i know its been up before but a lot wouldnt have had the chance to read it ,brian king is one of the nicest guys you could meet, i have been to his place in tipperary and its a great setup , isnt shelbourne aston a lovely looking dog JTB written all over him thanks to johnny moyles, for the material .
Monday, 30 May 2011
The Breeders Series Interview: Brian King
Below follows Johnny Moyles' Breeders Series Interview with Brian King from 2 years ago on his blog. Brian, in the last five years, has bred the winners of the Irish St Leger, Irish Derby, Irish Oaks, English St Leger, English Golden Jacket, the Irish Champion Stakes 3 times, and dozens of other top class stakes and track records. Brian, in partnership with John Marks, along with Brian's wife Kathy and the team at Shelbourne Stud, is one of the leading breeders operating in the sport today. I hope this interview gives an insight into what it takes to make it in the 'breeding game'. I hope you enjoy it. Brian,thanks for agreeing to be the first interview in this series. Hopefully you will be the first of many. Genetically speaking, in a breeding, the sire accounts for 50% of the input and the dam the same. Do you think that is the full picture? Or do you think, as many do, that the bitch has a greater part to play in the produce? The bitch is EVERYTHING! Getting the right brood is vital. Being lucky enough to get a good bitch to breed from is half the battle. The bitch needs to have the right temperament. She needs to be clean in her kennel You want her to be laid back and definitely not hyper. Make no mistake, the mother will pass these behaviour traits onto her pups. And that means the good and the bad. Obviously the sire has a big say, but it is nowhere near 50% of what is, in effect, a lot more than the mating. The mother will carry those pups for 9 weeks, and then the real work begins. If a mother is no good at her job, the chances of her pups being any good are slim - no matter what genetic matter she has passed down. The first few months are so important in determining how a greyhound will develop, and the mother is with the pups - while the sire is but a happy memory. The dam will be disciplining the pups, teaching them things. It is so, so much more than genetics. Some of us wannabe experts, well breeding enthusiasts is the term I prefer, spend so much time going on about linebreeding and nicks etc. Do you follow any linebreeding theories such as Rasmussen for example? No. I am a big believer in breeding like for like. Sprinters to sprinters and stayers to stayers. You will breed the good out of a line by trying to change it. Why breed from a good class, well bred staying bitch, if you are going to put her to a sire for early pace? If you are happy with your bitch (which you obviously are as you have made the choice to breed with her), breed to her strengths. If you breed a stong sire to a staying bitch, you will generally get a stayer. There are obviously exceptions - Queen Survivor could throw a sprinter and a marathon bitch in the same litter - but on the whole that theory holds true. How close would you breed? Would 3x3 be too close for you? In theory I don't see anything wrong with 3x3 breedings. I haven't done so yet but if the opportunity arose, I would consider it. I would not breed any closer than that, although saying that, check out the breeding of US sire Cee Jay. He was the result of a deliberate mating of a brother and a sister. Now it sounds crazy, but this was not an accident. The great sire HB's Commander was mated with his litter sister HB's Creole Baby. The idea was to produce a stud dog. I actually have some vials of Cee Jay semen that I might use at some stage. There is a perennial debate on the internet chatrooms and forums about repeat matings. What are your opinions on going back to a stud dog again with the same bitch? I have repeated matings in the past. I have a lovely litter of Just The Best pups out of Queen Survivor which is a repeat mating of the one that produced the current Irish Derby Champion, Shelbourne Aston(pictured). There is no logical reason why repeat matings wouldn't work. The genes are the same. I think the perception developed that repeat matings generally don't work for a simple reason, and that is that a breeder only ever considers a repeat mating when the original resultant litter was a resounding success. So straight away the 2nd litter has a lot to live up to. Don't be afraid to repeat a breeding would be my advice. Of course the brood needs to be in a good condition physically as well - that goes without saying. I tell you something that is quite interesting. Bitches out of litters from repeat matings often go on to become very good brood bitches themselves - even if the litter is deemed a relative failure. If a bitch failed to produce well in her first litter, what would you do? Would you give her another go and how would you choose the sire? The old school will tell you that a bitch's first litter is generally her worst litter. After all, she is learning the ropes herself, and will always do a better job of motherhood second time around. So I think it is fair to give the bitch a second chance. If I thought the first litter were a tad ungenuine or lacking chase, I would be looking to put the bitch to a dog known for this trait. The same if the first litter were paceless or didn't see out the trip - I would choose a sire to compensate for these. It's not rocket science. Sometimes, I have decided after a litter not to breed again. In fact, one bitch I bred threw an Irish classic winner in her very first litter, but I sold her to the States because she was such a bad mother. The buyer was more than happy to take her on. She was dirty in her kennel, she was no good at cleaning her pups, she wouldn't burst the bag when the pups were born. She really was hard work. Yes, her pups turned out well, but they inherited their mother's dirty habits. Do you ever follow what other breeders are doing? If certain lines are crossing well would you copy the cross? Of course. Let's face it, there is a lot we do not know about greyhounds and their bloodlines. There are a lot of grey areas. So if a chap up the road has great success with a bitch, and you have the sister, you'd be foolish not to follow his lead. In my kennel at present I have Shelbourne Laura. She was a very good class bitch and is bred in the purple. Brett Lee out of Queen Survivor - it doesn't get much better than that. Well the Droopys boys have had good success with a litter sister of Shelbourne Laura. They put Droopys Maddy to Westmead Hawk and got a very fast dog called Droopys Lee, so as soon as Laura breaks in season, I will be taking her down to Portlaw. I take a great interest in breeding, and often it is easier to see what doesn't work. For example, I have noticed that Queen Survivor's line hasn't really crossed that well with the Head Honcho and Top Honcho sire lines. I won't be putting any of Queenie's daughters to sires by Head Honcho or Top Honcho. Saying that, there are always exceptions. But I try to stack the odds in my favour. This might be a bit of a leading question, but what the heck. Do you think the chase instinct in greyhounds today is as strong as it was 20 or 30 years ago? Definitely not. Dogs very rarely 'chase for their lives' anymore. I remember when catching dogs at the pickup was a perilous thing to do. Dogs would run through a brick wall to catch the lure. Not anymore I am afraid. I think the saturation of the bloodlines with Australian sires has caused this. Why have the breeders flocked to these dogs in the numbers they have? Because many are breeding to sell instead of trying to breed chase into their lines. I am as guilty as the next man, I have used a few Australian sires. The problem with using Australian imports is the breeders haven't seen them running so they don't know that maybe the dog was not that hard a chaser. In Australia dogs follow a huge inside lure which is driven right under their noses. The breeder will not know that perhaps the sire needed regular 'teasing' and 're-schooling', and studkeepers certainly won't be including in their adverts the fact that Australian dogs were allowed to race with steroids in their system. All this in my opinion has led to questionable bloodlines diluting our traditional strong chasing lines, and the result is we are left with more dogs than ever before that either won't chase the lure or will only half chase it. Some suggest crossing track and coursing lines might give a breeding some extra bite. Have you or would you consider using a coursing sire on one of your broods, or vice versa? I have never tried it, and to be honest, although I can't say anything negative about it, and I know it has been tried with success in the past, I just couldn't justify trying it. There is such a huge amount of time and effort involved in getting a litter to the track, throwing another question mark into the pot would drive me mad. I would love to have owned a brilliant dual purpose dog like Newdown Heather - he had such a big impact on the breed as well. The Irish/UK greyhound seems to be a rare thing these days. Do you think the Irish sire lines are alive and well or are their days numbered, considering the number of imports introduced in the last couple of decades? Irish lines will return. Home based sires, not necessarily strictly Irish or UK, but bred and raced here, will thrive. Dogs such as Westmead Hawk are proof of this. People have bred for commercial reasons for too long. Now with recessionary times the breeders will start breeding for themselves as there is no guarantee their Brett Lee or Just The Best pups will sell anyway. When Top Honcho took off, every breeder wanted to use Aussie sires - it became 'fashionable'. Back in the past, the Irish always used dogs they knew - or even the nearest available sire. Sand Man was the first big import success. He started the trend and Frightful Flash and Top Honcho were the next big things. They produced the goods. But this near obsession with all things imported has led to us ignoring our own dogs. One sire I have great time for is Ballymac Maeve. He is a pure early paced sire, and although I appreciate he is by the Australian sire Roanokee, he is from a great Irish damline. Ballymac Maeve would not be used today had his owner not decided to put some of his own bitches to him. The rest is history. Irish sire lines will survive. If they don't we may have to revert to using the inside lure to suit all these Australian dogs. In fact that mightn't be the worst idea in the world. In the UK many of the tracks used to have inside lures. It was great if you had a dog that needed a 'switch'. In fact, some dogs would prefer the inside lure. These days we are a bit unfair on dogs - especially in England where the hare is driven too far ahead of the dogs. Dogs can go unsighted easily and then lose interest following a silent hare that probably wasn't worth catching in the first place. Here's a nice easy question for you. Who would you class as the best stud dog and brood bitch in your time in the sport? The best sire, without doubt was HBs Commander. He was a superb sire. He threw many great sires himself, and he threw numerous top class broodbitches. I'm Slippy wasn't too shabby either - he was guaranteed to inject early pace and his record in Ireland is second to none. The best brood bitch I have ever known was Nick Savva's great Westmead Move (pictured below). She was Brood Bitch of the Year twice, and she threw litter after litter of champions. I feel a little guilty as I took a number of Move's daughters to the States for breeding. All of them produced well in America and they were a huge loss to breeding on this side of the world. Strangely, her best daughter, Westmead Chick, was a failure in the breeding paddocks. I used to import a number of bitches into America and I would buy them from Nick Savva mostly. The best brood bitch I was ever offered I actually turned down. Nick called me one day and asked was I interested in a bitch for the States. After telling me about her I asked the price. Nick wanted 600. Now I was used to buying the bitches for considerably more than 600, so I passed on his offer. 3 months later Nick rang me again and asked had I changed my mind. The bitch was in season. I said no and thanked him for his call. Nick gave the bitch away in return for a pup to Pat Whelan. The bitch was Westmead Flight and the pup turned out to be the great Larkhill Jo. History shows that Westmead Flight also went on to throw Sonic Flight. So if I hadn't turned down Westmead Flight there would be no Sonic Flight or Larkhill Jo. In fact, there would be no Droopys Kewell, Droopys Maldini, Westmead Hawk, etc etc. I always laugh when I think back. What do I know about breeding eh? Have a look at Westmead Kim. She was with Pat Dalton who had decided he wasn't going to breed her again. Nick wanted to get a litter from her. He brought her home, and even though she was 10 years old, he bred her to his own Flashy Sir and the result was Westmead Flight. So there you have another myth dispelled. Breeding from older brood bitches can pay off. Do you think a few generations ahead when breeding a litter? Or are you breeding for racers alone? I generally breed with the intention of getting a brood bitch from the litter. To be honest I wouldn't be looking too far ahead. I know some good breeders who are always looking at the bigger picture. Vince Berland at Flying Kennels in the States always bred litters to get sires. I always look at bloodlines. My old friend Cliff Kevern, who owned Ballyregan Bob, spent a lot of time looking at the breeding of greyhounds. In fact that's a bit of an understatement. Cliff would study breeding day and night. He told me the most important thing to look at in a pedigree is the bottom line. Once you have a bitch from a great bottom line, make sure you are happy with her temperament. Take note of any good or bad traits, any quirks. I'll give you an example. Queen Survivor's offspring, almost all of them, are a little bit shy. They get this from her. But the positive traits far outweigh negatives. In my eyes the race record of a prospective brood is largely irrelevant. But if I am choosing to breed from a bitch with a poor race record, I would make sure the comrades are very, very good indeed. Take a look at Expert View. She ran 3 times and was last in all of them. Yet her litter sister Airport Express is the fastest bitch ever to run in Ireland, and still holds the Harolds Cross track record. I didn't hesitate when I got the chance to take Expert View and she has turned out to be a brilliant brood bitch. I'll tell you something now that might surprise you. I would breed from a bitch that wouldn't chase. And I would also breed from a bitch that fought. I have found that sires are largely responsible for passing on chase instinct. Rarely would a bitch that fought pass on this 'affliction' to her pups. Again she would have to come from a top class litter and again the bottom-line needs to be of the best quality. What about a small bitch - would you breed from a brood that was less than the average weight?
Size doesn't really make much difference when it comes to breeding from a bitch. If she was freakishly small - say less than 50lbs - I might think about it twice. Look at the All American bitch LA Striker. She won several top class stakes and only weighed 56lbs herself. She went on to produce AA class (which is as good as it gets) in every litter. Her mother Killouragh Grant, who was imported by me after a race career at Oxford, was smaller again. I sent another bitch over to America called Articled Clerk. She was a litter sister to Mustang Jack (Skelligs Tiger x Mustang Fairy). She was little bigger than a whippet. When Vince Berland recieved her from the transporter he called me and said that he had mistaken Articled Clerk for the pup she had shared a crate with. When standing, Articled Clerk was able to walk clean under the belly of the puppy - she was that small! Well if you look at what she threw you will realise that size really has no bearing on whether a bitch will produce. Her best offspring was Flying Oak who was a top class performer and became a highly popular stud dog. OK Brian, you've got a top class bitch that you want to breed from. How do you go about deciding on a sire for her? I try to only use proven stud dogs. I have come unstuck a few times using young, unproven, 'freshman' sires, so now I am firmly of the opinion that I am not going to prove a dog for the studkeeper - after all, I am the customer, I will be doing all the hard work. I would generally use a dog that was no more than a distance up or down from the bitch. By this I mean if a bitch was getting 525 yards well enough, but not seeing out the extended trip, I would try and use an early paced sire noted for staying the 550 well. I wouldn't push the boundaries too far. Note my earlier point about breeding like for like. If you breed from two extremes you will probably end up with slow sprinters or stayers that don't stay! I would also take into consideration the type of bitch I am breeding from. If she has already had litters it will help determine my decision. A lot will depend on the traits of the bitch and if I did breed from a bitch with any negative points, I would use my choice of sire to balance them out. I'm not sure how much science is behind this question, so bear with me. Would the fact that a sire was from a line noted for producing good dams, but not necessarily prolific at producing stud dogs, influence your decision when choosing a suitor for your brood bitch? No, that's a fair question. There definitely are damlines that produce good producing bitches yet never produce decent or successful stud dogs. Actually, asking me is like pushing an open door as my goal when breeding a litter, as I said earlier, is to get a good bitch to breed from. So it goes without saying that I like to use good stud dogs that come from great damlines. It is a natural progression that a dog coming from a brilliant damline will throw good bitches. And I have had my share of success with good bitches - Shelbourne Star, Shelbourne Kay and Shelbourne Becky were all by sires from great damlines. So to answer your question, I actively look for sires producing good bitches and therefore brood bitches. Every time I am at the Stud, I am always impressed at the condition of your resting brood bitches. Tell me a bit about what you feed them and how you look after them. Well to be honest we don't change the diet too much between pups, broods in whelp, broods resting or saplings. The diet only really changes significantly when a dog goes into training. All our brood bitches are fed on Gain Puppy and Sapling as the base of the meal. This is mixed with a very good meat and vegetable stew. We often change from beef to chicken or fish, depending on what good quality fresh products we are able to get hold of at that time. Yes I have noticed you always have the soup boiler on in the kennels. That's right. We always have a stew simmering in the kennel kitchen, in which we would use a mixture of vegetables and a high quality meat. We also have a very good supply of fish. I cannot stress how important it is to get good quality food. If you are feeding food that is past its best, the nutritional value is negligible. Our broods would get a higher meat content when they are in whelp and nursing pups, but apart from this, the diet is the same across the board. Something else I feed that I haven't mentioned is tripe. A significant part of a greyhound's diet in the wild would be offal. It is great for them and gives their coats a great shine. Yes it pongs a bit but I find with dogs, the smellier the food the more they like it! How about worming - have you any secrets you can divulge? Not really. With our broods we would worm them every 3 months. We would however make sure that we change the wormer product regularly. What we actually do is we will give Drontal Plus, but then the next time we would alternate with Pebrazine. Alternating the wormer will ensure that worms do not become immune to any single product. Worming is one area that corners can never be cut. With broods in whelp we do change the routine slightly. The usual worming regime applies, but with 3 weeks to go to whelping time, I would put the brood on a course of Panacur, 10ml per day over the tongue, right up to the point where the pups are 3 weeks old. Every two weeks I would dose the pups with Pebrazine. I would then start worming the pups with Drontal Plus from 3 months, but once again we would alternate the treatment, this time with Praziquantel Ivermectin (mixed especially for dogs). At what age would you generally wean pups? It really all depends on the size of the litter, and of course the dam. She may want them moved quickly! In general, common sense dictates that a smaller than average litter will be weaned at a later stage. We would introduce milk to the whelping area at around 3 weeks of age, just to get the pups lapping. I would usually take the dam away for rest periods at this stage of the puppies' development so this is a good time to introduce them to food. After a while I start to add crushed and soaked Gain Puppy and Sapling to the milk, and then substitute the milk for a nice chicken soup with the nuts, whilst also giving milk separately. At approximately 6 weeks of age I would hope to have the pups fully off the mother (though not always) and living independently on a sloppy version of the normal puppy diet. I would also make sure that by the age of 3 months the puppies no longer get milk as part of their daily diet. It is not natural for greyhounds to have milk as part of their diet. It is a good source of calcium and encourages them to drink and eat at a young age, but I find you will have problems with scouring if you continue to feed it to them. If nature had intended pups to continue to drink milk, the mother would have milk a lot longer than she actually does. Once the pups are in the big paddocks they will be fed a full diet of Gain Puppy and Sapling, meat stew, vegetables and fish. So what age would you generally leave the bitch in with the pups until? Without sounding repetitive, once again this will depend on the dam herself. If she has a big litter we find the mother wants out as soon as possible. The longest I have left it in the last few years was Expert View with her Larkhill Jo pups. There were only a few of them and she was happy up until they were about 4 and a half months old. I should say at this point that all of the things I am saying to you I have mostly learned from other people. This is just my way of doing things and it is not the only way and they are not hard and fast rules. On the subject of leaving the brood bitch in with her pups, it is at this stage - from 3 weeks to 9 weeks of age mainly - that the pups' nervous systems are developing rapidly. Ensure that the pups are handled regularly, play with them. If you do not do it in this timeframe, there is a big possibility that the pups will turn into shy greyhounds. Handling is crucial at this stage or you will basically end up with wild animals. Trying to acclimatise these kind of greyhounds into kennels and schooling and ultimately racing will be hard work. I remember years ago visiting a breeder and going to stroke one of his dogs he stopped me and said "Don't do that, they are not pets. You need to be tough with them". I knew he was wrong and said nothing. If you ever come to Shelbourne Stud, you are very likely to see all of us cuddling and playing with the pups (of all ages). I definitely do not believe you can be too soft with greyhounds. They are affectionate creatures by nature and really do appreciate the time we spend with them. The first pup we bred here was Shelbourne Star. She was a one pup litter and to be honest she found it hard settling with other litters. We had her leading when she was just a few months old. We often had her in the house and she had a bit of a liking for those crisps - Quavers. Many a night after winning a race in Dublin or Limerick, we would find Shelly poking her head over my shoulder while I drove home, and Kathy would feed her Quavers. Probably wouldn't meet with the approval of the 'old school'. Tell me about innoculating pups. Everyone seems to do it differently and use different products. What do you do? Firstly I would always make sure the brood bitch is up to date with her shots - that's a given. When the pups are 4 weeks old I always give them a dose of the live parvovirus vaccine. If anything is going to get them at 4 weeks old it is generally parvo. I remember in my time in the States that parvo was a big problem. And although you won't hear too much about it here, parvo is rife in Ireland. Vets tell me they see plenty of parvo in their daily duties. A lot of it is in the general dog world, where breeders would not be that good at innoculating pups, but there are some greyhound breeders who cut corners as well. It's a false economy. At 8 weeks I then give the pups the 7-way combination innoculation, and then at 12 weeks I would give it to them again. When the greyhounds come out of the field and into the kennels, I would give them the 7-way combination jab again. I can happily say that at Shelbourne Stud we have never lost pups to parvovirus, leptospirosis, distemper or any of the nasties that are covered by the innoculations. Any other magic ingredients we should be using? Supplements, that kind of thing. I am a firm believer that the food you are giving them contains all the vitamins and minerals that a greyhound requires. Our pups are fed a balanced diet and no supplements whatsoever. I do add some Dog Active to our racers' diets as the general wear and tear of schooling, training, travelling and racing can take a lot out of dogs, so I add a spoon of Dog Active (for amino acids) to the feed. So for anyone who hasn't seen your great set up down here Brian, can you explain how you rear pups. Some people rear in pens, some rear them in the wild. Some people swear that unless you rear them on the side of a mountain throwing them a carcass every week they won't develop properly. Look, there are hundreds of ways to rear greyhounds. We have a nice set up here, I agree. But I know of champions that were reared under a sheet of tin. You need to get the basics right first. Our 'toddlers' spend their first few weeks out of the whelping shed (that's from 6 weeks to 12 weeks) in the couple of narrow runs we have at the front of the stud, right by the house(pictured above). They are near a busy road, with all visitors to the stud seeing them on arrival. It helps develop the confidence of the pups. These runs are 50 yards long by 5 yards wide. The pups stay here until they have their final innoculations, and then they are taken off to the back of the stud to the big runs. The way we have it arranged down here - and we are fortunate as we have 13 acres of good land - is we have 12 smaller pens which are 10yards wide by 25yards long. Every four small pens (four pups in each) share a big turnout paddock which is 100yards long by 40 yards wide. I have found this to be plenty big enough. Each of the smaller pens gets half a day in the big paddock every other day. This alternating of the pups into the big paddocks was something I learned in the States. Dutch Koerner, the great breeder, called this system Controlled Exercise. It works well for us. I find we do not get as many injuries in this system as you would with pups kept in long narrow runs who spend the day racing each other in straight lines. Pups here get ample opportunity to run and turn and the wide paddocks are brilliant for strengthening all the joints and muscles that a greyhound will need when he gets to a track. That's great to hear. Some of the 'old school' or 'traditionalists' will say that rearing pups in pens turns them stale. Do your pups get much hunting? In a word - no. Our pups would not see too much wildlife apart from those dosy rabbits, birds, cats and foxes that come down from the hills around us for a nose around. Something I did a few years back was to install a whirlygig. When the pups are 6 or 7 months old I get them on the whirlygig behind a rabbitskin and encourage them to chase it. It certainly freshens them up, execising their chase instinct, with the added advantage that the whirlygig has a white running rail that mimics that which they will come up against at the track. When the greyhounds start schooling I start them off on the whirlygig and as they have seen it before, it is not too big a deal for them. Something that has been on my mind for a while - how come you have had such success with stayers? Even your Derby winner comes from last to first! As I said earlier, I always preferred stayers, and the initial broods I brought into the stud were from staying lines, or American lines. I realise that, and you have done well with the ones you have produced. But is there something else to it? I mean, I look at some of the litters you have produced and they should not really have stayed as well as they did. Is there something you are not telling us? Ha ha, I know what you are saying. I'll hold my hands up and say that when I bred Queen Survivor to Shanless Park I didn't really expect there to be as much stamina in the litter as there was, and there are other litters. Maybe it's the way we rear them. I couldn't honestly say one way or the other though. There is a lot we do not know about breeding. I'm sure a lot of the stayers running in Ireland were not 'designed' to be stayers - they just turned out that way. It is worth noting that American greyhounds run on a different type of sand - the dogs go in deeper for a start - and running 600 yards would be akin to closer to 700 yards in Ireland. The American greyhounds are stronger. Something I would like to say, and it has been a belief I have held for years, and that is if you have a greyhound bred to stay, do not listen to the old wives' tale about waiting until they are 2 years old before stepping them up in trip. If you are running a stayer at a trip too short, the chances are they will get knocked about on the run to the bend. They are liable to get their confidence knocked or suffer injury. Shelbourne Holly did 28.90 in a trial when she was unraced. In her first race she got badly hampered on her run to the bend. In subsequent races you could see her deliberately drop herself out on the run to the bend before motoring home. Look at the records of Shelbourne Star or Shelbourne Kay. Shelly did 28.88 before she had raced. I didn't think twice about stepping her up in trip when she was just 17 months old. Kay was winning over 1015 yards at 19 months. It didn't do them any harm did it? Shelly finished first in the English St Leger and was Irish Marathon Bitch of the Year. Kay broke several track records. In fact at the time of this blog 2 years ago Shelbourne Star is the fastest puppy ever over 750 at Clonmel, Kay is the fastest puppy ever over 1015 at Clonmel, and Shelbourne Holly is the fastest puppy ever over 700 at Limerick, 810 at Galway and 1010 at Harolds Cross. I think a lot of the old myths in greyhound racing are there for a reason, but a lot are there to be challenged. What sense is there in restricting stayers to shorter than ideal trips? Burn them out? No way. Shelbourne Star would gallop a lot more than 1000 yards every day at home on the gallop. While on the subject of myths, what about some of the old ones? Like blue dogs are not genuine. Or fawn dogs with black muzzles? What about undershot jaws? While I've got you here I'm going to get as much out of you as I can!! Most of it is rubbish. Blue dogs were not popular back in the old days as they were pretty rare. They are ten-a-penny these days but back then they were unusual. The same with fawn dogs with black muzzles - they were never that common and they got a bit of a stigma. The undershot jaw theory came from the coursing fraternity. A dog with an undershot jaw might have had a problem catching hares. I personally do not have any preference on colours, but I have had people saying that certain sires or broods throw pups of one colour that were better than another. I brought a brood to the States that threw only blacks and brindles. Her brindles were always better. Concidence maybe. What age do you kennel the pups up at Brian? The pups come out of the rearing pens at around 11 months old. They go into our kennel block a few hundred yards away, and even though the staff are well known to them, the food is the same etc, we find that nearly all of the pups take a while to settle down. It could be as much as a month for some. What frustrates me is that sometimes we might sell a dog to the UK and I will see it trialling or racing within days. Is it any wonder that some dogs do not reach their potential after moving kennels, or worse still, that some might actually run awkward or turn their head. You try concentrate on your job when you aren't sleeping or eating properly. 'Little Aston' here (Just The Best x Queen Survivor repeat mating) has just come in from the field. He is so laid back, nothing phases him, just like his big brother. But he hasn't eaten for 3 days since coming in to the kennel. In your opinion, is there any difference in results when breeding from bitches that are unraced and those that have had very long racing careers? In America, bitches could race over 100 times before retiring to the breeding paddocks. That would not be done here. Yet the bitches I have seen in the States with these long careers always throw well - just check it out on the internet - some of the best producing bitches down the years could be described as 'well-raced' or even 'over-raced'. The most important thing is to make sure the bitch returns to a good physical condition - in fact it's a different rather than a better condition that she needs to return to - before she is bred. This would ideally be a minimum of 6 months after she has finished from my experience. Some people are sceptical of breeders who say that a bitch -who was unraced - was kept for breeding especially. I don't think there is a problem. Many people are breeding specifically to breed, pehaps making a living from it. They are not in the game for racing - their joy comes from the breeding side of things. Therefore it makes sense to breed an unraced bitch rather than wait a couple of extra years to do so. One thing all the good breeders I know do is, when they decide to breed from an unraced bitch, they school her and see if she has potential to be good. That should always be remembered. Breeding is a big commitment and there is no point in taking unnecessary risks. What about suppressing bitches? Have/do you suppress and what would you do differently with a bitch that was suppressed? Well a lot of the bitches we have sold from the stud would have gone with a proviso that they come back here for breeding when they finish racing. We don't tell the owners they can't supress the bitches - how could we? What I do when they return is I wait until they have returned to a good condition to breed from - like I said earlier - race condition is not necessarily ideal for breeding. You want the bitch's body to re-form for want of a better word. The bitch could be here 6 months or a year before we breed from her. It could take her a long time to come amiss, or it could happen straight away. To be honest I haven't noticed any differences with litters from bitches that have been suppressed and those that haven't. I guess it's another 'old wives tale'. We don't really suppress bitches here at The Stud. If I have a bitch that is breaking down every 5 or 6 months I would definitely consider suppressing her. But the method of suppressing is something that needs to be looked at. In the UK they have banned products such as Laurabolin. In my opinion the alternatives that are allowed in the UK are no good. Oestrogen based suppressants lead to problems, not least the lowering of red blood cell counts which has a dramatic impact on performance levels. Testosterone suppressants are far better and I can't say there would be too many negatives associated with them. If you have an aggressive bitch I suppose it is probably best steering clear of Laurabolin. For what it's worth, the best suppressant - and safest - to use with greyhounds, is the human birth control pill. Female Olympic athletes would take the pill as they do not want to have to take a break from training, the same as we do with our greyhounds. When they come off the pill, it isn't long before they have their period. The same would apply to greyhounds. The product is 100% safe. It works and there are no negatives. Implants. I know you have had superb success with implants - have you any opinions negative or positive about the increasing use of surgery in the breeding of greyhounds? I spent a long time trying to convince the Irish Coursing Club to allow registration of pups concieved through surgical implants. There was a time not so long ago when you had to register them with the UK Stud Book and not the Irish one. In the past, we had problems with bitches not conceiving due to various reasons such as cysts on the ovaries, etc. Implants rule out a number of problems in the breeding process. 9 out of 10 breedings here at Shelbourne Stud are surgical implants - dogs such as Shelbourne Aston for example. Picking a pup. Is there a knack to this Brian? Well this would be the million dollar question I suppose. If I knew I'd become a consultant and make a fortune. But to be honest, I can't see how it is remotely possible to know at 12 weeks old which one will be the best. If you can tell well then you are a better man than me. I have known some people who have a higher than average strike rate - but that is probably down to eliminating the less likely ones from the decision rather than saying "that's the one!" There is a chap in the States who is well able to pick the 'alpha male'. This choosing of the dominant pup in a litter is great, but it still doesn't mean you will end up with the best racer. You are just as likely to get one that is prone to getting into fights with his comrades or one that is so brave he gets hurt too often. One of our customers here has a reputation for picking good pups out. He has had great success with our breeding. He looks at the arse of the pup and if there is white around it he picks it! You couldn't make it up. What is the best track in Ireland for schooling greyhounds - licensed or otherwise? A good question this one. We generally school our dogs at Limerick and Thurles. The racing surfaces at Limerick and Clonmel in particular are excellent, and all three tracks are good gallops with no hiding place. If I had to choose one it would be Limerick. A superb racing circuit, three long straights in a 525 race. It takes getting. In that case you must be delighted that the Limerick track development is on course and work is well and truly underway? Of course. The people down here are in dire need of a truly world class stadium - this part of the country is where the majority of greyhounds are bred. It would be better if the actual running track could be lifted and moved to the new site. I would implore the people who decide on these things to make sure they retain the services of the current groundsman - he is a master at what he does - the track is always immaculate. If not, the guy at Clonmel would be a good substitute. Have you noticed a slowdown in the market for pups now that we are officially in a recession? No. We don't breed to sell. Good pups will always sell. Some breeders made trouble for themselves 'breeding to sell' and letting the commercial choice of sire influence how they bred. If the market has slowed down, we may see breeders making better decisions. How long have you been breeding greyhounds? 35 years. The first bitch I bred from was called Vals Candy. She was an open class marathon bitch in her own right, but was also a litter sister of the brilliant Tell You What. Tell You What was owned by Dick Batchelor (of Batchelors Pools fame). She was a multiple track winning bitch. Anyway, my bitch Vals Candy produced the Bristol Produce Stakes winner Mr Candy in her (and my) very first litter. I was hooked. Who is the best brood bitch you have ever had? How did you acquire her and why? No prizes for guessing this answer. It has to be Queen Survivor. John Marks bought her from Fonsie King after she won her 2nd race in a very good 29.10 at Newbridge in 2000. He put her with John Wileman and she raced in opens until getting injured. She came to live with me when she had retired, but she had always been bought with breeding in mind - her full sister Borna Survivor winning the Oaks in 1999 and her mother Cool Survivor winning the Oaks in 1995. When we started the Shelbourne Stud, we had no hesitation in deciding that Queenie would be our foundation brood. She has repaid us ten times over and she hasn't finished yet - we have the Boherduff Light and Just The Best litters to come. In your time in the sport, what has been the best single moment for you? Well it certainly wasn't the moment that Shelbourne Aston won the Irish Derby. The whole night whizzed by and it was mostly a blur. I actually thought that Aston was beaten by half a length from where I was standing and I was greatly surprised when I heard him called the winner after a lengthy photograph decision. The best moment was probably the following Tuesday when things had returned to relative normality, and I sat down and watched Greyhound View. Of course I was terribly proud of what we had achieved. Training Shelbourne Star to win the Breeders Cup Stayers up at Shelbourne Park was very memorable as she was the first pup we bred at the stud. We have been lucky as we have loads of great memories. What has been your biggest dissapointment? Shelbourne Civic was the fastest dog we ever bred. He broke his hock up in Lifford in the NorthWest Derby when he was well clear of the field. I remember the phone call like it was yesterday. It was a massive disappointment. What does the future hold for Brian King? Will you still be breeding greyhounds in 10 years time? Who knows what the future holds. I mightn't be breeding in such a big way but I dare say I will still be in the game, breeding the odd litter. When you are in this game you are generally hooked one way or the other. The other day I was reading an internet forum and two Australian chaps were discussing the merits of a breeding. On the top line and on the bottom line were two greyhounds from the past that I exported to the States. Rikasso Lassie and Just Lilly(Ballyregan Bob's sister). It gave me a bit of a jolt as I realised how long I've been in the game and the great greyhounds I have been involved with. Take a look at Just Lilly. She was an A8 Hove bitch yet she is in the back breeding of so many top class American greyhounds. The game is all about the dogs, but it is also about the people. Ballyregan Bob and Just Lilly were bred by the father of the Assistant Racing Manager at Shelbourne Park. It's a small world. Give us a novice brood that we should all look out for in the coming years. A bitch you feel could be a big producer. This is a bit unoriginal but I will say that I have to be fairly hopeful that Queen Survivor's daughters will produce. In fact they already are for others, and I am a bit behind the pack. Shelbourne Laura, Shelbourne Capri, Shelbourne Merc. All open class themselves. Keep an eye out. Brian, many thanks for your time and I hope you have lots of success in 2009 and for many years. Thanks. I was speaking to a double Derby winning breeder recently who asked me for advice. I asked him why he needed my advice and he said that if he was still breeding and rearing the way he was 35 years ago, he would not have any success. All I have said to you is my opinion only, and some of it is probably wrong. You never stop learning in this game, and that is what gives everyone a chance at making it. I hope some of what you write on your blog helps people in some little way. If it does, then I'm delighted. Good luck to all your readers.
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Labels: Breeding, Ireland | 
Do you have questions about breeding theories? 
