Following pressure from Greyt Exploitations we can reveal that the Retirement data published in March of this year by the GBGB is flawed as it does not account for any outstanding retirement forms which can take up to six months from the end of a dog’s racing life for the GBGB to receive.
We have been informed by the DEFRA minister that final retirement statistics will be published in ‘due course’.
This brings into question yet again – not only the GBGB’s integrity but also their claim that 86% of redundant greyhounds that ran in 2017 were found homes and you really have to wonder at the competence and credibility of the independent verifiers who signed this data off.
We have always maintained and by the industry’s own admission – it can take more than 6 months for trainers to return the retirement forms – so why did the GBGB publish retirement data just 3 months following the end of 2017 – knowing that not all retirement forms had been returned?
Could it because the GBGB’s MD Mark Bird stated on television “If the data was done in such a way – if it was projected wrong – then we could have found ourselves in a different place”?