Irish greyhound derby

Excuse double post.

I wondered the same last night. Have no exact reason as to why (aside from the assumption that greyhound racing has become unpopular). But it wasn't as if RTE were pressed for airtime. RTE2 (it's normal home) had a WW2 documentary and a film on while the racing was taking place. If they had been showing other live sport I could understand.

Ive sent them an Email.Ill report back Monarch.

The racing post greyhound site had it live. but sad to see it was;nt On RTE. the irish greyhound are amoung the best in the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxdpsgdwoE8        the final

TY Frank. Managed to catch a replay on Twitter last night but no harm seeing it again. Hugely impressive winner, whether or not there was trouble at the first bend.

The real issue is the fact that the national broadcaster didn't show the premiere greyhound race of the year. From memory it is normally only a 1 hour broadcast so surely can not have been expensive to produce. And surely Bsports would have paid for plenty of advertising during the broadcast, offsetting some or all of the possible costs.

Will be interesting to see what reply Vantastic gets (if he gets one).

I had the good fortune to back Susie Sapphire antipost at 40/1 e/way Monarch. she was the first bitch to win the greyhound derby in 21years.Sad to see RTE not covering the final . Sussie also won the oaks and the puppy oaks as well. I was happy for the trainer Owen McKenna who had bad luck in last years final.

A lovely touch Frank. Hats off to you. I echo your sentiments about Owen McKenna. His Pestana, who got injured in last years final, looked one hell of a dog.

Thank monarch, Pestana offspring shound be running next year.  Susie sapphire is the second youngest dog ever to win the derby.

I heard a discussion on this on radio during last week.

It's apparently since the rte documentary on the greyhound industry and it's kill policy and cruelty.

They haven't shown it since and apparently many of the main sponsors pulled the plug at that time too.

Horse racing doesn't need too many more Gordon elliot type images to slide down the same route either.

The survival of the small counties tracks was tough anyway before the RTE programme oddesperado. I take a good walk in the morning at a local park and its nice to see the number of people walking with greyhounds who would otherwise would never make a racing dogs. I.G.B have a tough task ahead to keep the sport alive as we knew it .

Great result Frank delighted for you, sad thread though . As someone who raced trained and bred Greyhounds its really terrible the way this great sport has plummeted , I hardly knew the Derby was on Sat that's how much I have removed myself from it over the years. Breeding reasonable dogs and then when it came to racing been cannon fodder for the bigger guys . I remember one night been set up by the manager of one of the Dublin tracks , he knew my dog needed the inside he rang me and asked if I would bring it in as a reserve telling me I'd get the 1 trap. When I arrived he had me in 6 and his friend in 2. his friends dog opened 6/4 and was backed into 2/5 mine went from 3/1 out to 8/1 I decided to have a £100 on mine out of spite , out she flew crossing the field and causing mayhem never to be headed after leading at the first bend, I can still see his face as I brought her back to the weigh room priceless...

Nice story W/R .  but the sport has been badly damaged by programmes on prime time and Panarama on bbc in the last few years. interesting to note on my walkies that mostly young women walking the rescued greyhound.

As of this morning i had not received a reply from RTE.Im sceptical as to whether i will.Im reliably informed by an industry insider a decision was made by some personnel within the organisation not to show greyhound racing on tv or indeed to report on any aspect of it moving forward.This is not their remit to make these decisions on behalf of taxpayers who fund them.I found myself at the post office this morning paying over my 160 euros ,I have to say i find it stomach churning when i think of the neopitism and high salaries within.

Cheers for the update Vantastic. Shame there has been no reply to your email, but not wholly unsurprising. If it was an email praising them, their presenters, or their output they would reply sharpish.

Another new CEO for the greyhound folk.

They phased out coursing years ago too. I was at Clounanna one year and had to leave early on the Sunday, just before the Semis. I expected to hear the outcome on the radio on the way home as surely the National broadcaster would be covering an event attended by 15,000 spectators. Not a word about was reported but they had reports from every Micky Mouse match all afternoon, the nadir being when the studio guy asked a reporter if there was big interest in the match, the reporter replied , " yes, massive interest, there must be 300 people here."
I kid you not.

Nogoody..

Luckily I was listening on the car radio, a portable devise would have been flung out of the window.