Floyd's Column - Let's look at the stats

Floyd's Column

“There are three kinds of lies. Lies. Damned lies. And statistics” 

Without doubt the most hackneyed quotation ever used to accompany the release of any significant body of data.

The thing is, as objective as the figures inevitably are . . . the way in which they are interpreted is guaranteed to be subjective.

The Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition will dig and scrape to find the most unflattering line or statistic with which to embarrass the Government. No matter how good the overall figures might be.

A football fan will quote “12 points out of a possible 24” or “unbeaten in the last eight games” to describe exactly the same set of results depending on whether he wants to see the manager sacked.

The release by the GBGB of the most recent injury and retirement figures is no different.

The ‘anti racing’ crowd need only to find ‘one’ in the fatalities column to justify a ban. The ‘pro racers’ point to continued progress and offer comparisons with other sports and activities.

For those who attempted to study the stats but ended up with ‘figures blindness’ here are a few of my personal observations.

Marginal gains

I have previously written about building on the “one percenters”. It is the concept that if you improve performance by 1% over a number of different fields, the aggregate net gain will be significant.

The problem is, if you check out the last line in the GBGB’s injury spreadsheet, you discover that since 2018, the progress made has been marginal.

We are informed that the “percentage of injuries against total runs” has edged from ‘1.16 down to 1.07’. Put another way, if we manage another 11 years of similar consecutive growth – the progress will be one percent.

To switch metaphors, we’ve already harvested most of the low hanging fruit (see below).

Figures are better than appear apparent

Apologies to old Greyhound Star readers for bringing this up again, but there are a couple of sets of data that are regularly used against the industry that continue to irritate me.

When latching onto the 386 greyhounds that, according to the antis “were killed” by the industry last year, how can we be held responsible for the 40 that died due to “terminal illness or natural causes”? 

Then there are the 77 ‘sudden deaths’. I was intrigued as to why they weren’t among ‘natural causes’ and had a couple of conflicting answers.

Apparently, they are ‘unexpected’ or ‘unexplained’ deaths. In most cases, with no suggestion of illness or disease, but without post mortems, they would generally be assumed to be heart attacks.

Then there are the 51 considered ‘unsuitable for homing’ and are therefore euthanised.

Would the antis (and charities of dubious repute) want us sending this small rogue group into the public domain knowing that they might just savage a family pet or snap at a child?

It is a tiny number (under 1%) compared to the number that the RSPCA apparently destroy every week (We are guessing of course they don’t feel obliged to produce figures for public consumption, but insist that we do.)

Evening allowing for my rudimentary maths, I make it that we re-home 97.3% of the ‘greyhounds available for rehoming’.

Scope for improvement

Once again, old Greyhound Star readers look away. You’ve heard this before.

But maybe there are still a few fruit that aren’t too far out of reach.

The Four Day Rule issue. Nothing has yet convinced me that this is justified or even vaguely logical. Without going into details, again, and trying to make sense of the veterinary science that justified it, it cannot be based on logic.

For example, last Saturday, Teaboy Brownie won a Romford 225m on the same card that Ballymac Taylor won over 925 metres. More than four times as far. 

But both are restricted to the same schedule as to when they can run again.

The point is – Rule 147 means we are not getting full value from our runners? 

It isn’t about over-racing, we can still set wider limits (per month?). It is about flexibility.

It is often impossible to schedule for dogs to race four days later simply because of the structure of the fixtures.

It doesn’t affect all tracks. But take somewhere like Kinsley. A dog runs on Friday. He can’t race again until Tuesday. But there isn’t a meeting on Tuesday, or Wednesday. So the soonest he can run again is on Thursday. Six days later. Or Swindon’s Tuesday runners. Unavailable to race again until the following Monday.

A Sunday runner at Yarmouth can’t run again until the following Saturday. On the winter schedule, with no Saturdays, they will only be able to race once a week.

The point is – if you make more efficient use of the dogs, you need less dogs. Which means less to rehome.

The Unaccountability of tracks. At what point – if ever – are GBGB going to monitor tracks injury statistics and make them accountable for excessive injury counts.

I would wager that five tracks are responsible for more than 50% of the 718 broken hocks last year.

Shouldn’t there be trigger set by the vets – GBGB is riddled with them – whereby excessive injury returns could result in the suspension of racing?

I would also want to see inquiries into trainers who appear to have excessive numbers of injuries. In many cases of course, there will be a connection between track and trainer.

Why aren’t we doing it?

Unbearable burden

I will reserve my greatest concern for the number of ex-racers still in their owners/trainer’s kennels.

A whopping 27%! That has more than double from the 11.3% back in 2018.

And let’s not kid ourselves over the split between the two. At some tracks there aren’t many (or hardly any) owners.

The whole subject of greyhound ownership merits its own discussion on another occasion, but my primary concern is for the dogs.

Having worked in kennels and been around greyhounds all my life, the idea that racing dogs have a poor standard of life is simply untrue.

However, I would question how much attention the ex-racers receive in so many kennels.

It is nothing to do with lack of love or consideration, it is simply a resources issue.

How often are the ex-racers walked and groomed when three staff are trying to cope with 50 racing dogs?

Where is the variety in their life?

Most ex-racers adapt perfectly well to a retirement away from the racing kennel and the rehoming section of Greyhoundracinguk can bombard you with photographs and videos to back that up. 

But the longer they remain in a kennel environment, the more likely they are to become institutionalised.

It is absolutely vital on so many levels that we address this.

The primary concern is the dogs themselves. Then there are the trainers who cannot afford to subsidise a third of the kennel strength and will be miserable that they don’t have more time or resources to spend on the hounds they love.

Lastly – a group who seldom get mentioned, but are vitally important.

I am referring to the concerned welfarists who, while not greyhound supporters, would not normally want to see the sport banned.

These, often extremely influential folk, will have frequently let their concerns be known to the Greyhound Board.

Try their patience too far and they will pick a side.

Conclusion?

Once again, apologies for repeating myself, but if you consider the same problem on literally hundreds of occasions, and come to the same conclusion . . . 

The Greyhound Board of Great Britain continues to do an excellent job on welfare and this latest set of figures are, overall, something of which we can be proud.

However, to make any further progress, the industry needs additional income.

GBGB continues to lobby Government to introduce a statutory mechanism to force the betting industry to pay for greyhound welfare.

I wish I was more confident of it happening any time soon.

If I was running the greyhound industry, I would look to scrap the British Greyhound Racing Fund, which is no longer fit for purpose. No more expensive offices, staff or directors expenses. Although some of that burden would be taken on by GBGB, there  would be a significant six figure saving.

(It is worth remembering that the BGRF was originally set up in a very different power dynamic where bookmakers were concerned about track owners abusing the income.)

At the same time, I would lobby EFRA to place the responsibility of collecting the ‘levy’ on the media rights companies and base it on the number of races/meetings broadcast.

Given just reasonable funding, this slimmed down greyhound industry is now at a stage where our welfare commitments, while challenging, are entirely manageable.