Greyhounds Falling...

Several people contributed to this post: Dick Ciampa, Chris Molnar & others. Many thanks to them.

One of the Animal Rights talking points in trying to destroy professional Greyhound Racing is that dogs are injured & killed in falls on the racetrack. While no one wants to see dogs fall, it happens and it is amazing how resilient they are.

Dick Ciampa did a month long study at Palm Beach Kennel Club. He thought the number of fall at Palm Beach may be more than some other tracks, such as Southland, bcause Palm Beach is the track with the tightest turns. He discovered that there were actually FEWER falls.

Dick Ciampa specifically looked at the month of August 2017. He wanted to see how prevalent falling was in greyhound racing. This is what he found.

Palm Beach Kennel Club – August 2017
Date	Program	#Dogs Fell	Made Next Start	Notes
Aug 01		3	Yes
Aug 02		0
Aug 03		0
Aug 04	A & E	0
Aug 05	A & E	1	Yes
Aug 06	A & E	1	Yes
Aug 07	A & E	0
Aug 08	A & E	1	Yes
Aug 09	A & E	0
Aug 10	A & E	0
Aug 11	A & E	1	Yes
Aug 12	A & E	0
Aug 13	A & E	1	Yes
Aug 14	A & E	2	No	1 dog started 11 days later & hasn't raced since. 1 dog hasn't raced
Aug 15	A & E	1	No	Off for 2 months
Aug 16	A & E	2	Yes
Aug 17	A & E	1	Yes
Aug 18	A & E	0
Aug 19	A & E	0
Aug 20	A & E	0
Aug 21	A & E	0
Aug 22	A & E	1	Yes
Aug 23	A & E	0
Aug 24	A & E	1	Yes
Aug 25	A & E	1	Yes
Aug 26	A & E	2	Yes
Aug 27	A & E	0
Aug 28	A & E	4	Yes
Aug 29	A & E	0
Aug 30	A & E	2	Yes
Aug 31	A & E	1	Yes

There were 585 races with 4,665 individual runs at Palm Beach in August 2017. Twenty-six (26) dogs fell during those 4,665 runs for a 0.55% chance of falling in a race.

Only three (3) of those 26 dogs haven't come back to race. Dick Ciampa counted the dog that made his next start and then hasn't raced since in those 3, which is a 0.064% chance of not racing again.

Twenty-three (23) of those 26 dogs that fell went on to race again with only one requiring a layoff of 2 months before its next start. Twenty-two made their next start a couple of days after falling. That's an 88.5% chance that the dogs will race again after a fall. 

Now, I want to stress: 

Of the dogs that are injured in a fall, 99% are rehabbed & sent into adoption. The majority of career ending injuries are: fractures, sprains, muscle tears and even a fear of racing. Some dogs will get fearful about racing again after a bad fall. 

Shame on anyone for assuming the worst without checking the adoption kennel first. You know what they say about the word ASS-U-ME.

Now then, there are things that can be changed to drastically reduce the chances of falling. I find it rather telling that one of the variables which can be easily fixed is track footing & condition. 



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