Tactics that can win races, but kill dogs ‘It’s corrupt – but it’s only as corrupt as how you make it’

organisation has previously banned trainers for life for breaking the rule.

Sanctions at its disposal include fines of thousands of pounds as well as bans.

But at Scotland’s unlicensed tracks there isn’t the same level of scrutiny over the welfare of dogs – or testing to ensure the rules are followed.

Balmain boasted to our reporter that, just weeks previously, he’d had one of his racing dogs “stopped”, greyhound racing slang for sneakily slowing a dog down.

“If it’s done right it will win,” he told our reporter, who was posing as a potential dog owner.

“I try to get them so they are near certainties.”

Pointing to a greyhound he’d previously “stopped”, he said: “That one won last Saturday.”

He explained that his black bitch raced past the odds-on favourite, while

Trainer John Balmain was caught the rest of the racing dogs just followed “like sheep”.

Offering to train a dog for us, Balmain said he’d make sure it wouldn’t win – until the price was right.

He said: “I get them and you hold them at first and you get a better mark [ odds]. You need to run them at least three times.”

Saying he overfeeds them to boost their odds, he added: “I got him (one of his dogs) up to 77lb – he was running heavy. “It’s like you running fat. “Then you get them down gradually and they do the business.

“The first two or three times at Thornton you are only able to get (gamble) a few hundred pounds on it.”

While overfeeding dogs doesn’t necessarily sound life- threatening, it can be catastrophic for a dog’s wellbeing and welfare.

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