We could go all day here but the core thread is still about publishing data and other info.

I understand all you are saying and agree with much of it.

I don't advocate a single type of track but there is much to be said about consistency in some areas - lures would be one, box type another. Of equal importance is that all tracks should conform to some basic principles - eg no bend starts and optimising turn radius and banking.

What I am wary about are claims that one particular item is the be-all and end-all of a dog's success. There are far too many ingredients to be sure about that.

As for consistency - that rises as the class of the dog improves. For example, a map of a city FFA start is extremely reliable while one for a T3 is not.

And we agree that some dogs can specialise on a given track/trip. But bear in mind that for every one that does that there are hundreds or even thousands that can't.

The majority of top dogs are not track dependent. Those that are not are usually wide runners or risky beginners. Otherwise (I don't know if you have assessed this), the proportion of the race which is on the turns makes some difference because not all dogs can maintain a good speed while turning. Note, for example, relative differences in performances between Meadows and Sandown for the same dog. So putting dogs like Whisky/Awesome Assassin around Meadows (or Angle Park) is pretty much a waste of time. On the other hand, Lansley Bale kept up high speed all the way round at Meadows but not so much at Sandown.

On most of the above I do have facts and analyses so the statements are very reliable. The stuff I introduced at the start of this thread is not - we simply don't know what is happening. More's the pity.

Anyway since the topic of the thread was about lures- ill publish the results either way when i get her behind a tassel lure again. Win/lose/draw as I mentioned previously.

We can agree that empirical data is way better than speculation.

I pointed out that the dog jumped better in its 5 Oct run at Wenty (5.47, 29.87) than it did in the MDC heat a week later (possibly 5.53).

I say possibly because - as often happens with GBOTA/GRNSW/WPK they omitted to assign a 1st sectional to the dog on 11 Oct. Visually, it appeared to be identical to the 5.53 assigned to winner Curt Lee but the original results column was just left blank.

But there's more. If you go now to the dog's career form you will see Hammer's sectional shown as 18.58. IE the 2nd sectional slipped over to the 1st sectional column, thereby distorting all future calculations. That slow time will appear in all future formguides.

Obviously, no-one bothered to cross-check that data before it went into the big database in the sky. Or, alternatively, programmers have not bothered to install a check in the basic system whereby silly times are discarded - quite a simple task normally.

That's not all. If you inspect career records in either Fasttrack (Vic) or OzChase (other states) you will find that either one fails to include race videos when that race is in the other area. For whatever strange reasons, they are simply omitted. No talkies?

Now, back to the Hammer. It lost its winning chance in the MDC heat on 11 Oct because, after jumping OK from box 1, it moved off the track at the first turn, bumped and then gave Curt Lee a break (to run a moderate 30.14). It did not really like sticking to the rail although it has done well enough from inside boxes in the past.

However, to complicate the issue, let's note that a section of the Wenty first turn was long ago cut away so as to give a free kick to hard railers. That is, it is a turn within a turn, which is very dumb practice.

Most of the above is more vital than the style of lure in use.

Case in point look at a chaser called Spandau Ballet.

She looked really promising and held form until the new experimental lures came in.
If thats not an engrained bird chaser similar to mine then I dont know what is.

She will not have any option but to move interstate unless she adjusts to the new standard come November either. I feel sorry for that dog, it's not her fault. What she was trained to chase is being taken away and replaced by some UTS research in a vacuum that considered interference and engineering but excluded animal behavioral science being factored into this engineering study.

(P.S: Special note to any UTS people involved with this brain-child that may be reading now or have the thread forwarded to you.. Dogs aren't robots. No amount of statistical analysis or GPS data plots accounts for the biological drive, chase and needs that vary significantly in the same breed. Some greyhounds chase ground quarry, some chase birds, some chase rabbits. Your one size fits all approach to lure design is rubbish. Let's leave racing where zero falls occur and dogs never fail to pursue to the cartoon racing world of Trackside because it simply won't happen in real life. There are way more variables than your studies can or ever will factor in to an equation no matter how sexy the white paper or report you publish looks)

(P.p.s: if there is a single person involved in the lure design atudy from UTS, what are your qualifications and experiences in greyhound racing? This situation kind of reminds me of an old joke two people are involved with building a bridge. Concreter says mighty fine day, gonna pour the concrete. Engineer watches him and says shit day I say you dont but if you do just dig an extra 2ft for the atruts for additional support. And so ot goes, it rains the bridge falls down. Then the meteorologist comes in later and says wrong day to build a bridge. The moral to the story is the engineer wasnt a meteorologist, the concreter wasnt an engineer and so it goes. I question if UTS was fit for purpose in this study just like the anecdote above.)

I agree but I can't let this bit go thru without comment ...

"(P.p.s: if there is a single person involved in the lure design atudy from UTS, what are your qualifications and experiences in greyhound racing? This situation kind of reminds me of an old joke two people are involved with building a bridge. Concreter says mighty fine day, gonna pour the concrete. Engineer watches him and says shit day I say you dont but if you do just dig an extra 2ft for the atruts for additional support. And so ot goes, it rains the bridge falls down. Then the meteorologist comes in later and says wrong day to build a bridge. The moral to the story is the engineer wasnt a meteorologist, the concreter wasnt an engineer and so it goes. I question if UTS was fit for purpose in this study just like the anecdote above.)"

The short answer to the first bit is zero.

This is an engineering unit at UTS with a fair range of skills in various areas, including injury assessment of kids playgrounds for example. Because animals are involved, it also has inbuilt constraints related to the use of ethical principles in building facilities (somewhat after the OHS rules). They are not mugs but I agree their reasoning needs to be put through the wringer of on-the-ground experience with the breed and the sport.

The next answer is that they have been involved to some degree at several tracks in building or re-design but we have no idea who said what or whose views were dominant - see Gosford, Wenty, Murray Bridge, Horsham, Meadows, Sandown and Traralgon and maybe others. I know of at least one spot where their claimed involvement was wildly overstated by the state's CEO.

To add to the messiness, the UTS effort was commissioned by GRNSW CEO Newson and managed by Chief Vet Arnott - neither of whom are there any more.

Then the interim report to GRNSW appears to have been over-read by some at GRNSW. For example, it never proposed building a string of straight tracks as such but merely reported that injuries would be less than on circle tracks. Yet GRNSW immediately circularised all clubs to ask who would like to have one - IE obviously without deeply evaluating all the pros and cons.

That interim report was primarily devoted to presenting all the testing that had been done (both practical and theoretical) and called for more work to be done in certain areas.

How that has panned out is unknown. Certainly, nobody has explained to me why a 388m bend start trip at Gosford would be better than a 400m bend start trip. (Plus it hampers the construction of a decent 1st turn for 520m races).

You see this is an industry where authorities do things but seldom bother to tell you exactly what or why it was done. Like lures, for example!

Or the oddball design for a new Traralgon. I have no doubt that a huge effort was put in to create a track which eliminated the potential for injury - at all costs. Yet, neither participants or the public were invited to comment on a third option - the use of the same principles on a more traditional circuit, including one where 600m or 700m races could be conducted, or where viewers would have a better view of the start. Nor do I recall any discussion of the lure type.

Finally, I hear your personal views of dogs chasing ground quarry, birds or rabbits. No doubt that is a promising area for study but until that is done greyhounds will just be greyhounds.

especially in relation to participant consultation on the shape of the Traralgon Track and the effect of the UTS studies and the Gosford 388m start:

is that we the participants don't know any better...which is what you have been telling us for a while anyway

Are you saying now, that we should have been consulted on the matter?

You just seem to be paying the devil's advocate between ourselves

Which is it? We are consulted or are we left in the dark?

Which one do yo prefer?

I know which one I like.

Generally speaking, participants should be consulted all matters relating to their dogs especially in relation to breeding, rearing, education, training, racing and re-homing

In fact, the ever-increasing lack of consultation of participants and reliance on government-based decisions and so called white-collar experts is alarming

To formulate good and effective policy the best people to ask are the people with the dogs

We are seeing more of it in NSW with the roadshows that GRNSW and GWIC hold

These are the platforms that our participants need to attend to register their views, opinions and protests

Its the only fully-focused public platform they have for them to be heard and potentially listened to

If we don;t use those opportunities when they arise, then lack of interest will force the wrong decision by the white collars, because they will be influenced by people who don't really know the day yo day workings of the sport like they do.

Consultation is always a good and necessary thing. All sensible managers would do that. Indeed, it is virtually compulsory for government controlled entities. But, however done, it is incumbent on the manager to assess all the views, the info and the data etc to enable him to come to a good decision. That's how the world operates best.

My points have been twofold; first the lack of information means we don't know why a particular decision has been made. That affects confidence. Second, many of those decisions have been poor ones, especially as to track design. Some would say for lure types as well.

Now, for lures it is plain that maximum input from trainers, breakers and others is good and necessary. Whether the managers make the best decision is not so certain - but we cannot judge well because we do not know their reasoning.

For track design, trainers would be the last group I would rely on for two mechanical reasons; first, they do not have the data or the means to analyse it and, second, experience (such as there is - eg surveys conducted in Qld, WA and SA) tells us that trainers ten to make their points based on the sorts of dogs waiting in their kennels, not on what is best for the industry as a whole. (You can also see that from the varying comments about lures on this thread).

On top of which is the fact that they will almost all lack the technical expertise to make sense of the job. Because you can steer a car does not mean you can pilot an aeroplane.

Personally, I fit in the middle somewhere. I have masses of data of various sorts which tells me what works well and what doesn't. Even so, I am short of a full deck because I lack the means to state how the perfect track should be built and nor does anyone else - hence that effectively leads to the commissioning of UTS to delve into all the detail. Hopefully, the merging of that expertise with close knowledge of how the breed performs will produce a near ideal result.

Sitting to one side are all the managers who make the decisions and sign the cheques. But all the roadshows in the world will not help much if the managers do not know how to use that intelligence (or that of UTS). Evidence over many years tells us that they don't. Millions and millions have been wasted on poor tracks.

In good part, that shortcoming is due to the appointment of bureaucrats to the manager's chair and to the lowest common denominator principle - ie significant decisions are made by a board, not by a skilled and experienced manager who has thoroughly evaluated the project.

I plucked out the example of Gosford's 388m and 520m layouts (but I could instance dozens of others). We have no idea who actually came up with this concept - replacing a bend start with a bend start - or what data or principles they used. UTS, GBOTA and GRNSW were all in the vicinity. But last night there were squeezes and falls in at least two 388m races, which is not unusual.

I note the market is keeping her safe in betting. Thats wise considering the tickets have been cleared at Geelong behind the traditional lure.

Ill sit back and watch with vested interest in this race.

Because at the end of the day all im trying to prove is that some greyhounds will chase anything and thats called Instinct yet others will chase only based on Education. And its the ones that chase on education rather than instinct that find themselves getting retired or relocated prematurely because of an administrative decision.

Fascinating - I will watch too, but I am not sure what it will prove. You will still need the other 499 samples to get a decent result.

Meantime, I would have thought that all greyhounds owned some instinct. It's in the breeding. The variable is how much of it in each case. Obviously quite a few were not in the queue so they never got to the track anyway. Humans are similar in many ways.

I am more puzzled about how those that advance after "education" are differentiated from others. Can you define this? Reward? Socialisation? Litter influences? Age? Mum and dad?

I have seen foxies chase car wheels regardless of any training or whether it was a Ford or a Holden. Many varied breeds get washed out at sniffing jobs, leading the blind or guarding the nation.

And only a very small percentage of humans are any good at cricket or footie or rocket science.

Education helps in both those areas but it is not much good if the student does not have the right makeup to start with.

True chasers just get it - then theres the other 70 percentile that learn it. And what they learn and get used to by age 2 (formative years of development kinda sets the dogs chase desires- much harder to adjust it in later life though it can be done sometimes)

Seriously mate if Hedonistic can win for me next week can you get your trainers licence sorted and Ill give her to you for free as a last start winner.

Anyway well both watch tonight with interest. And you can watch mine next Tuesday as well. Im not declaring the race for mine but pretty certain she wont ping the lids and slow down minute object of chase doesnt resemble what she wants and then just chase arses rest of the way around. Thats happened with the dual lure. (only time she broke 31s and came close was traditional lure at CRN as an easy example).

You seem to imply that chasers just use instinct. No way mate. Had a lot of so called nonnies that were giveaways and the trick was always to find what the dog wants. 9/10 they want to please you but you give them what they like/want and they are so much more likely to reward you.

In terms of the other 499 examples etc, I would welcome any racing authority to permit me to undertake this for fee. Otherwise ill sit back and watch the fail to chase and marring statistics published in Greyhound Monthly by GRV. I suspect therell be an initial upsurge in those stats once this dual lure goes statewide as the uniform standard. Over time you would think the number would normalise once the existing stock is replaced by those that only know this lure system. Although even then not sure how well thatll go since all the grab trials and early education is done on single lures. Wouldve been nice to see a dual lure contraption from UTS that can be used to educate puppies and for early grab trials during pre-training. Yet to see that. At this stage the first chance dogs will get behind the double bunny monstrosity will be field trials after race meetings or in actual races. Ive never seen it deployed at Sandown on a Saturday morning as an example and certainly never ever for grabs because i dont think its been designed for that.

Its a new lure system with not even the reward of a grab embedded in its design.

And with evident design flaws like this, I am really questioning how deep and how far the anti-racing element has become embedded in various State administrations. Without defaming I am very much aware of one particular GAP organisation that encourages the use of the term 'rescue'. A term most trainers find highly offensive because we are attempting to 'rehome'. They are not being rescued, merely retired into lives as pets because we can't play Dr Doolittle indefinitely or collect-a-pet. Yet this unnamed GAP organisation has been actively encouraged to use the word 'rescue' because they understand that most folks approaching GAP believe they are rescuing dogs. It's what I call milking the cow from opposing udders. Appeasing demand to create a pipeline of applicants while offending suppliers in order to move the dogs through the system.

Fascinating indeed. We live in interesting times and more people need to speak up if you see something deterimental and prejudicial to greyhound racing. I categorise this new lure design in that basket and I have raised my concerns with GRV in writing.

Jason,

I am not sure what we are trying to prove here. Your dog jumped moderately, railed and chased "reasonably" but finished nowhere.

If the breed lacked a genetic urge to chase, this sport would not exist.

If most humans did not have an urge to compete, this would be a very boring world indeed.

But no two are the same.

However, to extrapolate from one or two dogs to the entire population is not a goer. What we do is to test/analyse/decide and then do our best. Opinions are often not helpful; facts are.

I am guessing that you had a hard railer who drew inside boxes at the old Cannington. It would do well. For others, the track was a dead loss as it had worse 1st turn run-offs than Wenty - as demonstrated by the higglety pigglety nature of winning box statistics - like no others in the country. Those are the facts.

Someone may well prove a case that type A or B or C lures are best. So far, they have not. None of them.

The best case I could put is that the lure type is worth careful thought but it is only one of several parameters to evaluate and is possibly not even the most important. But that's no more than an opinion which needs validation via experiment and analysis.

NB As I said before, for years Wenty had dual lures mounted on a single arm. Then it got replaced by the high/looped lure following experiments at several NSW tracks - all part of the overall push which commenced in Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane. I have heard no contrary arguments since.

I never declared it would win the race let alone place. However for a dog that has TTT in its form to jump go all the way and not even finish last I would call massive improvement. First time its gone around in a full field successfully in quite some time.

Hedonistic.

Well thanks but no thanks. That's as polite as I can be.

Nevertheless I will report back if a problem is found and she comes back to form thatll be self evident. If not she already has a forever home arranged my friend.

This is a journey in transparency and thought-sharing. And regardless of smarmy provocative remarks from arm chair self appointed experts - I will declare the outcome regardless... it is better to try things and share findings than to die wondering.

People that learn and evolve learn through trial and error. Still not right about my assumptions and still not wrong. Question now is just whether injury not apparent or switched off permanently and psychological. Duh...

Speaking of which Bruce having read your insights and reflections over the years here i totally recommend that you consult these sites as I find them appropriate to where youre coming from. Man I understand you ok!

EXTERNAL LINK and
EXTERNAL LINK

Despite multiple attempts to get her chasing earnestly she treated the double-bunny with contempt. And that's all I have to say about it. Time to focus on the now and the future with dogs that can handle chasing two objects at once. Who knows, a year out from now maybe we'll have one lure for each runner. 8 fluffy objects with tails to chase and they can all wear rugs to match the dogs numbers. I'd pay good money to watch it even at a trial :)

Anyway I promised to come back to those reading with the outcome and that's all I have to say about it.

I think many people look at bloods without considering behavioural attributes.

Now that shes retired i can tell you she was a pain to get work into. Never chased a lure alone ever or could be handslipped. If you put her with only one other dog would get in front and pull it up.

But give her two dogs to race against and no issue while they were all going for one prize. Theyre all different even in the litter but I couldnt try and move her on as a dam and feel entirely right about it.

I only offered up this dog as an example anyway in this thread and speculated about a couple of others but pretty certain i am not alone.
Chasing multiple moving objects at high speed is contrary to every fundamental principle of early education and break-in. Let alone grab trials and rewards out of comp.