ASSORTED COMMENTS ON THE CRAFT OF TRAINING RACING GREYHOUNDS, AND TO GAMBLERS WHO ARE CONVINCED THAT TRAINERS CONSPIRE TO SABOTAGE THEM…
by Dennis McKeon
I’m having some laptop issues with my screen, so I am going through some old things and trying to salvage them. I thought some of them were actually coherent, and might be of some interest. These are pretty random, and taken from discussions. Hopefully the reader can get the drift….
ASSORTED COMMENTS ON THE CRAFT OF TRAINING RACING GREYHOUNDS, AND TO GAMBLERS WHO ARE CONVINCED THAT TRAINERS CONSPIRE TO SABOTAGE THEM…
“The worming cycle might vary depending upon where you are racing and the life cycle of the parasites you are dealing with. Generally speaking, in the Northeast, most trainers would worm every 28 days, with a broad spectrum wormer. With most wormers, performance will lag after administration of them.
Back in the days when we actually trained racers—before McRacing—each dog was kept to a basic schedule, which varied only according to the dog’s individual requirements and the racing rotation frequency at the time. Certain protocols are always observed, which include rubdowns and/or whirlpools sessions before and after racing, grooming before and after racing, exercise in between as required by the individual, either walking or sprinting, occasionally, when weather would allow, a light swimming session.
Diet is of critical importance. Meat, meal and water may keep your greyhounds fit and healthy, but you can make the daily meal a really enjoyable and even healthier experience for the dogs with a little variety and enhancement.
The most important thing that a trainer can do is to keep the dogs as free of stresses as possible—that includes not only athletically induced stress, but also environmental and existential stress. The dogs should feel completely relaxed and secure in the kennel at all times, and not be made to feel as if the are being kept on tenterhooks, until the next human outburst or manifestation of human angst is expressed to their perplexity and/or discomfort. The kennel is their home, the only one they have. Don’t bring your personal troubles to it.
The trainer should always include some bonding time with each individual—that can be as simple as a five minute walk with the dog, or simply stopping by the dog’s crate and showing some physical acknowledgement of him/her. Each racer should be treated as if they are your All American—that sounds whimsical, but it doesn’t cost you anything but the thought just to see to it.
It’s still basically a common sense craft. You don’t need to be an alchemist or a biologist to induce best performance from a willing greyhound—and most of them are that way. You need only to minimize your mistakes, and to observe and react to what you see as it regards predictable and habitual behaviors, and especially any sudden departure from them. These are amazingly willing and consistent creatures. Most will return an honest effort for your honest effort, sometimes tenfold—you’ll get out of them only what you put into them. If you respect them first as individuals who are entirely at the mercy of your insight and competence, you will make it your business to become more and more insightful and competent.
I don’t think it can be said too many times. When a good, reliable, consistent greyhound suddenly throws out the anchor without having an excuse—something is wrong. Greyhounds are as much creatures of habit on the racetrack as they are in the kennel and in the home. However, they aren’t able to send you a message by carrier pigeon saying “The reason I finished 22 lengths behind the winner last night was because I strained my hip shortly after the box opened, and it hurt to run really hard.”
As the trainer, you have to learn to question everything, and to “BELIEVE YOUR EYES” (Aaron Kulchinsky).
…but one thing needs a bit of elaboration. You shouldn’t use a bench to check over a greyhound. You should check them over with all four feet level on the floor–for the obvious reasons. Then you may stand them on the bench to groom them, etc.”
SOME ANALYSIS ON THE EBB AND FLOW OF BLOODLINES
“When I first became interested in greyhound racing, Rocker Mac was all the rage as a sire. The kennels were literally brimming with his offspring, as were the stakes races. He threw lots of great 3/8th types. His influence waned rather dramatically, though. Shortly after he had become a single sire dynasty, more Australian sires were to make their way here. One of them, in particular, named Tell You Why, while he would not be a 7 time sire leader like Rocker Mac, would literally re-invent the American greyhound, and infuse them with dramatic pace, to go along with their remarkable stamina, a hallmark of the American greyhound. His siblings and his sons were nothing less than breed-altering, and phenomenal, to say the least.
This did not bode well for Rocker Mac daughters and grandaughters, who were numerous, and Rocker Mac’s true hope to sustain his own dynasty, as he left no sons that were anything like him as sires. You see, Tell You Why was a maternal grandson of Chief Havoc (in other words, Chief Havoc was Tell You Why’s damsire)–Chief Havoc was also Rocker Mac’s sire.
Now most US breeders were just not ready to inbreed that aggressively, by putting Tell You Why or his sons to Rocker Mac daughters of even his grandaughters. And so Rocker Mac’s female descendents were not able to use the most phenomenal segment of the sire population at that point in time. Which is not to say that there were not other good sires around–there were—but none of them had quite the prepotency of Tell You Why or several of his sons…and so many female lines who carried Rocker Mac as their sire or damsire, fell a bit behind on the adaptational curve–and they never quite recovered. However, Rocker Mac lives on in the American greyhound today, through a most auspicious individual—that would be the great Gable Dodge…whose damsire, the equally great Dutch Bahama, carries Woodward as his own damsire…Woodward’s damsire is none other than the legendary Rocker Mac.”
ON WHY SOME DOGS WHO APPEAR TO BE NATURAL LONGER DISTANCE TYPES, CAN’T CUT THE MUSTARD WHEN THEY GET THE CHANCE
“The general consensus as I always inferred was that stamina was something you looked to the dam’s side for. Nevertheless, because a sire was a distance star, that doesn’t necessarily mean that is what he’ll tend to throw. Ks Flak threw a lot of sprinters, though he himself was at his best at 660 yards. Downing was a superstar sprinter who threw some tremendous stayers out of Irish and half Irish females. Go figure.
Then there is the matter of the course configuration. It could be argued that the typical 3/8ths configuration is not so much a test of stamina for most, as it is a matter of aptitude. There are hundreds of powerful closer/sprinters who are thought to be distance superstars in the making, as they come up through the ranks. Then when they make the switch, you can’t find them with a telescope. In a sprint, they break behind, then they find their line–usually the mid to outer lanes…then they kick into gear as they turn onto the backstretch, and pick up the phony speed dogs who didn’t make the turn on top. Around the turn and into stretch, they are reaching the zenith of their run, as the pacesetters tire, and sometimes as the pace entirely collapses. They’re full of run as they blow by the fading leaders, 50 yards out…and everyone says, “wait until they go over to the other side”. But what often happens, is that the moderate to slow break that they consistently showed in sprints, gets them in big trouble—as nimble, quicker breaking, turn hugging stayers take the turn away from them, and speed off to a huge advantage.
The closer/sprinter still has a card to play, in that he has a more dynamic turn of pace than the stayers do, so he recovers from his disadvantage and begins to close some ground—and now he has 110 more yards in which to catch the leaders. As they go by the tote, he’s now about five lengths in arrears of the pace, and entering the far turn, has clear sailing. But something happens then. The stayers on the pace don’t come back to him quite as easily as spent sprinters, and now there are deeper stayers pressuring our closer/sprinter from behind, and they are closing on the leaders even faster than he is. Halfway through the stretch, his burst of speed is spent and he begins to fade as the leather-lungers wear him down and set their sights on the pacesetters– who are now burning up their final fumes.
The bottom line is that the dog lost because the configuration of the course doesn’t suit his particular skill set—not necessarily because he lacked speed or stamina. He lost because his skill sets did not match up with or exceed those of the dogs he was competing against on that particular course, as it is designed. Now if you raced that same field at 660 yards, but with a long straight run up to the first turn, rather than breaking right into a turn, our closer/sprinter might win with distance to spare. Why? Because his aptitude and skill set is flattered by that sort of course design, but not by the garden variety 3/8ths venue.”
copyright, 2014