Welcome to our website and to my column, which I hope you will find interesting.

Well as you all know by now, I have retired from training which over the years I have really enjoyed and have left my beautiful greyhounds in the safe hands of my son-in-law Mark. I am now enjoying my grandchildren and taking them out for trips when they are on holidays from school, and doing the usual babysitting duties and watching racing on TV when it is on. I don’t know if you will be aware that I am Chairperson of The Greyhound Voice, a committee formed to put the welfare of our beautiful greyhounds first.

At Imperial Kennels the greyhounds have always been the top of our agenda as our results have proved. Greyhound Voice are currently putting together a submission to go to Lord Donoughue on the state of greyhound racing and we have a number of people on our committee with several years of grassroots experience in greyhound racing. It is our intention to try and greatly improve the greyhound’s lot and to improve our industry and make it a better place to go for a night out!Greyhound Voice have a meeting planned with Lord Lipsey (Chairman) and other members of the BGRB to discuss some matters we consider to be of an urgent nature. Currently we have had two presentations on two very different racing surfaces, namely Viscoride and Starmat. Viscoride is at present still under test at STRI, whilst Starmat is currently being raced on at a schooling track in Northern Ireland and has been down therefore five years now without any serious injuries reported.

Our committee feel that whilst the tests on Viscoride are still incomplete, Starmat could be used on a track in this country to be tested under race conditions. The promoter of Henlow is quite willing to have Starmat laid on his track but is unable to get any funding from the BGRB, and as you can imagine it is not a cheap venture, so we on the GV committee are trying to do some fund raising on his behalf to lay Starmat.

More news and views next month when I hope to have some positive news on the greyhound welfare front!!