Caption: Heathcote-based trainer Ray Henness with prolific winner I’m Easy Boys. (Photo: Bendigo Advertiser)
By RAY HENNESS
BACK in 2000 I had a roofing business in Melbourne but had to make a career change when a couple of knee reconstructions forced a change of lifestyle.
A couple of mates of mine had greyhounds and because I needed to exercise, I picked up a collar and lead. It started, like many, many in our industry, with a giveaway. Her name was Kristasha and I got her given to me by Engin Gemci.
I spent the next 12 months learning everything I could about greyhounds and their care and training, but to no avail. She did not win a race. I was training out of a back yard in suburban Melbourne.
But, my introduction to racing with Kristasha did not stop there. I put her to Hotline Hero and bred a litter. I got 10 pups. The worst dog in the litter won 15 races and the best, a dog called Chainsaw won 29.
I got ahead of myself after that and bred litters from her to Where’s Pedro, twice to Surgeon and to Talks Cheap but she produced nothing.
However, by this time, I was on acreage doing my own thing and had bought a couple of pups out of the Greyhound Recorder classifieds while Kristasha and I were trying to win a race. One of those turned out to be Future Intent and it won 20 races.
I make reference to my introduction to greyhound racing because it gives newcomers into this industry an insight into a number of ways to become associated with a wonderful part of racing.
But, before I go any further at all, I want to say to any newcomers to greyhound racing that this is not an easy industry to embrace. The general feeling of the public is that it is easy. It’s not. It is dedication and a full-time job taking care of an athlete. And, we must treat greyhounds as athletes because that is exactly what they are.
When I branched out into full-time training, I had already bought a 15-acre property at Heathcote about a half hour from Bendigo. I’d been on a property before that but struggled to get council approval for what I wanted to do.
The new property already had a license. Now I’ve got 90 dogs on the place, mostly pups but a big kennel of race dogs.
So, where do I start with newcomers?
Do I suggest the giveaway path, the pup path or syndication? I’ve tried them all.
It will not take long for newcomers to realise the giveaway is a fruitless endeavour.
It is my suggestion newcomers should buy into pups. Get advice on what to buy. Set yourself a budget. Be involved in the rearing process, pre-training, education and then the hands-on of it all. If you are still keen by then, you are hooked for life.
The best piece of advice I can give to anyone wanting to train is to keep it simple. Learn from those who are having success. Get someone behind you, someone you can trust to give you the best of advice.
I can assure you … you will ‘stuff up’. Everyone does. When we all look back to how we prepared our first few greyhounds, we all realise how different we would approach them now.
I have found since 2000, that routine is everything in greyhounds. And you must develop an eye for a dog, be able to know instantly if all is OK or not with your dogs.
Our kennel routine starts at 5am. The dogs are let out and then put into our 100m competition runs. We have three and we put one dog in each run. They learn to work themselves and once we feel they have done enough, they are brought in and the next trio put into the runs.
They are then fed a breakfast of milk, water and kibble … simple.
At 9am we start work on the pups who are reared in 100m by 25m runs, three to six in a yard depending on age. We also have a container set up with three whelping bays, heated, air conditioned and with walk-in, walk-out areas.
By 10am every day, we are back in the kennels and preparing the main meal. This is a 50-50 mixture of ‘roo and chicken, plus a half cup of kibble a special brand from the US called Extreme Athlete. I used to feed in the afternoon/night but because I’m often away racing we have switched to 10am so I can be there to supervise feeding.
We also have two pots cooking. One is for a vege soup, the other for the cooking of the chicken. The vege soup contains 15 litres of water, celery, silverbeet, beetroot, 30-40 carrots, potatoes. It is cooked for three hours and each dog gets a cup full.
To that is added olive oil and magnesium and vitamin E. During summer they also get vitamin C.
This is the routine we stick to every single day.
I train stayers harder than sprinters. They may go out in the afternoon and into the competition runs again. Once a week the dogs will get a call-up on the 200m straight track.
So, what do newcomers do wrong?
Probably the one thing is they try to overdo everything. They will feed every vitamin and mineral supplement under the sun. It is not going to help.
Syndication was an aspect of greyhound racing I tried years ago. At one stage we had a business running whereby we could have between 300 and 400 people with five to 10 percent shares in dogs. After giving that away, it would be my suggestion any newcomers might find it suitable to approach trainers to go shares in dogs.
First time owners can be great. One of the very best dogs I’ve trained is I’m Easy Boys. I was approached by a syndicate and told them to go pick one out of a litter we’d bred. They paid $5000 for the black dog and he’s won 28 races and $153,000 and is still going well in town in the twilight of his career.
Training is hard work. But the joy of winning is something else.
