06/22/2005
Naples Sun Times

Greyhound racing is a sport we can do without
By Jim Bennett

About a week ago, I attended a horse race in Texas. I should have known better. All I really got out of the unhappy experience was a reminder of how disturbing greyhound running can be.

A friend and I took in the first three races of the thoroughbred card at Lone Star Park track in Grand Prairie, Texas, a suburb of both Fort Worth and Dallas. Bar Bailey, running last in the third, pulled up lame some 200 yards short of the finish line. Jockey Ken Tohill hopped off.

The horse didn't collapse, but was rearing its head and hobbling as track personnel rushed to help. Two attendants in a pickup truck carried a tarp, supported by a pole at each end. They unfurled the tarp to shield the horse from view, but it didn't work. Most of those near the rail could see Bar Bailey rearing and thrashing as personnel attempted to render assistance.

My friend and I couldn't see well, but some 20 feet down, a woman in tears turned to her companion and said, "Oh my god! His leg is broken! You can just see it flopping from the knee down."

Even before she spoke, my stomach was already sinking. "Let's go," I told my friend. "I've had enough track for one day." All the Texas ambiance in the world couldn't make it a convivial experience.

On the flight back to Naples, I remembered the tragic deaths of more than a dozen dogs earlier in June at the Naples-Ft. Myers greyhound track. A fire in the kennel area, apparently the result of dust and debris in an air conditioning system, caused the dogs to die of smoke inhalation.

More than 30 surviving dogs were rushed to area veterinarian facilities and animal hospitals. The majority of them survived treatment, but a few didn't. The exact number of surviving animals wasn't clear even through last week. Track spokesman Dave Kempton told me in a phone interview that conflicting information left the final toll uncertain.

The canines that did survive will have a more laid-back lifestyle henceforth; instead of returning to their racing stripes, they'll go to Greyhound Rescue, which will in turn find them adoptive homes.

These animals' deaths generated a public outcry in our area. Calls to radio stations and letters to the Naples Daily News revived the issue of animal cruelty associated with greyhound racing.

I'll gladly join the ranks. "Sports" which hold animals hostage for the purpose of human amusement and gambling don't belong in a civilized society.

I'll confess a bias here; I certainly don't have an open mind on the issue. As a hopeless animal lover all my life, I've taken stray dogs into my home on a number of occasions, waiting until owners could be found. I've taken taken dogs loose on the street into my car and driven them to animal shelters.

If I'm just a "bleeding heart," though, I've got lots of company: Dog racing is legal in only 15 states.

It would take a small library to account for the documented cases of greyhound cruelty in the industry. Perhaps the grisliest ­ and certainly best known ­ was that of the former security guard at a track in Pensacola. According to the Associated Press, some 3,000 greyhound carcasses were discovered on his Alabama property in May of 2002.

He'd been "retiring" unwanted greyhounds for years, using a .22 caliber rifle. As darkly as that resonates, darker still were the words of his attorney on Buddy Bracken's National Public Radio show: "The misery begins the day they're born. The misery ends when my client gets a hold of them and puts a bullet in their head."

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an animal-advocate group, reports that greyhound racing in the United States is in decline. According to a PETA fact sheet, "Today the cruelty of the industry is finally being exposed, and thanks to a resulting public outcry, there has been a decline in the number of spectators who are attending greyhound races."

We can hope it's so. There are plenty of good sports out there to watch (and bet on) with human participants, choosing to join the action. We don't need to run the dogs.

Naples resident Jim Bennett is a freelance writer, critically-acclaimed young adult novelist and author of several books for adults. Visit him at www.jameswbennett.com or e-mail him at jwbnnt@aol.com.