Winning dogs’ racing status in doubt over insemination rule

Doubt has been cast on the status of hundreds of racing and coursing greyhounds bred using frozen semen taken from long-dead sires.

This includes many winning greyhounds whose sires died more than two years before they were conceived.

Artificial insemination is allowed under the 2005 regulations governing the breeding of greyhounds but the rules, set out in secondary legislation, stipulate that frozen semen can only be stored for two years after a stud dog dies. At this point it must be destroyed.