For far too long now, the Promoters and Bookmakers who control our sport have treated
owners and trainers with what amounts to little more than contempt. You know it and I know it!
They work on the most basic of business principles, that being supply and demand.
As it stands at the moment, the vast majority of tracks have many more dogs than they need and this can be illustrated by certain tracks purposely not reflecting the true going allowance for trials as
they don’t want too many new dogs grading in. Yet they have to keep an excess kennel strength in place because as we all know, come the summer months when the
tracks run faster, not only do they lose available dogs to injuries but the number of meetings taking place increases significantly. Now back to the business aspect
and here is the clever part. As a good example, let’s say you had a 3 year old Ford Mondeo for sale that was valued in the trade at £5000.
Armed with this information you go to your local dealer and he offers you £1000. What do you do? Don’t bother
answering that one! Well let’s liken this to the Promoters. For the sake of argument let’s say your dog costs that
same £5000. Once it has trialed in your trainer enters it into its first graded race. All looks good and you can’t
wait to see your dog run. You eagerly go to the track and turn straight to the page in the racing card where your dog is listed.
Lo and behold, prize money of £70 if you win and £25 run money if you are lucky. So what do you do? Do you go
and tell the Racing Manager exactly what you told your local Ford dealer? Of course not. You watch your dog run and then
ask your trainer when he will next be out. And you live in the constant hope that one month you might actually win enough prize money to cover your kennel bill!!!
Let’s face it, when it comes to our hobby, all owners are stupid. Whether you own one graded racer or a string
of open race dogs, you are out of your tiny mind. Let’s examine the facts. Year on year, Promoters are making
increased profits yet how much do they give back to you, the lowly owner? Not a lot! They are in an almost unique
industry whereby they get some other mug to supply the ‘product’ from which they derive their profits. THEY CANNOT LOSE!!! If
your dog is off injured for 3 months do they pay your kennel bill? Do they pay your vet and physiotherapy bills? Not a
cat in hell’s chance. Moreover, do they really give a stuff that your pride and joy got injured at their track? Of
course not. There is always another mug just around the corner waiting to take your place.
So what can you as an owner do about it? Most obviously, your first option is to get out of the sport. That’s it, just walk away and give up the hobby you love so much. But why should you? Well, the true answer is you shouldn’t. So what does that leave? The simple answer is UGO. Believe me, there is strength in numbers. As individuals, your cause is lost before you even start. You know it and they know it. I know there is a lot of apathy amongst owners and I can hear you saying right now ‘Why bother, nothing will ever change’. That is exactly what they want you to say and it is that attitude that gives them their power. What you may not know is that they are in fact, believe you me, afraid of a strong owners association. It is not just the question of prize money but they live in constant fear of bad publicity over welfare issues. No one is saying it will be easy. It will be a long hard slog from day one but if we don’t do it now we never will. We need to unite behind UGO and get as many members as we possibly can. And then we must hit them where it hurts most. THEIR POCKETS!!!. They hate having a 5 dog race let alone lose a race completely. It really is so simple. The product is ours, not theirs. Without it they have no business. Can you honestly see them losing their millions of pounds of profits? Of course you can’t. They need to know once and for all who really holds the Ace Card.
David Miles