With 78 days left until dog racing ends in our state, out-of-state greyhound breeders are feverishly making a final pitch to state lawmakers, trying to convince them to undermine the will of the voters.
Nevermind that the Greyhound Protection Act was overwhelmingly approved by voters, or that greyhounds are continuing to suffer serious injuries at local tracks, or that a solid majority of lawmakers have told their constituents they will not support a delay or repeal of this humane law. These greyhound breeders, who launched their effort only weeks after the election, don’t care about any of that. Their leader, a greyhound breeder from Connecticut named Linda Jensen, made their intentions very clear in the Herald yesterday:
“We’re trying to overturn ballot question 3 so we can continue live racing,” said Linda Jenson, a Plainfield, Conn.-based breeder and president of nonprofit Protection of Working Animals and Handlers Inc.
Unfortunately, in recent days this misguided effort has made some headlines. In addition to being covered by the Herald, it is now being promoted by radio harlequin Michele McPhee. Your help is needed to ensure the will of the voters is upheld on Question 3!
As part of this campaign, greyhound breeders have launched a series of futile legal proceedings, all of which are bound to fail. Also, in perhaps the strangest plot twist Raynham Park has filed an application for dog racing next year with the State Racing Commission. However, setting aside the fact that dog racing will be illegal next year, the track neglected to include some pretty important things with their application. Things like the application fee, which is required by law, and their financial documents. These fatal flaws are meticulously documented in a new legal memo by GREY2K USA President and General Counsel Christine Dorchak.
It might be hard to take this effort seriously, but we should take nothing for granted. Please call or e-mail your state lawmakers today, and ask them to uphold the will of the voters on Question 3.
Over the past seventy-five years, hundreds of thousands of greyhounds have raced in Massachusetts. These dogs lived in small cages, many were seriously injured, and it is likely that most of them died a premature death when they were no longer profitable. All so they could be used as living keno balls, numbers for people to gamble on. Please make your call today for those dogs. Together, let’s ensure that no more greyhounds suffer and die in our state just so people can gamble on them.
In the previous ballot initiative when greyhound racing won the fight to keep racing, wasn’t thw will of the people upheld?
I would also like documentation as to the HUNDRED OF THOUSANDS of greyhounds raced? My bet is on the under. By a lot.
I would also like you to to consider the thousand PEOPLE becoming unemployed. What about them? Unemployment is at 9.3% today.
You can make your ase without exaggerating. Exaggeration leads to loss of credibility.
First of all, when voters elected to continue dog racing in the year 2000 their vote was upheld. In fact, Article 48 of the Constitution states that citizens must wait six years to bring a similar question back before voters.
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p>We held an election in 2000, and we lost. We did not attempt to undermine that vote.
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p>Now if the greyhound breeders want to follow the constitution, and bring this issue back before voters in six years, they are welcome to do so.
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p>Regarding the number of dogs that have raced, just since 2002 nearly 15,000 greyhounds have raced in our state according to state records. Greyhound racing has existed in Massachusetts since 1934. You do the math.
The business was doomed to failure in any case. The only reason the business was ever viable was because other forms of gambling were not available in the region. Now that we have the lottery, scratch tickets, nearby casinos, not to mention online gambling, that just leaves the people who go for the racing, and there just aren’t enough of them to pay the bills. Those dog racing jobs were lost a long time ago.
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p>It makes no sense to continue to prop up a dying industry that also harms animals.
…is the state of Rhode Island agreeing to let them drop dog racing:
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The Woodlands track in Kansas closed this summer after years of losing money and after failing to get the state to give them a bigger cut of slot machine profits — here is one account.
the owners of these businesses only pushed for them, in the end, because they thought it was their best chance to open a slot parlor.
I’ll do the research. I’m genuinely curious.
Do you mean the number of dogs that race each year? It is the Massachusetts State Racing Commission. You can reach them at 617-727-2581.
I don’t know if the state data is online somewhere, but
the Greyhound Breeding and Racing Database has some race information. Beyond ten or fifteen years back, they seem to only include major races and their race data is often incomplete (e.g. sometimes only showing the winner or top-three finishers).
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p>This query shows all races in Wonderland between 2002 and now. There are 15603 races in the database. There are 33709 races for the same period at Raynham. With 8 dogs running in each race that comes out to 394K so as long as the average dog does 26 races or so, that comes out to 15K.
There are dogs at the tracks who never end up doing an official race; for instance, our own greyhound came from a race track but didn’t have any races. Those animals won’t show up in those race records but they went through the system.
You can also find greyhound disposition statistics for 2007 here.
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p>As you can see, the statistics list dispositions for 2,066 dogs that year.
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p>You will also note that the vast majority of dogs that race in our state go on to race elsewhere.
BUT:
The 2066 dogs are for one year. The can have a career of more than one year.
The mortality rate of 0.7% sounds outstanding. Much better than Hinsdale’s problem recently.
For most racing dogs 26 races are run in less than three months, usually racing every 3-4 days. I’ve followed enough stakes tournaments to know this. Among other dogs I’ve followed.
I don’t want the track owner’s sticky fingers involved in the inevitable casinos coming.
I still think the dogs are a beautiful sight on the homestretch though. Please note I didn’t mention the first turn.