Readers Blog: Putting the hounds before the hares
The industry needs to be opened up to full public inspection, especially as it is heavily subsided by taxpayers’ money: €16m this year.
In any other sport you could expect to be banned for life, or at least gravely censored and fined excessively, for doping. Not to mention the shame and eternal stigma that attach to being caught using prohibited performance-enhancing substances.
The greyhound industry is different: A mere slap on the wrist and a minuscule fine await the culprits.
The fortunes to be made from cheating far exceed any penalty that might be imposed in the event of a positive test result. Nothing very sporting about that.
And hare coursing, that other pillar of the industry, has a peculiar aversion to the kind of publicity that normal sports thrive on.
The events card for every coursing fixture carries the warning, in large block letters. “All Unauthorised photography strictly prohibited”. Authorised photography is the type one sees in the print media… greyhounds closing in on hares, hares escaping unscathed, owners of winning dogs being presented with trophies, and group pictures of smiling coursing fans posing with greyhounds. Rarely will you see pictures of hares being mauled, pinned down, or being euthanised after injury, or getting tossed into the air like broken toys.
Such images only emerge because animal protection people secretly film the action.
Imagine the consternation if the GAA or the FAI enacted a rule forbidding photographers from taking pictures of fouls or injuries on the pitch? Or if boxing organisers decided to ban pictures of punches and cuts?
Doped or otherwise ill-treated dogs and terrorised captive hares are victims of man’s inhumanity.
Deliberate cruelty to either animal is an insult to the name of sport.
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