Jackpot not ill conceived, just poorly executed

Saturday night’s Pick Six Jackpot, which is spread across the track meetings at Limerick and Shelbourne, is guaranteed to €70,000. It would be a lovely pot to pick up, of course, but, really, it has been designed for the bigger players — those willing to invest thousands.

The first three legs of the Jackpot are run across races seven, eight and nine at Limerick, while the final three are races 10, 11 and 12 at Shelbourne.

It wasn’t an entirely ill-conceived idea but there are issues. Firstly, the races which have been hand-picked to constitute the legs of the jackpot have, on a number of weekends during the build-up of the pool, been deplorable.

And, quite clearly as a result of that, the jackpot is having an impact on the quality of the racing towards the end of the cards.

Most racing programmes begin on a low note and build up towards the best action but that hasn’t been the case these past few weeks.

At Limerick last Saturday night, there were six heats of the Vetsearch Feramo D Open 525 — a top-class stake which attracted Derby semi-finalist Laughil Billy, former Derby finalist Razldazl Bugatti and Oaks Consolation winner College Maybe, amongst others.

They make nationwide appeal to greyhound followers but the first three heats were run as races four, five and six, while — you’ve guessed it — the last three were run as raced 10, 11 and 12.

The three races in between — the legs of the jackpot — were an A2, an A4 and another A2, respectively. Sadly, by the standard of the previous week, they were high-class inclusions.

And Shelbourne was not immune to this. Its inclusions in the Jackpot were two semi-finals of an A1 stake, and a pretty ordinary Open 525 — this on a card which included three first-round heats of the Joe Dunne Memorial, and two hot Open 525s.

A lot of greyhound racing happens during any one week and it’s not possible for people to follow it religiously. As in any sport, it’s the high-class fare which makes most appeal. Does anyone really want to tune in to other tracks to watch graded racing? I suspect the purpose of the inter-track jackpot is to create some interest in the action at Limerick, but they’ve missed a trick.

If they really wanted to be ingenious, would it not have been better to have the jackpot across all six legs of the Vetsearch Stake in Limerick last weekend? It would have showcased the track and the quality of the racing there.

People would have tuned in to it. It’s the type of racing greyhound fans the country over would tackle with relish, and it would likely result in much greater interest and even some residual interest in the pools for the individual races.

Most racing enthusiasts can get some handle on Open Class form across all tracks, but the graded fare requires a high degree of local knowledge. It’s quite clear that it’s been designed to be as difficult as possible to win, though why a jackpot with 46,656 possible outcomes needs help in that regard, I’m not sure.

I understand the reasoning behind the inclusion of Limerick, but the execution shows a lack of understanding of what greyhound folk want, and it hasn’t caught the imagination.

Whatever excuse can be offered for that, the fact that the €50,000 pool from last week is now only being guaranteed to €70,000 is an admission in itself. The figure wasn’t reached last weekend and hence the reason for the cautious approach to this weekend.

It’ll be a relief to most punters when it’s won, so we can all move on.