The ruthlessness of this industry.
Meet ‘Lazy Game’, now known as Rogart, whelped in 2015. He’s been around. This 30 kilo racer is the type that greyhound racing depends on. Standing dish at Romford, he has also screamed around Perry Barr, Harlow, Monmore and the usual pre-exportation tracks of Clonmel and Waterford. In fact he went around 101 times, not including trials, winning 17 of the things. Not quite top flight although he did manage to land an Open on one glorious occasion, it has to be said that he has given his all. Just a reliable card filler towards the end, tough as teak, genuine and fully deserving of the sofa and snogs due to an old servant. “Pass me a pigs ear, human!”
So how did he get into our kennel with a strange name chinographed on the plate attached to his door. He last raced under rules at Romford on the 12th March. Game as a pebble to his last, he ran his heart out for his connections and was beaten a short head on the line by a whippersnapper two years his junior. Tia would love to know how much money changed hands for him that night after the pats and the pints. Was his residual value so tempting?
Cut to the chase, Lazy Game finally trapped his last race at a flapping meeting on the 20th March. It was the final meeting before shutdown. We have scrutinised the advance card and cannot identify him amongst the Rambo’s, Joey’s, Jack’s Luck and other anonymous runners. We don’t know if he won. We do know that he has done with the game.
Anyone who has been to these tracks know it’s like Black Beauty ending up in the shafts. Lazy Game deserved a better swansong than a rundown strange track, racing under a stupid fictitious name on a freezing Yorkshire evening, for total bloody strangers under floodlights. His nerves are in shreds. His faith shattered.
Rogart was one of five greyhounds dumped that night after the meeting, all came here. It took only eight days for him to become homeless. Eight!
