By way of introduction I am the Chairman of the Walthamstow Owners and Welfare Association and founder and Secretary of the Greyhounds’ Voice welfare committee. I would like to congratulate Mark for such a great web-site.

I started going to the Stow with my brother John regularly from the age of about 15 but went periodically before then. I loved the atmosphere, the buzz, everything about the place. I have been going just about every week since-I am now 41. I still get the same buzz as when I was 15. To me greyhound racing is Walthamstow and I have been fortunate to meet and become friends with so many people there, from the staff to the bookmakers, owners, trainers etc right to the Directors. So many lovely people and so many real characters. The Stow is my second home.

I owned my first bitch Katies Special about 18 years ago. She was trained by Mick Puzey. I have owned greyhounds continually since then and Mick has trained all my dogs. Mick, Sue and the kennel staff are great friends of my wife Debbie and me. I see at first hand how Mick treats his dogs and the care and attention he gives to each and every one. It really is first class and he is a credit to greyhound racing. My best greyhounds have been Independent Miss who made the semis of the Oaks (owned with Mick Faithfull) and Kindred Rebel who won the Circuit a couple of years ago (owned with my cousin Keith Blackham). My best moment in greyhound racing was undoubtedly winning the Circuit with Rebel at the Stow-realising a dream. Three months earlier he laid motionless at Rye House after crashing through the inside rail during a race. Going on to win the Circuit after that was a training performance of epic proportions.

I part own 4 racers at present and my two best are Charity (owned with Mick Faithfull and John Gilbert) and Kindred Sparky (owned with my cousin Keith).

I got seriously involved with greyhound welfare a few years ago, triggered by my first pet greyhound Prince. I have had pet greyhounds continually since. I believe with an absolute passion that every single greyhound deserves the chance of a loving home and that all of us involved in greyhound racing need to do more to help make that a reality. I may well be naïve but my attitude is to aim for perfection even if it cannot ultimately be achieved. I feel that urgent and radical changes are needed to the sport. There needs to be the right people in the right positions throughout the industry making the right decisions for the right reasons-these reasons being the welfare of each and every greyhound and the good of the sport as a whole. There needs to be greater communication, transparency and innovation to achieve this.

I am proud of our re-homing work at the Stow. We have a great team and great support and we re-home hundreds of greyhounds. Opening and maintaining our Association kennel, which has re-homed hundreds of dogs and will continue to do so, is something that everybody involved should be rightly proud of and I certainly am. Our scheme is not perfect and we are constantly trying to improve it but it is good and will hopefully improve with time.

The idea for Greyhounds’ Voice came to me and Debbie after a few pints at our local one Friday night. The concept was to create an experienced and knowledgable grass roots committee to filter and come up with good practical suggestions to improve greyhound welfare. We have a great committee and a terrific new Chairman in Ian Lavery who I believe will be fantastic for greyhound racing. We have spent a lot of time compiling reports for the APGAW and Donoughue enquiries as well as researching many other areas such as track surfaces. It is very reassuring to read the many similarities between our APGAW submission and the final report and I can only hope that this is repeated with the Donoughue Enquiry which I believe will change greyhound racing for ever and hopefully for the better. I must admit to being somewhat hurt at some criticisms levied at us such as that we are a ‘pressure group’ and that we are doing this for some sort of self promotion. We are a ‘welfare’ group and all we are trying to do is help the dogs. One criticism that is fair is our lack of communication. We are hoping to rectify this with a web-site that we hope to be up and running within a few weeks.

Part of good management is making the best use of the resources available to you. A major virtually untapped resource is the knowledge and experience of good people within the sport at grass roots level. In my opinion, people like Linda Jones, Mick Puzey, John Coleman, Charlie Lister etc should be central to the decision making process and not to a large degree observers. With initiatives such as Greyhounds’ Voice and the appointment of Linda to the NGRC this seems to be changing for the better and I hope for the dogs’ sake that this is expanded upon by Lord Donoughue in his report. This is a crucial few months for greyhound racing and I have every confidence in Lord Donoughue that he will guide this great sport in a way that greyhound welfare and the good of the sport as a whole are put first and foremost.

In closing I would like to wish Mark and indeed all connections of Derby runners the very best of luck in this year’s event.