A patchwork quilt of cover ups and blunders from the top down, in every department. Where as trainers get railroaded, they get promoted and glorified.

Bring on November, then lets have a chat after that. There are some meaty bits going into a folder that may see the light of day then.

Troll level Donald Trump!

"Only a Spaceman would make that statement"

Im firmly in the Dont Sack the Coach camp Alan has made a few mistakes and I dont agree with everything that has been done but as things sit right now Im in favour of him staying on.

He was appointed at a very difficult time under direction of a Government .. committed to the Milne (Chief Vets) Report and Sal Pernas Integrity Commission report .. to clean up an industry that even participants were suggesting wasnt well regulated

As I said, there have been mistakes made (on both sides) but the biggest thing is we are all a lot wiser now and the communication and respect between Alan and participant bodies is very good and I think bodes for a reasonably good future

Both Milne and Perna decided overbreeding to be the cause of high euthanasia rates, and were supported by Clayton. None of the three bothered to investigate and analyse the problem - if there was one.

Clayton has since been trying to revitalise breeding activity - still without apparently looking more deeply into the causes and effects. His only answer has been to ease off on some rego fees - an expected answer from a bureaucrat.

He has stopped trying to influence proposed punitive housekeeping regulations and instead told participants to write in themselves. (Yet GRV is responsible for the progress and development of the industry).

His next answer has been to introduce a more complicated system for Veterans races (one run every week or two), further adding to IT costs, but without nominating why this was necessary.

He is presiding over a long string of trackworks (by his predecessors) which served to add more bend starts to many Vic tracks. He also claimed UTS did the design of the new Horsham track - they did not, they merely offered advice on some minor matters.

Clayton has handed out some prize increases but Vic finances are based on (a) periodic unearned rises in shares of the total Vic market and (b) helpful government grants, particularly for new tracks and breeding incentives which never worked. 2018 reports will cover the full effect of cost increases due to more welfare activity. Vic lost money in 2017.

What will be his next trick?

NB NSW is now gearing up to reduce breeding by taxing pups, apparently to counteract euthanasia, but all based on the overbreeding myth which Vic pushed. How that pans out in a world of falling breeding numbers is anyone's guess.

Absolutely, Vic (and NSW, Qld) had, or have, culture problems amongst administrations and participants but subsequent events show that (a) no-one has really got to the bottom of the question of why it all happened, and (b) all corrective action has been along bureaucratic lines which tend add staff and to paper over the reasons for the shortcomings. What has worked well in Vic (and possibly SA) is GAP activity, although even that is under attack from volunteer organisations who reckon they are being bypassed.

Geoff

He has his favourites and he has done well to garnish their support to win industry support at a certain upper level. I will give him that, but that's about it.

That's easy for him to say. I am happy to be corrected but the long term picture is ......

1. Consultative committees are notoriously risky or unproductive ways of getting your message across. What they come up with can be accepted or dismissed or just forgotten at the whim of the regulator. Usually, you don't know much about the proceedings anyway.

2. It is the regulator's job to seek out the views of participants on a daily basis and, where appropriate, mesh them into his considerations of future policy. He cannot, or should not, pass off that responsibility to the participant.

3. Few participants or other observers are in a position to put forward s good case because they lack administrative expertise and/or are not in possession of necessary facts.

4. Small trainers, almost by definition, probably have other jobs to go to and/or do not have staff to look after things while spending lots of time travelling to meetings.

5. Obviously, there will be exceptions to the above but fundamentally your quote from the GRV manager amounts to a cop out. If you take on a well paid job like that you are expected to meet a variety of challenges and not just pass the buck.

Let me offer a much different but related example of this thinking. Every state authority, including GRV, is prone to making small changes to their information output every couple of years or so - results, formguides etc. Not once has any of them ever asked the users of this material in advance to comment on those proposals. Many users may not notice but hundreds of other people will have to turn around and modify their data systems, whether computerised or not. It can amount to a huge workload. For example, you may recall a few years ago GRV arranged to adjust the timing mechanism on the boxes at Sandown. Times quickened by around 0.10 as a result. That forced me to alter times on some 400 pages of my program - a huge job.

The authority's task is to make it simple, easy and attractive for people to take part in the industry, otherwise it will fade into the background. Yes, they are "policemen", but they are also facilitators - or should be.

You are quite right - "He was handed a bunch of do s**t and asked to make a sculpture which looks good doesn't smell, is organic enough for the greenies not panned by the critics has enough meat left in it for participants and if it all comes together is suitable for politicians to take credit for its creation".

Having succeeded in that (by adding staff and more regulations) he then moves up to scratch and has to look at what to do next.

So far, that has amounted to fiddling with a few fees, charges, prize money and grading rules - all everyday bureaucratic functions - plus boosting the GAP program (good, but outside re-homers are not all happy).

Yet much of the current effort still has a base in the overbreeding "problem" which Milne, Perna and Clayton all claimed was the source of much of the euthanasia. And still do. None of them tried to properly analyse the breeding subject holistically - they just jumped to a convenient solution.

Such patterns are typical of bureaucrats - they are embroiled in the process, not the outcomes.

The greyhound industry desperately needs better outcomes but it will never get them while it is controlled by bureaucrats and committees. It's not the people - good bureaucrats are necessary and valuable in the right spot. But not in running a commercial industry. Neatness does not produce profits.

You mean installed a new set of boxes with a different timing mechanism, installed in conjunction with the change of track surface?