Ideas

[Vicky]

Join our free community today.

Connect with other like-minded dog lovers!

Login or Register

When it comes to drawing people into the sport; this is just one newcomers experience that i know of.

1. Can't source any info on Non-ped whippet racing/clubs.

2. When they eventually stumble upon k9, it's very hard to find out if there's pups available.

3. They contact breeders and very few breeders will sell them a dog because they're "newcomers".

4. They eventually get sold a pup (after someone else has given the breeder references) and go through training. Stumbling blocks are that each person trains differently and they get given a barrage of contradicting information and don't know who to go along with.

By this point they're getting a bit naffed off.

5. This much loved pet that they've eventually got trained up, just isn't open class. They have a couple of options;

* go open racing putting £40 of juice in their car for their dog to get beat a distance

* listen to people telling them to let their dog go to a pet home because it isn't good enough

* give up open racing because there's nothing there to attract them and stick to club racing

* give it up as a bad job, leave their club and keep their whippet as a pet

There must be another option rather than those four i've mentioned. I know everyone strives to get a champion, but until that happens they need some incentive to keep them in racing.

Big money events/competitions are brilliant and i'll welcome them any day of the week but i'm not going to be selfish and say that's the only answer. We really need to be looking at these people with not so good dogs who pay their money at events so that the winners can come home with a trophy and come up with a solution.

Everyone's talking about changes now on k9, come on, lets get it sorted once and for all.

 

[thesonofpork]

dont know how you can create a competition with dogs that will struggle to win races, theres the few ideas maiden, time events maybe the way forward, or you can give a dog a rating maybe like the horses or greyhounds, spo that a poor dog can work through the grades i dont really know catering for not so good dogs is tough

 

[sherry]

IMO the only way to cater for the slower dogs to be in with a chance of winning is time trials. i know @ the rising sun we did put a limit of 32lb on so as 16lbers wudnt b racing against 40lb + but im sure if we thought we wud get bigger dogs we cud do a tt event up to say 35lb then one over 35lb to cater for any slower scratch dogs. this wud of course be ran alongside your normal yds per 1lb open. it wudnt cost u any extra infact if anything it wud generate u more money. JMO :thumbsup:

 

[Vicky]

What about if there was an ongoing advance & retard handicap throughout the year with the new handicap marks being carried over to the next open, run alongside Top Ten opens for dogs that aren't open class? It wouldn't be as hard to do as it seems.

 

[sherry]

What about if there was an ongoing advance & retard handicap throughout the year with the new handicap marks being carried over to the next open, run alongside Top Ten opens for dogs that aren't open class? It wouldn't be as hard to do as it seems.

im not sure if i understand this. the way im picking it up is this ok so @ the 1st open of the year theres a time trial event i time digga whizz in say she gets a mark of 6yds she doesnt win, does she gain a yard for the next tt event? if say she does win wu she lose 3 yds for the next tt event? who wud keep a list of wot dogs have ran in the tt events and wot havent? wot if only 2 dogs from the 1st event ran @ the 2nd one wud they still gain or lose their mark? i dont even know if ive picked u up right im kind of guessing? :wacko: :thumbsup:

 

[Trojan]

Agree with you Andrew, difficult to cater for the not so good dogs especially at open meetings, in my eyes the not so good dogs were always catered for at club level, hence things like handicapping whether it be on time or advance and retard handicapping. Sadly people don't want either of these formats at club racing these days, this is why many of the clubs have turned to ABCD racing, yet we are trying to think of ways to give them incentive at opens. Times have changed and most people seem to want to join in with the open circuit racing whereas years ago 'most' people were happy to run at club level. Having raced many years like alot of you we have seen a trend towards opens and away from clubs, my opinion is if you enjoy racing your dog you will pick whichever suits your dog and yourself, you make the choices spend alot of money travelling and maybe not win much or nothing, spend less at the club and maybe win a bit more, its all down to personal choice, but if you love the sport whether you have 'open class' or 'club dogs' you will stick with it, if your not into the sport nothing will keep you here win or loose. Would just like to repeat what keeps being said more positivity and less bickering would go a long way towards helping the hobby/sport :thumbsup:

 

[Vicky]

What about if there was an ongoing advance & retard handicap throughout the year with the new handicap marks being carried over to the next open, run alongside Top Ten opens for dogs that aren't open class? It wouldn't be as hard to do as it seems.

im not sure if i understand this. the way im picking it up is this ok so @ the 1st open of the year theres a time trial event i time digga whizz in say she gets a mark of 6yds she doesnt win, does she gain a yard for the next tt event? if say she does win wu she lose 3 yds for the next tt event? who wud keep a list of wot dogs have ran in the tt events and wot havent? wot if only 2 dogs from the 1st event ran @ the 2nd one wud they still gain or lose their mark? i dont even know if ive picked u up right im kind of guessing? :wacko: :thumbsup:

Because it would be going from track to track you couldn't really have it running off time Carole, it'd have to go off weight because times at every track are different but because it's advance and retard hopefully every dog would get it's day if the owners persisted with it.

It's just an idea. It might not be workable but hopefully those who understand advance & retard will see it's advantages if it's rolling over from open to open.

 

[sadieandco]

In my opinion it shouldn't matter if you have an open class dog or not... you either enjoy the racing or you don't. There shouldnt need to be an incentive to keep a dog racing. I've been racing all my life and never had an open class dog, point is I enjoy running my not so good dogs and will carry on running and losing till I have the pleasure of getting an open class dog who can win. :thumbsup: if someone needs an incentive to come and run their dog just because they get beat then I'm sorry to say its the wrong sport to be in. (Someone has to get beat or it wouldn't be racing would it?) (w00t)

 

[stallion]

What about if there was an ongoing advance & retard handicap throughout the year with the new handicap marks being carried over to the next open, run alongside Top Ten opens for dogs that aren't open class? It wouldn't be as hard to do as it seems.

advance & retard is the only way vicky you hit the nail on the head thats the prob with clubs i know most clubs do run abc but a not so fast or 321b dog still wont get its share of winning in a club you dont see many dogs over 301b making it to run for supreme in an open bends or straights so that says somethings wrong

 

[stallion]

In my opinion it shouldn't matter if you have an open class dog or not... you either enjoy the racing or you don't. There shouldnt need to be an incentive to keep a dog racing. I've been racing all my life and never had an open class dog, point is I enjoy running my not so good dogs and will carry on running and losing till I have the pleasure of getting an open class dog who can win. :thumbsup: if someone needs an incentive to come and run their dog just because they get beat then I'm sorry to say its the wrong sport to be in. (Someone has to get beat or it wouldn't be racing would it?) (w00t)

if more people had your attitude the sport would be thriving :thumbsup:

 

[sherry]

so vicky still the same kind of system as a timed handicap but going off weights so if digga whizz started off @ 24lb and say northbound 20lb digga whizz won she wud go up in weight say to 25/26lb or wotever and northbound wud go down say 19/18lb or wotever therefore northbound wud gain the yards and digga whizz wud lose,. dont know if it work like as digga might just win once but then again she wud gain the losage of weight when she loses? think i get it.

trojan and sadie & co i do agree with u i dont just go to win i enjoy racing if i think i may be in with a chance but if i think im going to get beat by about 8 yards then to me thats just not fair on the dog, the dog wud just give up and cud actually cause an accident if it was that far behind, the other dogs wud b on the lure then u cud possibly have yr slower dog 8 yds behind crashing into the dogs already on the lure causing injury to your dog and the dogs already on the lure. this is why i like timed racing as by rights the dogs shud (doesnt always work) go over the line together. :thumbsup:

 

[Trojan]

Because it would be going from track to track you couldn't really have it running off time Carole, it'd have to go off weight because times at every track are different but because it's advance and retard hopefully every dog would get it's day if the owners persisted with it.It's just an idea. It might not be workable but hopefully those who understand advance & retard will see it's advantages if it's rolling over from open to open.

Having run advance and retard for many years at the club, understand it well, but not sure who would be willing and able to attend all meetings to make sure the dogs were given the right handicap marks. Doing advance and retard for 40+ dogs at Manton was quite time consuming and at times people even at 'club level' would query their marks etc. and even by doing this system some dogs would still take a long time to get to a good mark to win! Who would qualify for this or would it be anyones choice whether they ran in the full open or the handicap open, 'good' dogs could win many of the handicap races if they so wanted to join in that one and not the 'open', in theory a good idea but the workings and time side might be quite hard. Not trying to put a dampener on any ideas but it also has to be practical and workable thats not to say this ideas isn't either just having done this system at club, wonder how it would be done at a different level.

Just out of interest our advance and retard worked like this - Final winner would get +3 on mark, Heat winner would be +1, 2nd in heat would stay on same mark 3rd and 4th in heat would be -1, this did work at club level, although at the end of each year our dogs remained on the same mark as they finished otherwise the 'slower' dogs had just got to a winning mark and it would all start again. :wacko:

 

[stallion]

Because it would be going from track to track you couldn't really have it running off time Carole, it'd have to go off weight because times at every track are different but because it's advance and retard hopefully every dog would get it's day if the owners persisted with it.It's just an idea. It might not be workable but hopefully those who understand advance & retard will see it's advantages if it's rolling over from open to open.

Having run advance and retard for many years at the club, understand it well, but not sure who would be willing and able to attend all meetings to make sure the dogs were given the right handicap marks. Doing advance and retard for 40+ dogs at Manton was quite time consuming and at times people even at 'club level' would query their marks etc. and even by doing this system some dogs would still take a long time to get to a good mark to win! Who would qualify for this or would it be anyones choice whether they ran in the full open or the handicap open, 'good' dogs could win many of the handicap races if they so wanted to join in that one and not the 'open', in theory a good idea but the workings and time side might be quite hard. Not trying to put a dampener on any ideas but it also has to be practical and workable thats not to say this ideas isn't either just having done this system at club, wonder how it would be done at a different level.

Just out of interest our advance and retard worked like this - Final winner would get +3 on mark, Heat winner would be +1, 2nd in heat would stay on same mark 3rd and 4th in heat would be -1, this did work at club level, although at the end of each year our dogs remained on the same mark as they finished otherwise the 'slower' dogs had just got to a winning mark and it would all start again. :wacko:

your right karen not an easy job to work out

 

[Trojan]

In my opinion it shouldn't matter if you have an open class dog or not... you either enjoy the racing or you don't. There shouldnt need to be an incentive to keep a dog racing. I've been racing all my life and never had an open class dog, point is I enjoy running my not so good dogs and will carry on running and losing till I have the pleasure of getting an open class dog who can win. :thumbsup: if someone needs an incentive to come and run their dog just because they get beat then I'm sorry to say its the wrong sport to be in. (Someone has to get beat or it wouldn't be racing would it?) (w00t)

Glad to see I brought one of my daughters up to be a good looser, haha mind thats cos we're used to it, thats why we're ecstatic when we have a win and thats only at the club haha :thumbsup: (w00t)

 

[sherry]

Because it would be going from track to track you couldn't really have it running off time Carole, it'd have to go off weight because times at every track are different but because it's advance and retard hopefully every dog would get it's day if the owners persisted with it.It's just an idea. It might not be workable but hopefully those who understand advance & retard will see it's advantages if it's rolling over from open to open.

Having run advance and retard for many years at the club, understand it well, but not sure who would be willing and able to attend all meetings to make sure the dogs were given the right handicap marks. Doing advance and retard for 40+ dogs at Manton was quite time consuming and at times people even at 'club level' would query their marks etc. and even by doing this system some dogs would still take a long time to get to a good mark to win! Who would qualify for this or would it be anyones choice whether they ran in the full open or the handicap open, 'good' dogs could win many of the handicap races if they so wanted to join in that one and not the 'open', in theory a good idea but the workings and time side might be quite hard. Not trying to put a dampener on any ideas but it also has to be practical and workable thats not to say this ideas isn't either just having done this system at club, wonder how it would be done at a different level.

Just out of interest our advance and retard worked like this - Final winner would get +3 on mark, Heat winner would be +1, 2nd in heat would stay on same mark 3rd and 4th in heat would be -1, this did work at club level, although at the end of each year our dogs remained on the same mark as they finished otherwise the 'slower' dogs had just got to a winning mark and it would all start again. :wacko:

#

vicky was doing it weight rather then time. our system @ wallsend and westerhope is this is u win u lose 3yds 2nd place u lose 2 yds, u dont win anything u gain a yard, if u win a heat u only gain half a yard and as u did u stay off the same mark in the new year as wot u finished the last year on. the only time everyone ever had to time back in was when we lost the track thru no fault of our own for a year.if u miss the handicap for 3 weeks and dont race on the 4th week u have to time back in.

 

[stallion]

In my opinion it shouldn't matter if you have an open class dog or not... you either enjoy the racing or you don't. There shouldnt need to be an incentive to keep a dog racing. I've been racing all my life and never had an open class dog, point is I enjoy running my not so good dogs and will carry on running and losing till I have the pleasure of getting an open class dog who can win. :thumbsup: if someone needs an incentive to come and run their dog just because they get beat then I'm sorry to say its the wrong sport to be in. (Someone has to get beat or it wouldn't be racing would it?) (w00t)

Glad to see I brought one of my daughters up to be a good looser, haha mind thats cos we're used to it, thats why we're ecstatic when we have a win and thats only at the club haha :thumbsup: (w00t)

lol theres nothing wrong with being proud of a pal that gives its all win or lose :thumbsup:

 

[sadieandco]

Was just gunna say similar mum...you kinda get used to going and losing so then when the time comes and you actually win even a club race your over the moon with your dog :thumbsup: its not the winning that matters its the taking part its nice to win but if you enjoy and love racing you will carry on regardless (w00t)

 

[Trojan]

Because it would be going from track to track you couldn't really have it running off time Carole, it'd have to go off weight because times at every track are different but because it's advance and retard hopefully every dog would get it's day if the owners persisted with it.It's just an idea. It might not be workable but hopefully those who understand advance & retard will see it's advantages if it's rolling over from open to open.

Having run advance and retard for many years at the club, understand it well, but not sure who would be willing and able to attend all meetings to make sure the dogs were given the right handicap marks. Doing advance and retard for 40+ dogs at Manton was quite time consuming and at times people even at 'club level' would query their marks etc. and even by doing this system some dogs would still take a long time to get to a good mark to win! Who would qualify for this or would it be anyones choice whether they ran in the full open or the handicap open, 'good' dogs could win many of the handicap races if they so wanted to join in that one and not the 'open', in theory a good idea but the workings and time side might be quite hard. Not trying to put a dampener on any ideas but it also has to be practical and workable thats not to say this ideas isn't either just having done this system at club, wonder how it would be done at a different level.

Just out of interest our advance and retard worked like this - Final winner would get +3 on mark, Heat winner would be +1, 2nd in heat would stay on same mark 3rd and 4th in heat would be -1, this did work at club level, although at the end of each year our dogs remained on the same mark as they finished otherwise the 'slower' dogs had just got to a winning mark and it would all start again. :wacko:

#

Ours was done on weight too Carole. At the beginning of a new season dogs marks were adjusted according to their weight at the beginning of the new season, if a dog weighed in at 26lb at the beginning of the season and its handicap mark was 28lb at the end of the season, when it weighed in again the following season if it weighed 27lb its handicap mark would rise by 1yd so its new mark would be 29lb. just to add a bit more confusion, this stopped people weighing pups in at then end of the season before they had stopped growing because next time they weighed in their handicap mark would be adjusted accordingly lol :thumbsup:

vicky was doing it weight rather then time. our system @ wallsend and westerhope is this is u win u lose 3yds 2nd place u lose 2 yds, u dont win anything u gain a yard, if u win a heat u only gain half a yard and as u did u stay off the same mark in the new year as wot u finished the last year on. the only time everyone ever had to time back in was when we lost the track thru no fault of our own for a year.if u miss the handicap for 3 weeks and dont race on the 4th week u have to time back in.

 

[sherry]

i perosnally still think timed is best even for the retard system wot if had a 30lb dog and it just cudnt get close did u do u have a limit on weights? we do have a limit of 21yds and have had a couple that shud have been off more then 21yds but we owe them it so when they win they wont get pulled. JMO

 

[wild whippies]

I've always believed time handicap done right with advance and retard works.

Karen, out of interest, why did people object to the format and favour A B C D E?

The reason I ask is because I've always thought it produced the closest of races and can't understand why people wouldn't like it.

I think its pretty fair to say with 20 dogs over varying abilities some run at clubs, some run at open level, we have no qualms with loosing either. However...

Running dogs week in week out and letting them get beat by yards and yards as Carol has already said, does nothing towards a dogs well being.

It produces fighters.

It produces dogs that loose heart and stop trying.

It in some cases persuades people to rehome and get another dog instead.

It encourages some to pack in all together.

Numbers in whippet racing are in steady decline.

The days of hundreds of dogs running on 2 tracks in an open are long gone.

There simply isn't enough of us to simultaneously have weekly club racing and open class racing.

If those who don't have a fast dog stay at home, organisations will suffer a loss of income and fast dogs will be having solos for their wins.

If we encourage slower dogs to run in opens, organisations will profit but the dogs will have their hearts broken.

The only way I can see everyone being a 'winner' is by...

Reducing the amount of opens.

Changes in the weight handicaps.

Cancelling club racing when an event is planned (pups in training, injury recovering trials allowed etc)

Opens that are run are run at either a rolling time handicap, added consolation racing, maiden opens, whatever.

Lyndon golden whippet event has the potential to resurrect some attendances. Instead of awarding the money to a winning top ten dog, award it to a winning top ten consolation dog.

We don't all have to be losers, it would be terribly sad that should the day come one of us is blessed with a fast dog, it does all its winning alone, with no one to cheer and no one to congratulate the owner.

I was really, really pleased when I saw Tora win her champs class.(which was why I got those piks of you all cos I knew how elated you as a family would be)

I can't help think that it would be a nice promotion of whippet racing to newcomers to see these happy moments again with your family and other families at opens, even if it is winning a time handicap / maiden open /consolation.