Misinformation on greyhound racing

The July 16 US edition of The Economist has an article on greyhound racing. I will paste it below:
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Gone to the dogs;
Greyhound racing. An ancient sport in trouble A working-class sport in need of more money, more punters and a makeover

Entertainment, in Cross Lanes, West Virginia, is scarce on a Saturday night, so the Tri-State Racetrack & Gaming Centre pulls in a decent crowd. The car park is packed. The punters scrutinise their programmes, television screens and the greyhounds parading the turf. When the gates are lifted and the hounds bolt, the spectators holler. At the end, fewer seem quite so optimistic—but most will be back.

Greyhound racing is holding up well in poor states like West Virginia. But tracks in posher areas are hurting. The American Greyhound Track Operators Association lists 46 greyhound courses; five years ago there were 50. Two tracks have closed this year: Multnomah in Oregon and Plainfield in Connecticut. Others are losing money, according to Eric Wilson, the association's president.

Booming Arizona always used to be one of the industry's brighter spots. But on a Thursday night at the Phoenix Greyhound Park, only 200 people show up. Attendances are 29% below the level five years ago, says the park's marketing manager, Bac Tran. Over the same period, Phoenix's population has grown by nearly a tenth.

One nagging problem for the industry is fears about animal cruelty. The Humane Society of the United States has voiced concern about racing injuries. Stephanie Shain, the society's outreach director, claims that, at the end of their four-year career, most dogs are killed. The industry disputes this. The director of the Arizona chapter of Adopt A Greyhound, Kari Morrison Young, says the dogs live very good lives in their racing kennels and then retire to homes. "Human athletes should have it so good," she says.

The main problem, moan the dogmen, is other forms of gambling. Internet betting is hurting a bit, but punters are being wooed away by casinos and lotteries. Payouts for greyhound racing seem low. A $5 bet on Tailwaggin Tiff, a relatively unfancied dog at Cross Lanes, paid out just $15 when he won. And unlike the glitzy casinos, greyhound tracks offer a sad world of sticky escalators, grubby walls and horrible food. Discarded programmes and half-eaten nachos litter the smoky halls of Cross Lanes. An old man shuffles past, his unbelted, sagging trousers revealing a derrière which is distinctly less pert than those on display on a Vegas chorus line.

The industry is thinking about sprucing up its act. Several tracks are seeking regulatory approval to offer patrons other gambling options, such as video lottery terminals and card rooms. And some of the punters are doing rather well.

A spectacled Cleophus Johnson attends the Phoenix track nightly. A self-described "pro-better" Mr Johnson is armed with a mobile phone, pager and binoculars. Greyhound racing has been his only income for five years, he says, and this year he's up $40,000. Asked about the downturn in the sport he follows, the resourceful Mr Johnson looks unfazed. "Less people, more for me."
(End of Economist article)
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Kari Morrison's comments on the lives of greyhounds are outrageous. You can learn more about the industry at: http://www.Greyhounds.org On that site, for example, you'll read about thousands of ex-racing greyhounds found buried in Alabama, having been shot in the head and disposed of for ten bucks each by race-track veteran Robert Rhodes.

In December 2004, HBO Real Sports did a terrific segment on the issue, which showed a truckload of racing greyhounds arrive at a veterinary clinic alive, being thrown away, dead, a few minutes later -- perhaps not quite how human athletes would like to "have it". I transcribed much of that segment -- you can read it at:
http://www.DawnWatch.com/12-04_Animal_Media_Alerts.htm#GREYHOUND

Please correct Morrison's misinformation and help keep the issue alive in The Economist by sending a letter to the editor. The Economist takes letters at letters [at] economist.com and advises "Don't forget to include your postal address and a daytime telephone number."


(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)