Message-in Question 4

[Rob Rixon]

Should clubs be limited to one Superstars counting Open?

or - If they only have one Open should they be allow to offer double points?

It was interesting to speak with a member of a club that run non-counting opens and they said that superstar points did not seem to effect the entry numbers!

What do you think? 8)

 

[Mark Roberts]

Should clubs be limited to one Superstars counting Open?

IMO no and there shouldn't be any restictions on them having to be bends or straights.

 

[Joanna]

I think the current system is fine, Glos runs two straights, no significant difference in entries has been noted despite only one open being for SS points. I would love to see more bends being run by clubs, but acknowledge the difficulties and time restraints in setting them up.

I think ALL WCRA affiliated clubs should be required as part of affiliation rules to host at least one open per annum, bend or straight. As Les Shearing pointed out earlier this year, it is giving some-thing back. New clubs could be given a two year breather, but I think all racers should be able to benefit from an open in their locality in order to be able to compete fairly for points.

 

[naylorwhippets]

vearing away from the subject a little i thought rob rixons idea in whippet news was a good one. the idea of running the 4 champs of differant distances ie 240 bend , 150 staight, 175 staight, 275 bend,it would give some dogs a better chance of winning some dogs do not open up till afer 120 yards thus the longer distance would give them a better chance, also a 275 would give a good bend dog that is used to running around greyhound tracks a great chance. the four differant distances could be a good leveller and you may not get the same dogs winning all the time. as rob rixon said in whippet news morton is well big enough for this change. it would be intresting to see what other racers think.

 

[Rob Rixon]

Track distance - could be another Question

I alway remember watching our Millie Any'Um running in France. She was OK until the third bend - then the French dogs who knew where the finish was, went passed her. By the lure pick-up she was almost walking. The complete circuit was more than 400 yds and they did more that a circuit from traps to pick-up. I felt this was odd as She was used to coursing (and winning stakes) at that time.

Running this distance would certainly give you different winners. But is this what we want?

 

[Strike Whippets]

vearing away from the subject a little i thought rob rixons idea in whippet news was  a good one. the idea of running the 4 champs of differant distances ie 240 bend , 150 staight, 175 staight,  275 bend,it would give some dogs a better chance of winning some dogs do not open up till afer 120 yards thus the longer distance would give them a better chance, also a 275 would give a good bend dog that is used to running around greyhound tracks a great chance. the four differant distances could be a good leveller and you may not get the same dogs winning all the time. as rob rixon said in whippet news morton is well big enough for this change. it would be intresting to see what other racers think.

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Yes thats a great idea ...I've often said that 150 yards is too short for all of my lot ....If different distances (including the vets) were available we wouldn't "know" the results before they ran ......There are some great dogs out there being over looked because they arn't champs or main winners, but there are qualities being over looked ......The only pay our affiliation fees to the WCRA for them to put 4 champs on for us each year .....so really we should be able to tell them what we want

 

[Rob Rixon]

The only pay our affiliation fees to the WCRA for them to put 4 champs on for us each year .....so really we should be able to tell them what we want 

from Strike Whippets
I think you will find most of the affiliation fee gos on admin.

Champ entry fees go on Champs

Passport fees go on Passports.

It would be interesting to find out it the Treasurer Sara Eaton - could break down the income and expenditure in this way. If the Champs is not paying for itself then I think clubs (with their affiliation fees) should not subsidize the champs!

:lol:

 

[Smiffy@VeronnaV]

If the fees go towards Admin, then surely that is the admin of the Champs is it not? Pedantic of me I know! And yet, it would be useful to see the accounts broken down in a different way to reflect in a more accurate way the expenditure profit and loss of the WCRA. Who is going to put that as an item on the Agenda of the Whippet Club AGM?

As to distance, variable distance would be good, not least because the dogs who are best at distance (staying power), may well acquit themselves better. Although one might assume that the same dogs would win over short or long distance if the hill sprint results are anything to go by!

As far as SS points go, if a club elects to hold just one open per year then why should they 'benefit' from double points for half the effort? Whereas the club who offers a straight and bend open does twice the amount of work for the same points allocation? Not exactly a level playing field is it? if one is going to have a rule then let's have a level playing field, thus, if a club has to put on an open in order to 'belong', let's go the whole hog and have each club required to put on both a bend and a straight. Ridiculous? Why - because some clubs can't or won't put on bends or some clubs won't put on an open? These clubs are run, not for the benefit of the racing community per se, but for the benefit and enjoyment of their members; and as it is the members who have to do the work to get the open up and running it should be up to them to decide whether they wish to do it or not. And as points don't appear to be the driving force for entries, using that rationale, we could do away with points altogether!!!

The Champs however, are a different matter. Clubs SHOULD be required to help to run that, as the Champs are run for the benefit of whippet racing not for the benefit of the WCRA, for the profits from an open go into the club coffers and the profits from the Champs go I know not where!!!. This is the area where, if one felt the need, the extra bonus points could be awarded to the winning dogs - you could even quadruple the points

 

[Rob Rixon]

If the fees go towards Admin, then surely that is the admin of the Champs is it not? Pedantic of me I know!  And yet, it would be useful to see the accounts broken down in a different way to reflect in a more accurate way the expenditure profit and loss of the WCRA.

Not sure if the affiliation fee goes to admin of the Champs - the WCRA does other things other that the champs. The entry fee of the Champs should pay for the day and any admin associated with the day. When agreeing fees I feel

Money collected for Passports - shou;d pay everything assosiated with passports.

Fees for Champs racing - should go to run champs, trophies, mtce of Equipment, etc.

Affiliation fees - should be spent keeping clubs informed of business associated with the clubs.

As far as SS points go, if a club elects to hold just one open per year then why should they 'benefit' from double points for half the effort?  Whereas the club who offers a straight and bend open does twice the amount of work for the same points allocation? 

Using this point - clubs who put on three opens do the 3 lots of work for only 2 lots of points.

There is no Whippet Racing without the Clubs putting on Club Racing. When an Open is on, that weekend the entry to a club event is reduced - some members have gone to the open. The more Opens the less Club Racing! Taking open racing to the limit - if there was a WCRA Champs every weekend would their be any club racing? - I think not. However, with the price of Fuel still increasing there may be more club racing! This is a difficult balancing act. :blink:

 

[Smiffy@VeronnaV]

I didn't realise that clubs actually put on three opens per year - I take my hat off to them.

As far as breaking down accounts is concerned, we need to be very careful here, for if my experience of cost centred accounting is anything to go by, we might be in for a very nasty shock indeed. Say for example the passport fee has to cover the cost of the passport - bear in mind that in CC accounting the cost of generating a letter was considered to be £17.00, already our passport fee is desperately underfunding the real cost! Thus one could argue that the fee needs to be increased drastically. But, it may well be that the overall operating budget of the WCRA is lower than the expenditure in any one year, and so the fees raised through the champs/affiliation fees might well be supplementing the cost of the passport etc etc and still leave the association in the black.

What I find difficult to justify is the levy of £1.00 per dog per year for a sticker! It's outrageous, apart from the fact that it is a paltry sum the collection of which requires vast expenditure of effort in return for little benefit (it's carbon footprint must be HUGE), I fail to see the justification for it. I paid a fee for the passport, I pay club membership fees, the club pays affiliation fees, I pay entry fees to opens/champs, there are raffle tickets etc, so why does the WCRA need a £1.00 for every dog I intend to race on the open/champ circuit? I would like to see that done away with as I was told this fee was purported to be a stop gap to raise money at a time when the association was in difficulty and that it was to be stopped once the emergency was over. If that is the case, the association has presented accounts which are well in the black every year that I have attended the Whippet Club AGM - another one for the Whippet Club AGM I wonder? :thumbsup: (The Whipet Club could well rue the day the WCRA failed to have its annual talk in couldn't it??

 

[June Jonigk]

bear in mind that in CC accounting the cost of generating a letter was considered to be £17.00
You can't really compare though Carmel, as there are no overheads or wages taken by the WCRA - so in real terms the cost of a WCRA letter is only the paper and the stamp

What I find difficult to justify is the levy of £1.00 per dog per year for a sticker! 

I think it's actually gone up to £1.50!

It's outrageous, apart from the fact that it is a paltry sum the collection of which requires vast expenditure of effort in return for little benefit (it's carbon footprint must be HUGE), I  fail to see the justification for it.

The only cost I can see is the cost of the stickers themselves and postage - where does the vast expenditure of effort come in?  Yes the clubs secretary has to give one out and collect the money, but I don't think it's that much effort.

I paid a fee for the passport, I pay club membership fees, the club pays affiliation fees, I pay entry fees to opens/champs, there are raffle tickets etc, so why does the WCRA need a £1.00 for every dog I intend to race on the open/champ circuit?

It's a way of the WCRA knowing that you are a paid up member of an affiliated club :thumbsup:

 

[Smiffy@VeronnaV]

Sadly, even for the WCRA it is possible to quantify the cost of sending out letters/stickers, and includes the overheads involved, the paper, printer, ink, time of person generating letter, rent, rates, utilities etc as I was not aware that the committee members had a colony of fairies at the bottom of their gardens doing all the work for the them thus, as they do it, it does have a cost, but using your rationale, the cost is actually hidden and thus greatly reduced so I cede to your reasoning on that one. Yet the cost is still there as those stickers do cost money to collect. Agreed, the committee members do the work for no monetary gain, but I stand by my argument of not having to pay for this sticker at all in order to race my dog at an open :sweating:

If I have to prove that I am a bonefide member of a club then why can't my club secretary endorse the passport of my dog when I pay my club membership fee for the year? That would prove my credentials. It wouldn't raise money for the WCRA but it would prove to the WCRA that I belong to a club which is the rationale put forward for the purchase of a sticker at £1.50 per dog.

The WCRA get enough out of the whippet racer over the year, and let us not forget that we cannot object to any price rise for any racing activity as they don't have to answer to us at racing level.

 

[conway]

vearing away from the subject a little i thought rob rixons idea in whippet news was  a good one. the idea of running the 4 champs of differant distances ie 240 bend , 150 staight, 175 staight,  275 bend,it would give some dogs a better chance of winning some dogs do not open up till afer 120 yards thus the longer distance would give them a better chance, also a 275 would give a good bend dog that is used to running around greyhound tracks a great chance. the four differant distances could be a good leveller and you may not get the same dogs winning all the time. as rob rixon said in whippet news morton is well big enough for this change. it would be intresting to see what other racers think.

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i total agree the champs are geared to to dogs who's clubs run bends or trap out on 150s lets make a few changes and see how many dogs are really worthy of being called racing champions (i bet we would have at 1/2 as many a year)

 

[controversial]

i would personally like to see 170yd ,200yd straights and 240yd ,300yd bends.even though we have just started racing i think some of the distances run are short for what is really a hunting dog.to show their potentialspeed and stamina

 

[Rob Rixon]

My point is

If I go to Tescos and buy a loaf of Bread - I expect the £1 or so I am charged to pay for the breed not keep the price of milk low.

If I don't go to the Champs - only go club racing, why should my membership fee to the club help to pay the clubs affiliation fee. The passport system should pay for itself, the Champs should pay for themselves. Sticker cost could be added to the initial passport costs, paid by the clubs (after increasing membership fees) or paid direct with champ entry. However, the idea I thought was to stop the 'odd show dog' for getting a passport for Racing and Coursing Show classes and never racing! Once you had a passport for your dog you did not need to become a member of an Affiliated club or go racing!! :lol:

 

[Strike Whippets]

i total agree the champs are geared to to dogs who's clubs run bends or trap out on 150s lets make a few changes and see how many dogs are really worthy of being called racing champions (i bet we would have at 1/2 as many a year)

I agree with you ...... This is part of the reason Cotswolds started putting on a bend, as having dogs like Gracie, Georgie, Dobbie and even Eric (if he'd run anywhere else ) were at a disadvantage at the bend opens and champs ....... The only problem is we did have to limit our bends to members/regulars only as we would have been there all day as there is such a need for bend practice ......We'll be doing the same next year no doubt before the bend champs/opens just to refresh our club dogs so they know what they are doing ......but yes different distances and especially longer distances will give more dogs a chance to shine ......I know all of my lot are better round a bend or up the up hill sprint than they are over 150yds ......

i would personally like to see 170yd ,200yd straights and 240yd ,300yd bends.even though we have just started racing i think some of the distances run are short for what is really a hunting dog.to show their potential speed and stamina

I hate these short distances and love to see dogs "properly" tested like you, but the unfortunate thing is people will now say these are racing bred Whippets that are bred for sprinting not marathons :wacko: ......I personally think like Greyhounds are graded over different distances, proving some dogs bred to race are capable of being marathon runners, I know the same applies to Whippets ........

 

[Judy]

But whippets are the sprinters of the sight hound world, they are not greyhounds. Yes, some dogs have more endurance that others and some dogs have less top speed than others and might do better over a longer distance but to do away with 150 yards altogether, as some have implied they would like, just shifts the emphasis from speed to endurance as if it is more worthy than sprinting speed in a racing whippet :wacko: Surely there is room for both. At least at the moment we do have 2 different distances at the champs. Maybe one of the bends could be changed to a longer straight distance as less and less people seem to like doing bends, although personally I would hate to see bends disappear altogether. But then we might have to find a different venue to fit the longer distance in.

OK vary the distances for variety and possibly get different winners, although it seems to me the same dogs tend to win any way, but to suggest that a longer distance "properly" tests a dog and thus imply a shorter one doesn't just devalues sprinters and that hardly seems fair to me either. We've had dogs that prefer 150 yards and dogs that are better over a longer distance or the bends but we should all be thinking of the sport as a whole, not just the dogs that we happen to own at the time.

 

[Strike Whippets]

But whippets are the sprinters of the sight hound world, they are not greyhounds.

No you're right they aren't Greyhounds .....but why then on a coursing field would a typical Whippet beat a Greyhound on acceleration, the Greyhound will then dominate the field, then the Whippet will just carry on and eventually just leave a Greyhound for dead as the Whippet possesses more stamina (this applies to coursing, show and racing breds Whippets btw)...... I don't think anyone would like to see 150yd racing go .....and many clubs wouldn't have the room to run longer straights, but different and longer distances WOULD give a chance for other dogs to prove themselves .......as has been said racing is only a bit of fun, so there should be no harm in letting other dogs have a chance of getting into a final here and there .......At the end of the day a Whippet was bred to be cheaper to keep than a Greyhound, and although they were raced most of them were used to put food on the table as well (oh no a dual purpose dog :sweating: ).......I personally don't think the distances will ever be changed and really it doesn't bother me as I do other things with my dogs but I'd love to see dogs like Doogan, Jest, Charlie, Daisy, Jacob, Vinnie, Connie, Eric (as well as others) race other racers over 300-400 yard straight as these dogs seem to run on so strong .....is this a fault or is it stronger dog ?? .....At the end of the day distances 150yds or under are mostly won by the dogs that can consistently trap out (that's why Eric's done so well at Cotswold's ....He's even consistently beaten open finalists, but hes a hard dog to beat out of the traps) .......Now Vinnie can't trap for toffee, but from being well beaten over 150 yards, give him another 25 yards plus (or better still the lure coursing field and hes a different class to his slow attempt at 150 yards) ....... There should be room in this sport for different "types" of Whippets to excel ....I've seen quite a few dogs that fade before 150 yards, and ain't to clever over 175 yards ....At the end of the day if different dogs were given a chance to prove they were out and out sprinters or out and out distance dogs like the breeders of the racing Greyhounds some other dogs would be used at stud to compliment the bitch ......Nothing worse than a flyer that fades .....But of course this is just my humble, uneducated opinion .......

 

[Rob Rixon]

But whippets are the sprinters of the sight hound world, they are not greyhounds.

No you're right they aren't Greyhounds .....but why then on a coursing field would a typical Whippet beat a Greyhound on acceleration, the Greyhound will then dominate the field, then the Whippet will just carry on and eventually just leave a Greyhound for dead as the Whippet possesses more stamina (this applies to coursing, show and racing breds Whippets btw

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Very interesting - where do you get the idea that 'then the Whippet will just carry on and eventually just leave a Greyhound for dead as the Whippet possesses more stamina' ? Is this written in a Physical analysis of the running breeds - or is this as witnissed by you - or just what you feel to be the case. This is important to me as I'm in the middle of researching the Whippet breed at the mo.

I have seen most sight hounds course - my observations were - Deerhounds & Wolf hounds looked very slow with their long strides, but when they went passed you, you knew what high speeds they were up to. Saluki got going in the next county - saw a pair run over a hill about 1/2 mile away and they still went on.

Whippets looked very fast and could turn on a six pence - this made a fantastic spectator sport - but if the hare fancied it just changed gear and in a straight line left the Whippets in its wake!

 

[SUNDANCE]

I wouldn't object to some longer distance races but, most clubs just simply haven't got the room to do it. So unless someone can come up with some new venues, is there much point in discussing it? It may be possible to get up to 200 yards straight at Moreton in Marsh.