by Warren Young, Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds
Apparently, greyhound racing is a sport in Australia.
A sport is defined as “a cultural field of activity in which people voluntarily enter into a relationship with other people in order to compare their respective abilities and skills in the art of movement – according to self-imposed or adopted rules and on the basis of socially accepted ethical values”.
The Cambridge dictionary describes sport as “a game, competition, or activity needing physical effort and skill that is played or done according to rules, for enjoyment and/or as a job.”
Is greyhound racing a sport for humans or dogs?
From the human perspective, a participant must engage in some form of skill in the competitive environment. Horse racing and motor racing can be considered as sports because the jockey or driver have a major influence on the outcome of the race. The human participants require skill and a level of physicality to succeed.
Greyhound racing is different because there is no human controlling the movement of dogs in a race. The only humans that have any indirect influence on race outcomes are trainers, but they are not directly participating in competition. The activity of training racing greyhounds is a form of coaching, and that is not a sport in its own right.
It seems greyhound trainers are a special form of coaches. Not only do they require minimal qualifications to develop and care for greyhounds, but in NSW they are paid just to show up to races. A trainer can receive a $60 subsidy from the taxpayer-funded racing industry for every dog that races.
This encourages over-racing as trainers are able to accumulate large sums of money even with slow or uncompetitive dogs. For example, if a trainer presents six greyhounds per race meeting and does this three times in a week, they can claim $1,080 per week. Over a year, they could claim up to $56,000 tax free!
If they don’t pay tax, training must be more of a hobby than a job; that is an activity done for pleasure in your spare time. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all get that money for our own hobbies? Why does this obscene situation happen? Because governments prop up greyhound racing with our taxes so that gambling can continue as usual.
But what about the dogs, aren’t they athletes in a sport?
Another characteristic defining sports (see above) is that it is a voluntary activity. From the greyhound’s perspective, racing is not voluntary. Yes, greyhounds love to run, but if they could talk, they would tell us that they want to play. Maybe this would include some chasing, but it would be random in nature, and allow them to stop and rest whenever they feel like it. It would not be structured racing after a mechanical device on a curved track.
The only way a greyhound wants to chase a mechanical lure is because they have been systematically trained to do it. Since it is completely unnatural for a greyhound to chase a mechanical object, trainers sometimes resort to using the prohibited practice of live baiting.
Running around a track over a prescribed distance is a human designed activity, not something a greyhound would choose to do! It has been created that way purely for the pleasure of spectators and gamblers. It could also be argued that involuntary racing does not comply with “socially accepted ethical values”, as stated in the definition of sport.
What does all this mean?
The act of training is not a sport for humans, and dogs are not participating voluntarily. Therefore, greyhound racing is not a valid sport for either trainers or dogs.
Unlike sports such as football, people do not go to greyhound racing to enjoy the competition between their favourite “athletes”. It is nothing more than a contrived activity designed for the purposes of betting.
We know many trainers love working with greyhounds and greyhounds love running, so why don’t these trainers just take their greyhounds outside and let them run freely for the joy of it, like any other dog breed? That would be a legitimate and respectable hobby. Maybe gambling has something to do with it!