Wag The Dog.

[tlewis]

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I recently received a letter informing me that all whippets bred by, sired by or owned by myself (Lyth Whippets) at any time, past or present, would not be granted a WCRA passport.

I had intended sending a dog or two to England to take part in WCRA racing events. These dogs would not have any Besaps blood in them what so ever.

Seemed like a fun sporting idea to me at the time!!

The criteria for this refusal is apperently based on a decision by a very small club in the USA which goes by the name of the Continental Whippet Allience. This is a club for a group of people that mainly own show dogs and they have rejected many dogs with racing backgrounds in a lame attempt to limit the competition.

They have managed to do this with complete success and they go their own merry way and the rest of the racing community in the USA and Canada go theirs.

With the WCRA taking the CWA as their authority on American whippet racing, it means of course that this is a classic case of the "Tail wagging the dog."

The main racing authorities in the USA and Canada are the Whippet Racing Association (East coast). The North American Whippet Racing Association (West coast) and the National Oval Track Racing Association (U.S.A and Canada bend racing nation wide.)

Lyth Whippets compete in all these venues without ANY RESTRICTIONS .

Why the WCRA are taking the CWA as their source of information, I'm at a loss to understand. The latter only accounts for a tiny percentage of the whippets racing in N.America.

Before I left England a dog solely owned by myself was used as a sire. One of the resulting litter appears in the pedigree fairly close up of a WCRA racing champion and I understand is himself a sire of race champions.

In fairness, using the criteria layed down by the CWA and accepted by the WCRA these dogs should now have their passports withdrawn.

The name of the dog with the questionable pedigree according to the dictates of the CWA and accepted by the WCRA is Saxon Blade. You may have heard of him!!

 

[Mark Roberts]

Hi Tony,

That makes for very interesting reading.

 

[Scott Frodsham]

If it were not so serious, it'd be hysterical! :b

 

[Strike Whippets]

So let me get this right ..........The CWA banned ANY dog that had anything to do with you ......owned by you or even bred by you ?? ...........Does this mean even the "normal" racers that you owned ?? ........And your affix Lyth, did you have that whilst you were in England ?? ...........Wcrch Hammeron (Saxon Blade) is behind loads of racing lines (one of mine included), but reading what you've said then he would also be banned by the CWA ..........does this mean that it would be hard for an American racing owner wanting to import an English racing bred Whippet ?? and would they have problems being able to race this dog with the CWA ???

 

[Scott Frodsham]

Wcrch Hammeron (Saxon Blade) sired Diesel! :thumbsup:

 

[Strike Whippets]

He sired alot of dogs .......this is the problem as the CWA will have banned his GGG Grandfather as they banned all dogs bred or owned by Tony ..........and in this case the WCRA have carried on the CWA's ban of Tony's breeding and Tony ........thus making it a problem that Tony owned Hammerons GGG grandfather as if the WCRA are to take everything that the CWA says and ban what the CWA also will have banned, then theres a question mark of why is it ok to over look a dog behind Hammeron ?? ........I'm off for a lie down now as my little brain hurts :wacko: :blink:

 

[Scott Frodsham]

He sired alot of dogs .......this is the problem as the CWA will have banned his GGG Grandfather as they banned all dogs bred or owned by Tony  ..........and in this case the WCRA have carried on the CWA's ban of Tony's breeding and Tony ........thus making it a problem that Tony owned Hammerons GGG grandfather as if the WCRA are to take everything that the CWA says and ban what the CWA also will have banned, then theres a question mark of why is it ok to over look a dog behind Hammeron ?? ........I'm off for a lie down now as my little brain hurts  :wacko:   :blink:

Hannah, thanks for explaining (I did however understand the implications), I was just stating a fact! :b

 

[Strike Whippets]

Hannah, thanks for explaining (I did however understand the implications), I was just stating a fact!  :b

You don't have to thank me Scott

 

[Mark Roberts]

I don't think it's the WCRA at fault here it seems to be the CWA, The WCRA from what i've read have gone off info recieved from the CWA.

To me there needs to be a re-think over who's used for info from accross the water.

i've been on the web sites of the organisations Tony mentions and they are full of info and some great action shots.

 

[Strike Whippets]

How big is the CWA ?? and who are the main/biggest racing organisations over there ??

 

[Judy]

(w00t) We had WCRCh Time Finder who was Hammerons brother and he won 6 championships !!

Don't quite understand the extent of the CWA ban Tony. You say a dog bred or owned by you or sired by one of your dogs. So a dog that was bred by you would be banned but what if a dog was bred by someone else, sired by one of your dogs but owned by someone else. Would that be banned ?

Also what if the sire was owned by you but not itself bred by you and didn't have any 'Lyth' in its pedigree - would the puppies still be banned by the CWA even if they didn't have any dogs of your breeding in the pedigree on either side?

 

[BeeJay]

Wcrch Hammeron (Saxon Blade) sired Diesel!  :thumbsup:

And WCRCh's Saxon Gold, Chase the Pied Piper, Firecrest, Little Macauley, Darkling Ember. etc etc.

And he's behind my dog and so on and so forth. He must be behind most of the Open racers. I think that everyone I know has dogs with him in their peds.

 

[Mark Roberts]

i've got 2 straight from Hammeron and i'm useing Chase The Pied Piper this weekend so i'm well into Hammerons breeding.

Hannah, unfortunatly when you ask for advice from an outside organisation you have to take what they give you as a true and accurate record that doesn't always mean it is 100% true and accurate.

 

[LVernon]

It's even more ludicrous than it first appears. The CWA banned all of Tony's dogs and dogs of his breeding because years ago one of the legit racing organizations banned them. This ban was fairly quickly rescinded by the originating organization (with the exception of one litter) and life went on, BUT CWA, which has in their rules a bit about recognizing any other racing organizations ban, has maintained the full ban. Which ban is now being used as a reason for WCRA banning dogs. Absolutely stupid, if the national breed registry recognize the dog as purebred, purebred it is. Those registries all have ample facilities in place to challenge any breeding brought to their attention, there is no reason for any race organization to step in.

Louanne

 

[BeeJay]

Having done some research on the web into the CWA;-

Tony hypothetical questions.

1) if you were to import a racing bred peddie whippet from the UK whose parents had WCRA passports would you be able to register and race that dog with the CWA?

2) If you imported 2 such whippets (dog and bitch) from the UK both with parents who have WCRA passports and you bred them so that they would have Lyth affixs. Would you or people that you sold them to be able to register and race those pups?

 

[tlewis]

>but what if a dog was bred by someone else, sired by one of your dogs but >owned by someone else. Would that be banned ?

Yes. This has in fact happened.

>Also what if the sire was owned by you but not itself bred by you and didn't have >any 'Lyth' in its pedigree - would the puppies still be banned by the CWA even if >they didn't have any dogs of your breeding in the pedigree on either side?

>Judy

Yes. This also has happened.The sire was owned by myself, but bred by a breeder in England.

I should add that in N.America, no one cares much what the CWA do. They are treated rather as a poor joke. They are largely irrelevant to the rest of the racing world.

To put their "racing" dogs in perspective the winner of their big National meet could not do better than finish out of the first fifty in the recent NAWRA National Championships.

At CWA meets they hold a show match which counts towards their titles!! :wacko:

 

[tlewis]

Having done some research on the web into the CWA;-

Tony hypothetical questions.

1) if you were to import a racing bred peddie whippet from the UK whose parents had WCRA passports would you be able to register and race that dog with the CWA?

NO

2) If you imported 2 such whippets (dog and bitch) from the UK both with parents who have WCRA passports and you bred them so that they would have Lyth affixs. Would you or people that you sold them to be able to register and race those pups?

NOT WITH CWA. Even if they didn't have Lyth affix's but I had bred the pups.

BTW LYTH is (or at least was. It may have lapsed now) a registered affix with the KC in the UK. It's been around quite a long time.

 

[Strike Whippets]

1) if you were to import a racing bred peddie whippet from the UK whose parents had WCRA passports would you be able to register and race that dog with the CWA?
  NO

2) If you imported 2 such whippets (dog and bitch) from the UK both with parents who have WCRA passports and you bred them so that they would have Lyth affixs. Would you or people that you sold them to be able to register and race those pups?

NOT WITH CWA.  Even if they didn't have Lyth affix's but I had bred the pups.

So you mean to tell me that the CWA are telling our WCRA what they won't allow to run with them ..........yet again they would refuse to allow English bred WCRA passported Whippets also to run just because the offspring would (hypothetically speaking) have been bred by you, even if owned by different people ?? :blink: :wacko: ...........Seems rather stupid if you ask me and it's such a shame that it is being made so difficult to import a racing line and this isn't just from America ..........God knows what will end up happening when the imported show lines end up creeping into our racing lines .......This will end up being one BIG headache

 

[tlewis]

So you mean to tell me that the CWA are telling our WCRA what they won't allow to run with them ..........yet again they would refuse to allow English bred WCRA passported Whippets also to run just because the offspring would (hypothetically speaking) have been bred by you, even if owned by different people ??

Sorry if this post is long winded!

Don't get me wrong. I think the CWA as a private organization have a perfect right to ban any one or any dog they want to. As I previously said no one much cares in the USA. I find it annoying just because I'm one of the people singled out for their bans. They can ban any dog with a X,Y or Z in it's name for all the difference it would make in the Whippet racing community.

I'm just mistyfied as to the reason another racing organization would go along with their ban.

It may be just a coincidence, but the President of NAWRA who initiated the origial sanction against me some years ago is also a leading light in CWA!!

If you want to read the history of the whole thing there is an unbiased article on a web page. The URL is: http://www.doginfomat.com/botm_may02.htm

Here is just an excerpt: (Lyth is the "West Coast Kennel")

In the late 80's a kennel out west has a very fast liter which was rumored to be part greyhound. The breeder underwent two AKC audits of his breeding records and emerged with no findings of any wrong doing. He made the offer to the AKC to have the bitch genetically tested but the AKC said it was unnecessary. Later the bitch died in an open field coursing accident. After much controversy NAWRA demanded that both sire, dam and all the liter must be genetically tested, which was not possible because the dam was dead and was known to be dead by those who demanded the testing. Since complying with this demand was not possible the breeder of the liter could not comply and was banned for life from all NAWRA events and the liter and all its get were also banned, I think for 5 generations.

About this time the Continental Whippet Alliance (CWA) was formed. Their program also stems from the basic NPR program developed in the 60's. Its title, the ARX, has requirements identical to the ARM. They also have titles based on performance in shows and fun matches and one for participation in a certain number of meets. Though they do not ban any dog specifically they uphold the ban of ANY racing organization anywhere. Hence, they ban dogs banned in Britain and by NAWRA. In 97 NAWRA rescinded the Life time ban on west coast kennel owner and all but the first generation after the accused liter. At this time several dogs which had been banned by NAWRA, but no which it no longer applied, were submitted to CWA for registration. These applications were denied. The reason given was that a life time ban cannot be rescinded so they were still enforcing the now non-existent NAWRA ban on The west cost kennel owner and his breeding. Other dogs were submitted to CWA which were from this kennel but were never covered by the NAWRA ban. These were also denied registration with CWA. The stated reason was the NAWRA ban on dogs of the one kennel , which had never applied to these dogs.

 

[IanGerman]

In reading your comments Tony - and reading the article it would appear that it is YOU as much as the dogs that are banned by CWA - I apologise right away if I have misconstrued this.

The question I would ask is this ..... do the main racing organisations you mention all insist on AKC registrations as a pre-requesite of their membership? Or do they have whippet racing with anything that LOOKS like a whippet?

If AKC registration is a must, and presumably yours comply, then the WCRA, as an extention of the UK Whippet Club, and therefore tied to our own Kennel Club cannot in fairness ban YOUR AKC registered dogs, regardless of what may or may not have happened in the past.

If on the other hand NAWRA is like the BWRA in the UK where KC registration not only doesn't matter, but litters can be openly produced from small greyhounds, then maybe CWA is exactly who the WCRA should be taking notice of.

It is not so very long ago that some litters here were under the spotlight as being "suspicious" and although nothing was ever proved it left a lot of bad feeling and ill-will in our sport, so you can understand the WCRA wanting to do everything they possibly can to keep it "clean"

All countries Kennel Club registration's are no guarantee that a resulting litter is by whom it is supposed to be - only DNA tests can prove that, and costs are so prohibitive that they are rarely called for. This means that a great deal of trust is placed in us - the breeders - to produce pure litters, bred from, and by, who we say they are. And 99.9% of the time the system works. But just ONE rogue element can cause catastrophic results in a sport where the gene pool is as small as ours is. Sometimes we NEED paranoia to keep us on our toes!

I intend no disrespect to you Tony, or indeed to the BWRA by this, just trying to talk through the logic is all