Greyhounds killed for losing races

Death was price of poor results

TWO greyhounds whose deaths are at the centre of a scandal that has engulfed the dog-racing industry were shot because they had performed poorly a few days ealier.

The dogs, whose names are now known to be Clash Nitro and Rent a Flyer, were pictured by an undercover photographer for The Sunday Times being led to their deaths by David Smith, the industry's unofficial “executioner”. He is said to have killed up to 10,000 greyhounds over 15 years.

Smith was photographed just moments later pushing the greyhounds' bodies in a wheelbarrow to bury them behind his house. Both dogs were less than three years old when they were killed this month.

It has now been established that the dogs were considered worthless by their owners, Gillian Young, a licensed trainer, and her husband Graeme, assistant racing manager at Pelaw Grange greyhound track in Co Durham.

Each dog had won races earlier this year but after they under-performed at a meeting three weeks ago the Youngs decided they did not want to continue racing them. The couple were told by a rehoming charity three days later that they would have to wait about a week before the greyhounds could be taken.

Instead, the next morning Clash Nitro and Rent a Flyer were taken to be shot in the head by Smith, a builders' merchant from Seaham, Co Durham.

Their deaths were the subject of an exposé two weeks ago by The Sunday Times which showed how trainers were resorting to the mass slaughter of greyhounds no longer considered fast enough to race.

The revelations have shaken the greyhound industry and led to a government inquiry. Last week there were fresh calls for the animal welfare bill before parliament to be amended to subject trainers and owners to external regulation.

The Sunday Times secretly filmed the dogs being taken by Gillian Young and her father Sid Fenwick, also a licensed trainer, to be put down by Smith, who was then shown burying them in his back garden with a mechanical digger.

He told an undercover reporter it took him three years to fill the one-acre plot with bodies.

At the time the identities of Fenwick, the Youngs and the names of both dogs were unknown. Last week, however, the trainers' details emerged and both Fenwick and Gillian Young were suspended by the National Greyhound Racing Club (NGRC), the sport's governing body, pending an inquiry that could see them banned.

Fenwick claimed he had been given the dogs by an unnamed man and did not know their identities, but their full histories have now been established.

Each illustrates how greyhounds are exploited to provide cheap entertainment and betting fodder before commonly being killed once their usefulness has ended.

For Clash Nitro, a male brindle, life began on November 1 2003 in Ireland. His potential was apparent early on. In his first race at Youghal stadium in Co Cork on July 5, 2005, Clash Nitro came second. Several more races followed, culminating in another second at Newbridge, Co Kildare, on December 3 that year.

On January 21 last year Clash Nitro won an A5 race (most dogs compete in competitions graded from 11 to 1), and followed his victory a week later with another first place in the even faster A3 category.

His racing form took a turn for the worse with successive fifth-place finishes and it was decided he was slightly lame.

Instead of taking him to a vet the Youngs opted for a “dog physiotherapist”, who recommended he be rested. After he was considered to have regained some fitness, he was raced again at Pelaw Grange on July 8. It was to prove his final lap, however. Another fifth place was one failure too many for his exacting owner.

Rent a Flyer, a black male, had an even shorter career. Born in Ireland on May 11, 2004, he made his racing debut 15 months later at Thurles, Co Tipperary, coming in fourth.

By December 2005 he had managed his first win, at Derry racetrack in Northern Ireland. Over the following two months he notched up three further wins and one second place.

Gillian Young bought Rent a Flyer, evidently thinking he was a good prospect. But trials were disappointing. The dog appeared to be suffering from slight lameness. In April he was taken, together with Clash Nitro, to see the “physio”.

After resting him, Gillian put him back on the track at the start of June but his practice performances were mixed. Later she tested Rent a Flyer in a trial at Pelaw Grange.

Like Clash Nitro, however, his efforts were considered insufficient to warrant further attention and money being spent on him. It was decided both dogs had to be “retired”. That day David Holmes, secretary of Northumberland Greyhound Rescue, a voluntary enterprise that has rehomed hundreds of unwanted “retired” dogs, received a call from someone acting as an intermediary for the Youngs. He said the Youngs were asking for the dogs to be taken off their hands.

“I said that we had no room right then, but that we would call back three days later on the Tuesday when we were expecting two other dogs to have been moved out,” said Holmes.

“I often get calls from guys saying if you don't come and pick up the dog today it is set to be put to sleep in the morning. We have to get in the car and drive to a motorway car park or similar to pick them up.

“We called back on the Tuesday and said we still didn't have room, but would have in a week to 10 days.”

NGRC rules state that dogs must be put down only when it is either medically necessary or all other options have been tried. Even then, they should be killed only by a vet using injections. The next morning, July 12, both dogs were bundled into a small Peugeot van and driven to Smith's makeshift abattoir, referred to as “the Garden of Eden” by some in the greyhound industry.

Smith was paid £20 and both dogs were dispatched with a bolt gun.

Last night both Smith, whose practice is also the subject of inquiries by the RSPCA and the tax authorities, and the Youngs were on holiday and unavailable for comment. Graeme Young has also been suspended from his job at Pelaw Grange and faces a separate inquiry by the track's owner, Jeff McKenna.

Fenwick, who insisted last week he had not known who owned the dogs he took to be killed, said: “I didn't know the dogs' names, I never bothered about them. I had no idea my daughter owned the dog.”

CELEBRITY PROTEST

Greyhound racing has long been associated with the working classes, but the welfare of the dogs has become a cause célèbre for the rich and famous.

Among those who have pressed the government to intervene are actors such as Annette Crosbie, Richard Wilson and Charlotte Cornwell, as well as Joanna Lumley, Dame Diana Rigg, Alexandra Bastedo and Simon Callow.

Other supporters include Rory Bremner, the impressionist, Sir John Harvey-Jones, the businessman, Germaine Greer, the feminist writer, and Twiggy, the 1960s model.

Crosbie, star of BBC's One Foot in the Grave and founder of Greyhounds UK, a welfare pressure group, said The Sunday Times exposé of the mass killing of retired greyhounds had “forced the issue onto the agenda in a spectacular way”.

She said some of the celebrity campaigners had owned greyhounds and lurchers themselves.