Friday Hound Blogging

We're thinking of renaming FHB "Who's Bashing Tucson Greyhound Park This Week?" Frequent reader(s) of this blog will know that Track CEO Tom Taylor and his wacky sidekick Dr. Joe "Needles" Robinson (Wally's College of Veterinary Medicine and Truck Driving School, class of '95) are about as welcome in polite society as a scabes infestation...erm...we mean know that we have reported on the festering boil that passes itself off as TGP here, here, here, here, oh and also, too look here and here as well.

Are you getting a feeling there's a pattern developing?

If you answered yes reward yourself with the beverage of your choice, sit back and enjoy this week's installment of How Big A Clue Do You Need, Tommy?

You might hear those words in promotions for the sport of greyhound racing, but there are other words you won’t hear: fractures, pulled muscles and lacerations. Injuries are the dark side of racing.

Well, actually we hear about injuries quite a bit but we have a feeling this is just your way of saying you're about to lay one upside old Tommy's head, so do go on.

Tucson Greyhound Park (TGP) CEO Tom Taylor has told 9 On Your Side over and over that the welfare of dogs is paramount.

The windup.

But does the track always put those words into action?

And the pitch.

9 On Your Side obtained a number of state reports that suggest otherwise. The Arizona Department of Racing documented 68 injuries at TGP over the course of just two months this year.

 It's a long drive to deep center...back...back...

More alarming is what greyhound caretakers told investigators about track conditions. Among their complaints: people in charge of the track and running the tractors “didn’t care;" unmaintained dirt near the inner rail caused dogs to get their toes broken; and the fast dogs pulled muscles from running on heavy sand.

 And it's outta here. Once again Tommy's credibility as anything other than a heartless shill for a barbaric practice thankfully dying a well deserved death vanishes into the clear Arizona air like a fart in a windstorm. Let's round the bases with a flourish:

The Department’s Chief Greyhound Veterinarian found that injuries are “consistent with poor track surface conditions.”

Well, that's got to sting Tommy, huh?

Taylor talked to 9 On Your Side in the past, but declined to be interviewed for this story, citing death threats.

HaHaHaHaHa! Death threats?  Dude, people already know who you are, what you look like and where you work. What'd they tell you? "If you say one more stupid thing about how you put the welfare of the dogs first, we're coming for you. And we mean it this time!" That's pretty funny Tommy. Unless...you're talking about the death of TGP aren't you? Then that's PRETTY FREAKIN' AWESOME!!

Now, in the intrests of being fair and balanced, since Tommy declined to favor us with some sort of hypocritical, bald face lie about how the dogs are cared for at this time, we'll bring you a hypocritical, bald face lie he told in the past:

“Everything we do here at Tucson Greyhound Park is what is good for the greyhound,” Taylor said in an August interview. “These dogs are athletes and we want to treat them that way. We have to give them the best because if we give them the best, then they race the best,” Taylor said.

 And no, Tip, Tommy's head didn't explode when he said that, although we did notice his eyes bugged out a little.

Tip is a four year old boy who did all of his racing in Alabama and Arkansas. He raced 91 times and won 11 races, but he never got beyond Grade C which means even though he was winning occasionally, he wasn't generating enough bucks to warrant keeping him around. For more information about this dog, and other rescued racing greyhounds looking for homes, go here. If you don't know about the plight of racing greyhounds go here.