2008 Greyhound Racing Events – Dying Industry
2008 was a tumultuous year for greyhound racing. It had a few set backs:
–On December 31, 2007 (close enough) the Corpus Christi, Texas racetrack closed due to financial woes like $3.5 million per year.
–Some time in 2008, the Woodlands dog track closed in Kansas. That ended live greyhound racing in Kansas.
–The last live greyhound racing venue in Colorado, Mile High Greyhound Park, closed its doors early for the season. Mile High decided live races would end in June after track officials and kennel owners couldn’t come to a financial agreement to keep running races until September. The track ran a full season in 2007 and lost money after being profitable in 2006. The track is scheduled to reopen April 2009. (We hope that’s a crock of #$&*.)
–Walthamstow Stadium in London closed in 2008. That was a biggie! I think after that guy in England shot 10,000 greyhounds – people in England woke up and were hip to the cruelties of greyhound racing…all except that overrated David Beckham who was sad to see it close.
–One of the best things to happen in 2008 was that the voters of Massachusetts banned greyhound racing by 2010. HOOOOOOOOOOORRRAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY. Here’s hoping it will close sooner vs. later.
–The voters in South Tucson approved proposition 401 to improve the conditions at Tucson Greyhound Park.
–Guam Greyhound Track closed.
–Hinsdale Greyhound Track in New Hampshire closed because it went bankrupt.
–Tampa Greyhound Track is losing money. Hot dog! Read the comments. It seems that every greyhound track that is losing money wants to add video poker, slop machines, or poker or some other gambling additive. Nobody wants to see dogs race to their death anymore. No more gambling bailouts for the greyhound racing industry.
Greyhound racing is a dying industry. The people who go to the tracks are all old geezers who drag their oxygen around with them. Intelligent people (as shown by the voters in Mass.) are hip to the cruelty, death, suffering, and mounting injuries of race dogs. A whole generation of people have been raised on Animal Planet and they don’t like what they learned.
Dogs must never die in the name of sport; not dog fighting and not greyhound racing.
You forget to mention the hundreds of jobs offered at tracks, the thrill the dogs get when they run, and the fact that abuse is rare and the governing council of greyhound racing in america has strict and extreme consequences for the RARE cases of abuse
The governing council of greyhound racing in America’s “strict and extreme consequences” seem not to apply in Arizona.
Oversight by the Arizona Department of Racing also seems not to apply.
Check out injury reports at
http://www.grey2kusa.org/pdf/G2K-2008AZInjuryTable.pdf
12 dogs euthanized at the tracks for fractured hocks;
80+ injuries in July alone;
Here are some of the “notes” on the reports:
– “Shattered – fix the track”
– “. . . too many rocks on the track”
– “Track surface needs more attention”
– “No vet on track premises – need vet to be at the track for morning schooling”
– “Track – dry places, wet places, real wet places”
– “I lost count of how many dogs I’ve crippled in the last 2 weeks”
– “Another slaughtered”
– “4 broken legs in 4 weeks”
– “. . . in that same bad spot in the far turn (of the track”
– “. . . same old spot in the far turn / entering home stretch (of the track)”
-There are entries with incomplete dog’s name;
-There are entries with no dog’s name;
-On more than 80% of the entries the treatment rendered to the dog was “not provided”.
No one’s minding the store in Arizona.
It’s time for those greyhounds to start loving being couch potatoes in forever homes.