture readings that are taken by track men on every race night and on trial days - contrast the transparency of the thoroughbreds.

The job of a track man is hard enough to prepare consistent surfaces with very heavy race and trial schedules and coping with weather extremes.

The 2018 Report which has largely been ignored to date by GRV, recommended a number of actions to be overseen by a Soil Science Company to assist our track men and therefore our dogs, and amongst them were:

Establishing a gold standard - the ideal characteristics for track surface including base and drainage, surface profile and sand type and measurable by KPIs to help track-men. Inexplicably this had never been done by GRV.

Reviewing drainage design to ensure modern best practice for rebuilds or remediations.

Reviewing options for sand type to provide track-men with the easiest sand to work with, including assessing sand from local pits.

Quality control of sand coming from the pits through load testing, because of the variability of sand being sourced.

Establishing maintenance protocols that covered all areas including track harrowing and reconsolidating the surface to the soundly based KPIs for the ideal surface.

Creating a plan to remediate tracks as required based on the soil science advice.

GRV have completed 2 from the 25 recommendations and have not commenced the most critical work to develop a gold standard for surface design, which called for the fundamental engagement of a soil science company.

This review was after the Horsham track remediation. It was prior to the Traralgon rebuild.

With GRV announcing that they now need to complete major track surface works at Sandown, Meadows, Sale and potentially Cranbourne, the key question is will they take the advice they were given over 3 years ago, and engage a Soil Science Company to complete the work needed to deliver a gold standard track surface?

Or will we get a bog standard track surface design that might save money but sells our dogs short and makes the life of a track man more challenging than it needs to be?

Clearly the Minister and Office of Racing dont hold the GRV Board to account for following the advice of independent experts - otherwise the 2018 recommendations would have been taken more seriously, and participants could have confidence that the pending remediations would be at a standard demanded by the highest welfare considerations.

Your reports show fairly conclusively that to expect state administrations to be expert on any matter is fraught with danger. The fact that they vary significantly from one to the other proves the point.

There are three subjects where it is desirable - even essential - for these jobs to be passed to an expert, independent panel which can have input from the state but not be bound by it. They are ...

1. The State of the Breed. Is it changing and if so how and is it good or bad?

2. Track Design and Construction.

3. Drug Rules.

The current mix and match system ends up with Rafferty's Rules which does nobody any good.

The use of expertise in Victoria relating to tracks is an interesting paradox.

On the one hand, GRV slavishly follow the preachings of a University relating to track geometry, and positioning of starting boxes, who they claim have modeled racing and come up with the holy grail - world leading design. Time will tell on this expensive experiment.

On the other hand, GRV despite having to close the last rebuild of Traralgon due to drainage issues, and having been advised by independent reports from soil scientists to review drainage methodology, chose to ignore the advice and failed to involve a soil science company in the design of the new track surface.

So we do have a hybrid approach - experts used for shape and configurations for racing; and no experts used on track surface including drainage, in a part of Victoria that has extensive rainfall.

So the mixed approach gives us a radically alternative race track on the one hand; and the same old drainage methodology we have had for 40 years, with no review and no innovation to consider best practice for drainage and surface profile.

We have an independent 2018 report on track surface largely ignored by GRV, and another report from Des Gleeson in 2021 that included 12 of the same recommendations from previous, and reinforced the need to engage a soil science company to provide the missing expertise.

The latest 2021 report confirmed that the GRV mandated Good 3 track was not uniformly understood by track men; there was a lack of confidence in the KPIs given to track men by GRV; there were no published guidelines on harrowing and reconsolidation and procedures varied accordingly track to track; track-men were arguably not given best practise tools to measure track conditions; and inexplicably, participants were not given any information on the track readings being taken on race day and trial days.

Contrast the approach of thoroughbred racing to support their track men in a most difficult job, through the engagement of soil science companies as an essential player for track remediations design and ensuring maintenance and quality control protocols were best practice. Transparency and disclosure of track readings is a given to assist trainers.

Who would be a track man in greyhound racing under these circumstances? A thankless task most often, with huge racing and trialing loads dictated by GRV and participant demand, with the old public trial tracks that used to take off pressure on race tracks - gone.

Where to from here with pending 4 track remediations announced by GRV? Will GRV implement the Des Gleeson report and engage a soil science company to drive the work flagged 3 years prior, but incomplete?

We can only hope they move on this soon.

Would expect that this would be a 50% government contribution to the full cost of track works, which is the basis for similar infrastructure work in Victoria via VRIF funding over many years.

Question here in Victoria - has GRV planned and costed remediation of track surfaces over time and made the case to the State government for support of this important welfare work?

Will they follow the steps to do the essential work to ensure a gold standard design for track surface, as they were advised to do in 2018 by an independent expert panel?

Without the involvement of soil science experts on track surface in the evaluation, scoping, design and costing of track works, the end result will be deficient and a waste of resources with sub optimal outcomes for our elite athletes.

Two separate track builds at Traralgon in recent years at a collective cost of over $11 million, with both builds highlighted by a failure to bring in the experts on track surface and drainage has been disturbing.

With GRV announcing they need to do track surface works at Sandown, Meadows, Sale and potentially Cranbourne, which remains a mystery given no communication to participants as usual, who only knows how rigorous the work will be.

UTS have no expertise on track surface and cannot be rolled out as the appropriate experts in this area. We can only hope that the planned remediations are approached differently by GRV to what has been happening in recent years.

Our track men deserve better underlying conditions and support in their demanding role. Our dogs demand the best conditions for elite athletes including consistent surfaces with cushioning, traction and stability that meets the gold standard for an ideal track surface.

The Minister for Racing, Martin Pakula, and the Victorian Office of Racing have failed to hold the GRV Board to account for delivering on the recommendations from the panel of independent experts (2018 DEXIS REPORT) on track safety; specifically relating to track surfaces, and to date the same can be said relating to the 2021 DES GLEESON Report on Harrowing, albeit it is clearly more recent.

Maybe in an election year, the proper government scrutiny of GRVs attention to this critical issue for greyhound welfare, will be applied with the rigour lacking in the past.

You might inquire of GRV what happened when surface expert Bill Wilson from GRNSW visited Victoria a couple of years ago. He does know his stuff.

Another query is whether the Curators Manual has been updated since I got my copy in 2010. It looks good although it does not specify where various cambers start and finish - the turn into the home straight is an issue at many tracks (Geelong frequently attracts stewards' attention).

His recent report confirmed that the required expertise was called for - so no different to the 2018 DEXIS Report calling for the same expertise to be engaged.

It is instructive that the GRV Racing Manager, the GOTBA and the ICG all endorsed DEXIS which has largely remained on the shelf at GRV.

GRV dont respond to questions or correspondence on most issues and particularly in this area, as noted before. This was why the GOTBA had to go to the Office of Racing asking for answers as to why reports and recommendations had been ignored. The response 9 months later was not helpful.

This is also why leading trainers demanded to meet with the GRV in 2020.

This is part of the reason that participants withheld nominations in 2021 in strike action that was unprecedented.

Most of this is likely no surprise to you, as GRV is a government bureaucracy that only answers to the Minister and not to stakeholders in an outdated governance model established under the Racing Act in 1956, and which has run its race. Anyway that observation is off topic in some ways, but relevant to this ongoing failure in such a critical area for greyhound welfare.

However, government instrumentalities do have a formal duty to respond to inquiries from the public or whoever.

In most states (SA a notable exception), the only reactions I can get are from stewards. I am afraid some of us get blacklisted, especially if you disagree with anything they say.

It's a bit like FOIs - but worse.

seems to be the same old dogs and trainer running week in week out at Taralgon

Cranbourne which has 40 year old infrastructure should have been remediated years ago but GRV and the Club couldnt agree on the track design, 1 bend or 2 bend, so these essential works got stalled for years.

Eventually the rail failed recently with catastrophic consequences on GRVs watch as they run the track after they ousted the Committee, and the track was closed.

With so many trainers in the area and with the crisis in trial availability, I am sure they will fix up / rebuild the track.

We can only hope they dont run with another experimental track design and also fail to ensure proper drainage is installed. I would think most of the short course dogs who used to race at Cranbourne over the 315 metres, would find the Traralgon 395 a very tough run with the big back straight and big turn so dogs are going flat knacker, and it is a harder test.

Dogs hitting the running rail too regularly at Traralgon for a supposed world leading design, with (7) and (5) at recent meetings Saturday January 29th and Monday February 7.

GRV tell us now that there are (4) tracks needing major track surface works - Sandown, Meadows, Sale and Cranbourne and we have the perfect storm of lack of available trials, given that public trial tracks have closed including Murphys and Tooradin, with no replacements.

So years of GRV failing to invest in track infrastructure including training facilities and race track remediations is hurting us, as this government bureaucracy at the same time has exploded expenditure on everything except participant returns (20/21 prize-money as a percentage of GRV revenue was an all time low) and track infrastructure.

Will GRV, who are highly cashed up due to COVID wagering windfalls, utilise the $10 million that they moved into Accumulated Profits when they quietly abolished the Infrastructure Reserve Fund 2 years ago - a fund established to ensure that appropriate, timely and required investment in Infrastructure was made by GRV.

The GRV cone of silence continues as to what is going on - they treat us like mugs and do not believe they have to answer to participants with a level of transparency and respect for the people that put on the show, as they only have to answer to Minister Pakula on greyhound welfare for rehomed dogs.

Racing issues affecting race dogs would appear to be secondary, but who would know as communication is not forthcoming from GRV on issues of importance to participants. They should be able to clear up any concerns and provide some level of decent information.

Can you imagine if RVL announced that Flemington and Moonee Valley needed major track works and communicated with a paragraph on their web site. Just wouldnt happen.

Their recent announcements that work is required at Sandown, Meadows and Sale was full of no detail or explanation as to what might be planned and there has been deafening silence on the Cranbourne situation.

All we heard from GRV was that an exorbitant cost of $18 million was required for undefined track works at Sandown, Meadows and Sale, a new kennel block at Ballarat and no mention of the government VRIF 50/50 contribution that is always available if the regulator puts forward the case for track remediation or new infrastructure.

No mention as to whether GRV have engaged a Soil Science Company to implement track surface reports that have gathered dust since 2015, and more recently the 2018 DEXIS Report, and the 2021 Des Gleeson Report on track harrowing and consolidation.

Add todays news about Bendigo falling off the perch, and you would have to wonder what is going on at GRV at a time when lack of trials is at crisis point and our race tracks are being called off line.

Contrasted to GRVs failure to plan and act on a crisis in lack of training infrastructure, with trials so hard to obtain, compounded by crumbling old race track infrastructure on GRVs own admission, that has been left to decay.

GRV asleep at the wheel as they have exploded expenditure on everything but infrastructure and prize money and have tried to avoid embarrassment each year with their P & L, by underspending on key areas.