The latest

The reporter from The Republic, Amy Wang, contacted me tonight (happened to catch me just after weigh-in ended; five minutes sooner and she’d’ve gotten my voicemail). We’re to meet next Tuesday to discuss my take on the injury numbers, primarily.

She’s genuinely interested in following up on the numbers I’d sent to the paper. Can’t guarantee me a follow-up article, but hey, this is a start. We’ll see how it goes.

I received a confirmation of receipt from Grey2K. (Wording: “That’s a lot of information. We’ll have to get back to you.”) With the holiday weekend fast approaching — so I guess everybody gets July 3 off this year ’cause the 4th falls on a weekend? well, not “everybody”, I’ll be at the kennel, like usual — I don’t know whether to expect a response before Monday or not. Again, we’ll see.

–CG

Ok… REALLY one last post before I go to bed

Just heard back from the reporter who penned the original Arizona Republic article. She’s interested in discussing my view of the injury report. Hey, hey, hey… this website’s been up and running for all of 8 hours and we already have some good news.

I made the following comment on American Greyhounds when the article came out last weekend:

tfg46 Status: Online Posts: 1352 Date: Sun Jun 21 6:51 PM, 2009

If/when you email the paper and/or the author, PLEASE give her credit for at least coming out IN PERSON to the track and asking to speak with management and any available trainers for the story. I wasn’t there Tuesday night or I’d’ve been all over it, but Aaron did a good job. Too many times, a reporter will run with whatever the AR folks feed them, and will make a passing attempt at speaking with someone at the track, frequently writing, “The track did not respond to requests for an interview” or some such thing when they really didn’t make an attempt in earnest to hear our side. From all I’ve heard, this reporter was genuinely interested in hearing things from our side; she spoke with Aaron for 20 minutes and spent nearly 2 hours trailing Dennis Young around the track that night. I know it stings to see the same half-truths in print again (the track pays no taxes?? Really, Joan Eidinger?), but at least we had a voice in this article.

Most of you reading this blog know how many times we’ve gotten completely jobbed by the media, and it’s certainly nice for once to get a fair shake in a situation such as this. When the Favreau story broke a few years ago, the author that covered it was similarly unbiased, and I’d emailed him as well and told him how much I appreciated his fair hand in covering the story and how it applied to PGP. For all the flak I’ve seen the Republic take over the last few years, it seems like we’ve drawn another pretty principled reporter to cover our story, and for that we can be thankful. That article was as even and unbiased as it could have been, and even better, the reporter is willing to follow up with me on my concerns over the skewed numbers given to her.

And no, I’m not writing that in an attempt to be a blatant brown-noser. I haven’t given her the blog address. :-) I just wish I hadn’t waited until 9 days after the article came out to really rediscover my mojo and fire in regards to defending the sport.

–CG

One last note

…before I go to bed for the evening. Was putting the finishing touches on my email to The Arizona Republic regarding my concerns over the veracity of Grey2K’s numbers, and something jumped out at me.

From Christine D.’s email response to myself and Jon: “Through official public information requests, our office requested the injury reports of the dog tracks in Arizona.  We received them.  We typed them, exactly as they are written, into a spreadsheet and generated pie charts and a bar chart.  We delivered these to the Arizona Republic, which ran a story.  That’s it.”

However, there’s no mention on their website, where they prominently link to the Arizona Republic article, that they sent the injury figures to The Republic unsolicited. In my email to The Republic, I warned them that Grey2K would probably attempt to throw the paper under the bus if the group was accused of sending falsely-inflated numbers to the paper, something akin to, “We just gave the paper the raw numbers; they should have looked into it.” I believe the paper ran with the numbers believing they were accurate, since Grey2K claimed they came “directly off the injury reports.” Therein lies a small, but highly important, omission: the group’s report came from the injury reports and the veterinarians’ suspension reports, which included ALL of the scratches at Phoenix Greyhound Park, whether for being “lame”, “sick”, or scratched by the judges.

I feel that Grey2K points to the newspaper article as verification of their numbers — when the paper had assumed Grey2K was telling the whole truth to start with. It’s for this reason, I told the paper, that I’m taking such a firm stance against this seemingly-minor overstatement of the number of injuries. If Grey2K can reference this published article as proof of their injury figures, what’s to stop them the next time they come calling from bringing even more exaggerated figures?

Two parting shots

(Please read the next post, “Letter to Grey2K”, first.)

Two things I forgot to mention in regards to the Grey2K’ers.

1. Notice I included links to their propaganda; want to bet they won’t offer links to mine? But hey, it’s all politics, right? Can’t give the other guy a fair shot at portraying his side. Kinda like how those crazy cult-like churches you hear about in the news occasionally keep their members shielded from outside influences, on the off chance someone will talk some sense into them…

2. While I know that this is just a middling little free blog to represent our cause, don’t worry — I’ve already tied up the rights to azgot.com, azgot.org, azgot.net, and azgot.info, just to make sure that Grey2K can’t pull the same cute trick they did with POWAAH.

In case you hadn’t heard, POWAAH (the group that has organized against Grey2K in Massachusetts) didn’t originally think that purchasing the domains related to their group name was important, since they intended to work behind the scenes without much of a public presence. Unfortunately, one of the first things Grey2K did was to step in and purchase powaah.com, powaah.org, powaah.net, et cetera, and to redirect those domains to the Grey2K site. So, someone reading about POWAAH in the paper might type in http://www.powaah.com or http://www.powaah.org, trying to find information on the group, and would instead be delivered right to the opposition. Not illegal, sure, but certainly bush-league internetting.

Then again, what more would you expect from an organization whose lawyer president signs off an email debate with someone opposed to her views with, “It’s certainly been nice chatting with you — NOT.”

I thought about starting a haughty, professional-looking webpage for our cause, but I decided I much prefer the feel of a blog. Definitely suits my writing style. Want to know why I decided to start this all up?

The day after I emailed Grey2K, my friend and roomie Jon Weyant shot an email off to Grey2K’s general address, based on my general state of grouchiness over the whole Arizona racing situation. His email was decidedly less cordial than mine, but initially it drew the same form-letter response mine had. I hadn’t told Jon in detail about the response I’d received — I just described it as “a brush-off” — but when he drew a response, he responded in kind. HE then got a personal response back from Ms. Dorchak herself, and the two engaged in an evening-long repartee… he via BlackBerry from work, and probably the same for her, given the relative brevity of her responses. At points, she told him he was “irrational” and referred to him as “ignorant”, then tried to blow his mind by speaking in Latin — oops, Elitist Fail, considering Jon speaks some Latin, too. The last email she sent contained that sign-off I mentioned above.

When he showed me the transcript the next day, I was surprised to see that the response I’d thought was just a curt brush-off was even less savory than that — just a lame form letter. That’s all the more they thought of me and my complaint? Fine, then, I decided. If they thought they could march in here and spread their reckless campaign of misinformation without consequences, they were mistaken. And so, AzGOT was born.

We’ll be here, and we aren’t going away. Unfortunately for Grey2K, I have nothing better to do with my time than to defend my beloved sport against inflated figures and tired rhetoric. If they thought Arizona would be an easy target for their swarm-of-locusts-style attack, they’ve got another think coming.

–CG

Letter to Grey2K

I sent an email to Grey2K last weekend, referring to their injury-report spreadsheet they’d posted on their website . I offered to help them revise it, to remove dogs listed on the report with no actual notation of an injury, and to remove dogs who were scratched at the scale with no proof of an actual injury. I mentioned that I thought it was “unfair and misleading” to claim every single dog listed on the veterinarians’ suspension list as an injury.

The response I received from Christine Dorchak herself read, in part:

“Through official public information requests, our office requested the injury reports of the dog tracks in Arizona.  We received them.  We typed them, exactly as they are written, into a spreadsheet and generated pie charts and a bar chart.  We delivered these to the Arizona Republic, which ran a story.  That’s it.
 
We added no editorial comment, except to hold the reported injuries against the industry’s own classification system.  See:  http://grey2kusa.org/action/az.html. I think that’s ‘fair’; don’t you?
 
I think this answers your inquiry and I truly hope that you will someday join us in our determined efforts to end the archaic pastime of commercial dog racing.”

Well, I’m not one to be brushed off so easily. Here’s my letter I just emailed to Grey2K. If you’d like to follow along on the injury reports for yourself, visit the link in Ms. Dorchak’s email above.

To whom it may concern at Grey2K,

Recently, I sent an email to your group concerning the injury-report spreadsheet regarding 2008 injuries at Arizona racetracks you had prepared and sent to The Arizona Republic. I mentioned that I would be happy to supply a list of dogs who shouldn’t be included in the report, and I received a response from Ms. Dorchak which read, in part, “Through official public information requests, our office requested the injury reports of the dog tracks in Arizona.  We received them.  We typed them, exactly as they are written, into a spreadsheet and generated pie charts and a bar chart.  We delivered these to the Arizona Republic, which ran a story. That’s it.”

I took that as an invitation to provide the aforementioned lists, since according to Ms. Dorchak, no research was done on the injury/suspension reports to determine which of them were actually referring to injuries. As you’ll see, I have listed 135 dogs which I feel should (or, in some cases, must) be removed from your injury spreadsheet and from your totals you have publicized on your website, your Facebook account, and other places around the Internet. I have also contacted The Arizona Republic and have sent a copy of these lists to them as well, since they wrote their story under the assumption that the numbers you had provided to them were correct.

* * *

The following eight dogs were included as injuries, but in reality were scratched before the races, either by the judges due to paperwork/licensing discrepancies or by the paddock judge due to being more than two pounds over their set weight at weigh-in (a violation of racing rules). The noted reasons were listed in your report, and since none of them are related to injuries, they should not be classified as “injured,” and should be removed from your report.

3/11 Movinonup Ronda — Judges’ Scratch
5/31 Bow Rose Bud — Overweight
6/6 Phoenix Oakley — Judges’ Scratch
6/7 Boc’s Just My Luck — Judges’ Scratch
9/13 Kick N Punch — Judges’ Scratch
10/29 LK Johnnie — Overweight
12/17 Boc’s Bamm Bamm — Overweight
12/17 Boc’s Kelci Lane — Overweight

The following three dogs were included as injuries, but in reality were scratched by the attending veterinarian before their races due to appearing sick in the holding area prior to going on the track. The noted maladies were listed in your report. Since they were ill and not injured, they should not be classified as “injured,” and should be removed from your report.

7/4 Double Squeeze — Scratched for vomiting in the holding area
8/1 Kiowa Beach Baby — Scratched for having diarrhea in the holding area
8/20 Bite My Dust — Scratched for appearing dehydrated in the holding area

The following 46 dogs were included as injuries, but in reality were scratched by their trainers at weigh-in on their scheduled race day as “sick” — they are all listed this way in your report. As such, if they were “sick”, they should not be classified as “injured,” and should be removed from your report.

1/20 Coldwater Graf
2/9 Phoenix Firebird
2/10 KK’s Ruffian
2/17 Concho Tootsie
2/17 Becoming Betty
3/1 TW Hiro
3/1 J’s Betsy Rules
3/18 No Commitment
4/12 Final Authority
5/1 DB Anotherchance
5/6 JP’s Squareshot
5/10 BC Palms West
5/10 Do It Up Big
5/17 HM’s Leo
6/11 WJS Portal Flash
6/11 Higher Learning
6/11 Heart
6/12 Starz Doris
7/10 Bella BB Jessica
7/16 Stress Reducer
7/28 Phoenix Cyclone
8/6 WJS Bubble Maze
8/8 Ready Az Barack
8/15 BC Kick The Can
8/26 Figs Leila
9/9 Marzetti
9/13 Figs Small Blast
9/20 Costar Dodgem
9/23 Bohemian Wink
9/27 El Sweet Kick
10/1 Big Fun
10/4 Bella Flicka
10/11 Kiowa Patches
10/14 K Start
10/20 WJS Bubble Maze
10/29 J’s Rustic Charm
11/3 PMD Casey
11/9 RD’s Kamy
11/15 Find Yourwayhome
11/19 RLM’s Divert
11/26 J’s Rustic Charm
11/29 RJ’s Playboy
12/18 Bella Kettle
12/26 Privylapew
12/27 Carrie Walsh
12/27 Heat Lightning

The following four dogs have no reason for their suspension listed at all, and through research at trackinfo.com/tracklink, the dogs did not run on the date listed on the report, which means they were scratched at weigh-in by their trainer on the date listed (in each case, the date listed would fall four or five days after their previous start, or on a date when their next official start would logically be.) As such, they should not be listed on your report since one cannot assume that they were injured at the time of their scratch if they weren’t even listed as “lame.”

5/2 Bacs Ortiz — “Weigh-in Scratch”
6/25 Carlos O’Kelly — No reason listed
7/3 Phoenix Cyclone — No reason listed
9/20 Leave It To Amy — No reason listed

In total, that accounts for 61 dogs which, for the reasons listed (or, in the case of the last four, not listed) in your own report, should not be included in said report. I would like to politely and respectfully, but firmly, demand that you remove these 61 dogs from your injury report and revise your totals — posted on your website, your Facebook account, and anywhere else — accordingly.

* * *

In addition, there are two other groups of dogs which I feel should be removed from your injury report. These dogs had an ostensible reason for being included in your report, but I feel that my explanation for both groups of dogs will clear up any confusion and will provide you with ample reason to remove them from your totals as well.

The following four dogs were included as injuries, but in reality were not injured at all — they were listed in error, after falling in a race and being stopped by the lead-outs (the veterinarian on duty on these nights was under the assumption that any dog that did not finish a race, for any reason, had to be listed on the suspension sheet). All four greyhounds returned to racing immediately after these supposed “injuries”. On your report, there is no injury listed — “Did Not Finish” is the only comment on these dogs (in the case of Starz J Leo, there is no notation at all associated with the suspension). The dogs in question can be researched online at trackinfo.com/tracklink. Since there is no injury listed and all four dogs immediately returned to racing, they should not be included in your totals.

7/9 Starz J Leo
9/17 Boudreaux Boy
10/18 Inrange Pookie
10/20 Crystal Bebe

The following 70 dogs were scratched at weigh-in by their trainers as “lame.” They were not suspended post-race after a veterinarian’s exam. As I explained in my previous email, we must state at the scale at Phoenix Greyhound Park, when scratching a dog, either “sick” or “lame” as the reason for scratching a dog. We are not given an option for “neither” or “other.” Other explanations for a scratch besides an injury can include: accidentally bringing the wrong dog to the track, knowing that the dog is overweight after weighing it at your kennel, or accidentally feeding a racer on the morning of its race day (dogs who are running that day are fed in the evening, after they run; since they eat such a large quantity of food, it would be unsafe to run them on a full stomach for a wide variety of reasons), among other causes. Therefore, without a corroborating injury report filed by the trainer, there is no demonstrable proof that any of these dogs were actually injured. Thus, you cannot include these dogs as “reported injuries.” If you want to refer to them as “potentially injured,” you can investigate the feasibility of that, but to state that these dogs were definitively injured is untrue.

1/1 Oh So Smooth
1/9 Costar Sandstorm
1/9 Lady Sophia
1/27 Bella BB Ambrose
2/9 RD’s Gwynn
2/10 Bella Instep
2/14 Anton Ego
2/29 Mulberry Marie
3/30 Edbo Mozzarella
3/31 TW Hiro
3/31 Sly Dawg
4/4 Inxs
4/4 Galileo
4/24 Coldwater Leyla
4/24 Air Page
5/1 KB’s Hot To Trot
5/6 Astar Clayton
5/23 Incense
5/28 Coldwater Theme
5/31 Savvy Disco
6/1 Bella Ionic
6/1 Savvy Single
6/1 Cedarun Camry
6/1 Bella Alexandria
6/12 RPM Sparks Only
6/24 Kiowaneanderthal
6/30 Lil Fixer Upper
7/5 Savvy Macho
7/5 Ucme Mango Tango
7/6 Roman Az Pullo
7/10 Midnight Secret
7/14 Midnight Secret (again)
7/25 RLM’s Winter
7/26 Figs Ucme Nomoto
7/30 Kick N Punch
8/1 Clever Psycho
8/1 BC She’s A Jewel
8/6 Gunner
8/7 Algoa Sassy
8/9 Lola La Showgirl
8/9 Bella Ortrud
8/11 CDC Jake
8/12 Kiowa Benson
8/15 KMA Poison Ivy
8/16 Boc’s Rainbow
8/25 Savvy Dancer
8/25 Phoenix Gator
8/25 Lady Sophia
8/30 Coldwater Antwan
9/9 Stress Reducer
9/11 Fill The Bill
9/17 Anton Ego
9/20 Like Her Style
9/23 RLM’s Jerry
9/26 Djays Mac Ten
9/26 Gilderoylockhart
10/10 Concho Unique
10/10 CDC Make Me Stop
10/11 PMB Ryster
11/9 Lil Ihavepromise
11/9 Hollywood Hoo Ha
11/11 Joe Six Packin
11/13 Jenny Pride
11/20 Crystal B Lucy
11/24 Dogie Jones
12/1 Out Ofthe Shadow
12/12 Garnett Cowboy
12/12 RLM’s Damage
12/18 Peachy Cream
12/27 RLM’s Payday Ray

That is an additional total of 74 dogs which I feel should be removed from your report. While I will not make the same strong statement regarding the removal of these additional dogs from the totals you’ve posted on your website, I feel that, given the reasons I’ve provided, you’ll agree that you shouldn’t refer to these dogs as “injured” without any demonstrable proof that they actually were.

* * *

All told, that’s a reduction of 135 dogs from the total of 451 you are publicizing as having been injured at Phoenix Greyhound Park — a reduction of 30%. While I would certainly like to see you revise the total number in this fashion, you MUST at least acknowledge that you’re quoting numbers that include 61 dogs for which you yourself listed no injury in your spreadsheet. I feel that to be irresponsible and misleading.

Cheerily,
Clifton Gray
AzGOT (Arizona Greyhound Owners and Trainers)
azgot.wordpress.com

Here are some more facts I prepared and sent to The Arizona Republic, the local paper that printed the story two weeks ago. Whether I hear back from them or not remains up in the air. (UPDATE: Just received an email back from the author. See first post under 7/1.)

316 still seems like a high number for one year, but then we enter into the debate of looking at the gross number of injuries standing on its own or looking at the number of injuries that occurred versus the number of times a dog ran without receiving an injury. To that end, here are some numbers to support the latter position:

Official race cards:
January 2008: 31 (8 @ 16 races, 1 @ 15 races, 22 @ 13 races = 429 races)
February 2008: 29 (9 @ 18 races, 4 @ 15 races, 16 @ 13 races = 430 races)
March 2008: 31 (9 @ 18 races, 4 @ 15 races, 18 @ 13 races = 456 races)
April 2008: 30 (8 @ 18 races, 4 @ 15 races, 18 @ 13 races = 438 races)
May 2008: 31 (10 @ 18 races, 5 @ 15 races, 16 @ 13 races = 463 races)
June 2008: 30 (8 @ 18 races, 5 @ 15 races, 17 @ 13 races = 440 races)
July 2008: 29 (1 @ 9 races, 9 @ 13 races, 5 @ 15 races, 14 @ 18 races = 453 races)
August 2008: 26 (24 @ 18 races, 1 @ 16 races, 1 @ 10 races = 458 races)
September 2008: 26 (8 @ 18 races, 18 @ 16 races = 432 races)
October 2008: 27 (9 @ 18 races, 18 @ 16 races = 450 races)
November 2008: 24 (1 @ 19 races, 8 @ 18 races, 15 @ 16 races = 403 races)
December 2008: 25 (8 @ 18 races, 17 @ 15 races = 399 races)

Notes: rained out one full card in July, one rain-shortened card each in July and August, did not run Sundays from August through the end of the year, did not run Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, or Christmas Night, and one extra race on 11/1 due to the Night of Stars national broadcast.

Total number of official races in 2008: 5251
8 dogs per race; number of dogs scheduled to run: 42008
Total number of scratches pre-race (from above): 131
(Judges: 8)
(Veterinarian: 3)
(Trainers’ scratches, “sick” or no reason listed: 50)
(Trainers’ scratches, “lame”: 70)
Total number of dogs that ran an official race in 2008: 41877

 
Official schooling cards (Monday and Thursday, and included in injury reports):
January 2008: 8
February 2008: 9 (schooling scheduled for Thurs 1/31 rescheduled for Fri 2/1)
March 2008: 9
April 2008: 8
May 2008: 9
June 2008: 8 (schooling cancelled on Mon 6/9 for movie filming, not rescheduled)
July 2008: 9
August 2008: 8
September 2008: 9
October 2008: 9
November 2008: 8 (schooling scheduled for Thanksgiving Thurs 11/27 run on Fri 11/28 instead)
December 2008: 9 (schooling scheduled for Christmas Thurs 12/25 run on Fri 12/26 instead)

Total number of official schooling cards in 2008: 103
Average number of races on an official-schooling card: 8
Average number of dogs per official-schooling race, after scratches: 5
(Scratches are frequent from schooling and are not included on the suspension reports.)
Total number of dogs per average official-schooling card: 40
Total approximate number of dogs that ran an official-schooling race in 2008: 4120

 
Unofficial schooling sessions (Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and included in injury reports):
January 2008: 6 (rained out on Tues 1/1, Fri 1/4, Mon 1/7, Tues 1/8, Fri 1/18, Mon 1/21, and Mon 1/28)
February 2008: 12 (rained out on Mon 2/4)
March 2008: 13
April 2008: 13
May 2008: 12 (no session on Mon 5/26 due to no lure operator showing up)
June 2008: 11 (no sessions on Mon 6/9 and Tues 6/10 due to movie filming at the track)
July 2008: 11 (rained out Fri 7/11 and Mon 7/14)
August 2008: 11 (rained out Fri 8/8 and Fri 8/29)
September 2008: 14
October 2008: 13
November 2008: 11 (no session Fri 11/28 due to Thanksgiving the day before)
December 2008: 11 (no session Fri 12/26 due to Christmas the day before, rained out 12/29)

Total number of unofficial-schooling sessions at PGP in 2008: 138

Average number of kennels participating per session: 6 (kennels usually attend Mon-Fri or Tues-Fri, not all three days)
Average number of races per kennel per session: 7
Average number of dogs per race: 2.5
Total number of dogs per average unofficial-schooling session: 105
Total approximate number of dogs that ran a race at an unofficial-schooling session in 2008: 14490
Total number of dogs that ran an official race: 41877
Approximate number of dogs that ran an official-schooling race: 4120
Approximate number of dogs that ran a race in an unofficial-schooling session: 14490

Total number of individual performances that were covered by PGP’s injury reports in 2008: 60487
Injuries reported: 316
Percentage of dogs injured expressed as a percentage of total number of performances: .52% (one-half of 1%)

Of that .52% (that’s a 1 in 200 chance of receiving ANY injury), the VAST MAJORITY of injuries listed in the report were general lameness, soreness, sprains, nicks and cuts, and other injuries remedied by a brief rest — in other words, injuries that could occur to any dog, anywhere, at any given time, and probably at about that rate, as well. Again, we are required to file a report for any type of injury, no matter how small or insignificant.

Well, that’s about the best I can do. I’m awaiting word back from Grey2K and The Republic. I’ll post any developments here at the blog.

Getting started

Hello, online community. Welcome to the AzGOT website. Check back here often for details in our defense against Grey2K’s reckless campaign of misinformation against greyhound racing in Arizona.

Grey2K has already lobbed the first shot in this debate, submitting a grossly-inflated “report” of injuries in the state of Arizona in 2008 to The Arizona Republic, and succeeding in having their false numbers published. Now, we don’t have a bunch of media-savvy, high-dollar lawyers in our stable like Grey2K, but we’ll do what we can to make sure that the FACTS get out there — not the numbers that Grey2K wants you to THINK are the “facts.”

–CG