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What Sandown greyhounds could learn from rugby sevens

Roar Guru
16th May, 2016
2

On Thursday a sensational night of racing awaits at Sandown greyhounds with the heats of the Sandown Cup over the 715m for the stayers.

It’s one of the great races on the calendar that the great Bold Trease won a phenomenal four times. Other great stayers such as Boronia Blossom, Lizrene and Sweet It Is have all won the time-honoured event.

This year, the staying ranks are incredibly even, surely a factor in attracting a massive seven heats for the event. Stayers take a little bit of patience to prepare and many of them have minds of their own, enjoying dropping back and waiting for the leaders to get tired before zooming past them.

For what it’s worth, I think Lioness Lulu will improve on her last run, Zipping Kane is vulnerable to a late charge from Ring the Belle and Fantastic Tail will be hard to beat if her head is switched on. But it’s the structure of the event that I want to talk about here.

Heats and finals are very common in greyhound racing and they are a good way of creating a competitive event, but I think they’re underutilised and could learn a thing or two from Sevens Rugby.

OK, that sounds crazy but let me explain.

Probably the most common complaint in greyhound racing from punters, owners and trainers is the grading system. Uncompetitive races from inefficient grading policies and a lack of certainty for owners on whether your greyhound will get a start.

It’s just frustrating for punters when there are extremely short priced favourites going around or the greyhound you want to back next start is reserve and you don’t know if it’ll get a start.

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So, instead of the current system where you only get a start in the final if you are one of the best eight greyhounds in the heats, why not start doing more regularly what they do in Rugby Sevens (and similar to the Perth Cup in Cannington), where there is a Cup, Plate, Bowl and Shield?

The racing should become more competitive, if there’s four heats and a final you’re guaranteed a start the next week and there’ll be many more match-ups of greyhounds with similar abilities, greatly enhancing the number of competitive races.

For punters, it should be much easier to line up the form, with several races all coming through the same lead-ups from the week before, rather than just the finals. It’ll be particularly useful for maiden races, where lining up greyhounds with similar abilities just doesn’t happen in the current format.

So, coming back to the Sandown Cup, the question for greyhound enthusiasts is this. Do we want to see the eight best stayers in one race next week or 32 of the best stayers in four races – a turbo-charged quaddie if you like? Personally, I’d love to see the latter.

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