I promised I would publish my article on dog racing ...

It is over six thousand words and may be longer by the time I have finished because I may want to add to it, as I go along, or perhaps I will comment on what I have written after each episode. We'll see...

Dog Racing: Unravelling The Mystique © G. Crawley 2006

A beginner’s guide

I see it every day: punters picking dogs in a bookmaker’s shop from a large racing sheet, quickly assessing the form and through intuition, or the prices on offer, backing dogs to win or be placed in forecast doubles etc. Some of them – the old hands especially are quite good at it; or so some of them tell me; but they know, at a glance, how to assess the ‘spots’ (the hundredths of a second in a greyhound’s time) that separate each dogs’ time - and hence, performance on the track. But what about the amateurs like me, what do we rely on? Mostly a glance through the form; counting the number of 1sts; and hope!

Usually it’s from a small corner of the shop with a dimly lit board that has one or two people trying to read a race at the same time. What have they assessed and what are they putting their money on? Maybe a tipster’s selection, or a certain trainer or perhaps a Racing Post rating of 100; or maybe a price?

Well, have you ever looked closely at some tipster’s selections for a race meeting on the dogs? Have you ever checked them out? I have; and I’ve found that some tipsters can go through a meeting without one selection being correct. The punter following such tipsters would be better off with a dice to make selections. Of course there are some racing journalist/ tipsters that I have enormous respect for, and you wonder how they do it!

What sort of aids do they have? A computer perhaps, and if so: what data is fed in? Maybe they rely on a lot of ‘local’ dog track information and knowledge; which I have great respect for.

Going to my local dog track I see a many people studying the race card and coming up with what might be the solution to the outcome of a race. Many, many people are really knowledgeable about dog racing at the track and really know their stuff. However, I imagine that they follow the same pattern week after week in their search for winners. With only 6 dogs in a race you would think it was easy – wouldn’t you? It’s not. It is anything but; it’s the most tantalising and mercurial, frustrating and demoralising, form of betting imaginable; and one of the most exhilarating when you get it right! And don’t you feel small when one of your family, usually a female, gets it right and you ask how she did it and she says, ‘I took all the girls’ names’. In disgust you growl -through clenched teeth – that, the damned dog doesn’t even know its name!

So where does the young hopeful person start when they get the bug? Going dog racing that is… The canny old punters with local and inside knowledge aren’t likely to be forthcoming in helping them get to know the racing game. Even deciphering the race card (though it tries to be helpful) is going to take time. How can we unravel the mystique that surrounds the dog racing fraternity? How can we assess what the trainers know that is not immediately known to us – or ever likely to be. There may be books around that are helpful, but has anyone written about how to assess a dog race? I never seem to come across anything that is really useful about the mechanics of dog racing; therefore that is the reason I have carried out my own experiments in assessing a race and why I am passing the result of my work to you; and hope it will be informative and useful. What I am about to explain is not a panacea to cure all the problems of winner finding; because I don’t know that anyone can devise a system for a sport where the competitors are so erratic. What I hope to do is to help, by sifting all the facts, so that you will make a more informed choice.

Come racing!!