Groups Opposed ToThe Greyhound Racing Industry

[rockingship]

Greyhound racing is different things to different people. For me, personally, it was never simply "about the money"....though it was gratifying to be paid for something I would have done for free if I could have afforded to.

The industry that has evolved around greyhound racing is certainly about money.....and the only reason that greyhound racing exists in its traditional incarnation, is because the various localities have sought it out, and have actuated it, by public sanction, to raise public monies.

As far as the racing breed is concerned, racing and the monies that it generates, are the only thing preserving the genetic wellsprings of the racing greyhound. If one understands anything at all about selective breeding, and the expenses intrinsic to it, then it is not necessary for me to expound upon why this is so crucial to an entire population of racing greyhounds, and whatever future populations are to emerge.

It always puzzles me how one can feel so strongly connected and concerned about a single racing greyhound, yet be seemingly oblivious to the racing population, and the current and long term prospects, and the well being and integrity of the breed. These need not be mutually exclusive concerns----and they had better not be, if we are to perpetuate the breed in the future, as functional, genetically sound and physically and dispositionally well-adapted.

For the time being, greyhound racing is the device which preserves and nurtures-----and supports-----the vast and diverse familial structures and genetic reserviors of the racing greyhound. In the unthinkable event that these are ever lost, they are lost forever.

Humane concerns for racing greyhounds go hand in hand with the concept of "breed" and breed custodianship....breed custodainship encompasses not simply procreation of racing greyhounds, but procreation of functional, genetically diverse and well-adapted members of the population. There is no breed in the world which can compare to the racing greyhound in that regard.....and it is racing that has enabled the breed to flourish, and kept its genetic reserviors pure and full. While it is an imperfect system, it's the best one we have devised so far.