Keen but slow
Chases well, runs straight, just has not got the pace. This dog races, in a grade that suits it. It may try another distance or another track. It is the commonest outcome and the easiest to live with.
The fear nobody mentions
What if the dog isn't fast enough?
Some greyhounds do not make the grade. Nobody puts that on a brochure, so here it is on a web page instead: what trials are, how grading works, how you will hear, and what happens to a dog that is not going to race.
Trials
Three runs before anybody knows
A greyhound does not race until it has trialled. A trial is a run at the track, over the racing distance, from the traps, with the clock going. It is not a race. There is no prize money and nothing to bet on. It is there so the track's racing manager can see two things: that the dog chases the lure cleanly and does not interfere with the others, and how fast it gets round.
Usually there are three. The first is often on its own, the later ones with company. By the end of the third the dog has a set of times, and the racing manager uses them to put it into a grade — a band of races against dogs of roughly the same speed. Win in that grade and the dog goes up one. Keep losing and it comes down. The system is built so that most dogs, most nights, have a chance.
Which is the first thing worth knowing. Slow is not the same as unraceable. A dog that is not quick enough for the top grades is graded lower and races there, earning run money just the same. Plenty of honest greyhounds spend a whole career in the lower grades and give their owners a great deal of pleasure.
Three different problems
What "not fast enough" can actually mean
People say it as one thing. It is usually one of three, and they end differently.
Fast but will not chase
Turns its head, looks for the other dogs, or does not take to the lure at all. The speed is no use if the dog will not race cleanly, and the rules on interfering are strict. This is the one that ends a career before it starts.
Hurt before it got going
A knock in a trial, a toe, a wrist, a muscle that does not come right. Some heal and race. Some heal and should not race. You will be told which, with the vet's advice in full.
The honest conversation
You will have it with us, and you will have it early. If a dog is not going to make it, saying so after the third trial is kinder than saying so after six months of fees. We will tell you what we have seen, what the times say, and what we think the options are. Sometimes that is a different trip or a different track. Sometimes it is a rest and another look. Sometimes it is that this dog is not a racer, and the sooner it goes to a sofa the better for everyone.
What you will not get is a trainer who keeps a dog in training because the fees are coming in. An honest opinion on your dog's ability, even when it is not what you hoped to hear, is on the list of things we promise. This is where that promise gets tested.
Planned for, not panicked about
What happens to a dog that does not make the grade
The same thing that happens to a dog that wins fifty races. It becomes somebody's pet. The route is identical, and the money for it was put aside before the dog ever saw a trap.
When a greyhound is registered to race, its owner pays £210 into the Greyhound Retirement Scheme. The GBGB matches it, and £420 sits in a bond for the dog's whole career — whether that career is five years or three trials. A dog that never races still has its retirement funded. That is the point of paying it up front.
Responsibility for finding the home stays with the registered owner. In practice it is shared with the kennel, and here it is planned rather than improvised: a homing centre, your own house, or a home you find yourself. Which one you choose changes what comes back from the bond, and the retirement page sets that out properly.
A greyhound that has failed its trials is young and sound, usually two or three years old. Homing centres have no trouble placing them. Nor, very often, do their owners, who have by then quietly decided where the dog is going anyway.
The money side, plainly
If the dog does not make it, you have bought a greyhound, paid £73 to register as an owner, paid £210 into the retirement scheme, and paid kennelling at £12 a day, VAT included, from the day it arrived until the day it goes home. Trials carry a fee for transport and handling. There is no prize money to set against any of it, and the dog has no resale value as a racer.
That is why a sensible trainer steers a first-time owner towards the bottom of the £1,000 to £50,000 range rather than the top. The worst month in greyhound ownership is a dog that cost a great deal and will not chase. The worst month with a modestly priced dog is a disappointment and a new pet. The full costs are set out here, including what you pay before the dog ever runs.
Go in expecting that it might happen. Most of the time it does not, and you have a racer. Sometimes it does, and you have a dog asleep on your sofa a few years early. Neither is a disaster. Being surprised by the second one is.