Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
These dogs will have their day
Trainers, gamblers up against animal rights activists
A ballot item in Florida’s November election pits dog trainers and gamblers against animal rights activists. Voters will decide on a ban on greyhound racing. The state has 12 of the nation’s 17 surviving tracks.
LONGWOOD — The greyhound race has followed the same pattern for almost a century. With a metallic screech, the lure sets off, and eight dogs burst onto the track in chase. A half-minute later, the explosion of speed leaves a trail of sand, cigarette butts and torn betting slips in its wake, to be repeated across a hot afternoon.
But soon, it may be extinct.
Florida, which hosts a dozen of the nation’s 17 surviving tracks, including one in West Palm Beach, is set to vote in November whether to ban greyhound racing. Those in favor of a ban see racing as animal cruelty akin to cockfighting, contending that dogs are caged for most of the day and risk life-threatening injuries for the sake of gambling.
To the men and women who line the grandstand daily — many of them white and blue-collar — it is one more plot by elites from the coasts to curb their way of life.
Groups including the Humane Society of the United States and celebrities such as Doris Day, a longtime animal rights activist, have raised $2.5 million to pass the ban. Greyhound racing supporters have raised a miserly $24,000 to defend it.
“We’re going to get squashed,” said Norm Rader, 62, a greyhound trainer. “It’s a David and Goliath fight. They’re going to overpower us with TV commercials. We can’t dispute the lies they’re telling about us.”
They are a target, Rader insists, because horse racing is too moneyed to take down.
“There’s too much money there, so they’re coming after us. I don’t know what I’m going to do or how I’ll survive,” he said.
The proposal has spawned not only emotional reactions, but also a legal battle. Earlier this month, a state judge ordered the measure to be removed from the ballot because its language was unclear, saying it amounted to “outright trickeration”; ban supporters appealed the decision, prompting an automatic stay that put it back before voters. A hearing in the state’s Supreme Court has now been confirmed, but both sides anticipate it will be on the ballot.
“It’s nice to get a win. We haven’t had one for a while now, but I think we’ll still see it on the ballot,” said Mitch Cohen, general manager of the Sanford Orlando Kennel Club, a dog-racing track in Longwood, about 15 miles north of Orlando.
The track sits in a battleground congressional district: Florida’s 7th, which flipped Republican to Democrat in the 2016 election despite a campaign stop by Donald Trump. But neither political party has rushed to defend it.
“Politicians are ignoring us,” said Ben Paris, Longwood’s Republican mayor. “Our local school is called Greyhounds. The track is a gathering place for residents. It provides jobs; it’s in our DNA.”
None of the district’s GOP candidates responded when asked by The Washington Post for their views on the measure. Nor did the Democratic incumbent, Rep. Stephanie Murphy.
A ban — which requires at least 60 percent of the vote — would be all but fatal for dog racing in the United States, racing supporters say. Greyhound racing already is outlawed in 40 states because of animal welfare concerns; total betting has slumped from $3.5 billion in 1991 to $500 million today. Customers have migrated to poker rooms, online gaming and simulcasting, in which they watch live dog and horse races taking place elsewhere.
Florida is by far the biggest dog racing state left. Racing has survived here in part because of a state law that says tracks must continue racing dogs to host more lucrative casinos. Yet some track owners would prefer to focus on card rooms and phase out racing altogether, arguing that it’s unprofitable and bad for their brands.
The campaign on the November initiative has prompted each side to accuse the other of falsifying information.
State records reveal that 483 greyhounds have died on the track or in kennel properties since 2013, with most deaths directly relating to racing. Causes include broken necks, heart attacks or electrocution from the high-voltage lures that lead the dogs around the tracks.
Anti-racing advocates insist that surviving dogs also are mistreated.
Carey Theil, executive director of the anti-racing group Grey2K USA, said the animals are kept in cages almost constantly, fed rancid meat and mistreated by trainers. “The industry refuses to acknowledge any of these problems,” he said.
The industry also must contend with accusations of doping, including claims that greyhounds are injected with testosterone and cocaine. On Aug. 1, the state filed an official complaint against a Palm Beach trainer after a random urine test revealed one of his dogs had tested positive for cocaine.
Trainers insist those accusations are false. “You can’t be unhealthy and run around a track in half a minute,” said A.J. Grant, a trainer in Orlando who cares for 120 greyhounds with the help of four assistants. “My dogs are athletes. They get ... meat that could go into a burger patty. I give them Big Macs as treats.”
Grant said he and his partner, Kathy Lacasse, who operates a rival kennel, slept on the concrete floor of his kennel during Hurricane Irma to comfort the dogs.
“We chose to be with them and reassure them, even when the roof was falling off above our heads,” he said. “Why would we abuse or drug animals that we love?”
Yet Sonia Stratemann, who runs a dog sanctuary, said greyhounds are treated well only as long as they make money. “The moment these dogs don’t deliver profit because they’re old or injured, the trainers dump them at my farm,” she said. “I’ll never hear from them again. It’s always hushhush.”
Stratemann, 46, pointed to the example of Bart, a 1-year-old dog that snapped his leg during a race last year and was set to be put down before she stepped in and paid $2,600 for three rounds of surgery. She said the trainer has not asked about the dog’s well-being since the incident.
Rader, the trainer, said he had given the dog to a veterinarian and had no idea he had been passed to Stratemann. Almost all of his dogs are adopted once they retire from racing, he said.
At the track, gamblers say they expect the initiative to win.
Tony Huddleston, 62, who resurfaces tennis and basketball courts, has gone to the Sanford Orlando track every week since 1985. “I come here with $20 and talk to people. I don’t get it. I don’t know what I’d do if it went. I don’t know where I’d go.”