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The demise of U.S. greyhound racing is within sight
NBC ^ | 1/1/2021 | David K. Li

Posted on 01/01/2021 3:47:23 AM PST by sodpoodle

The clock struck midnight when a speedy pooch named Bug Brush crossed the finish line to win the final race at Palm Beach Kennel Club in West Palm Beach and brought a curtain on the sport in Florida.

A little more than 25 months ago, state voters overwhelmingly approved Amendment 13, outlawing greyhound races, starting in 2021, and issuing what could amount to a national death sentence for the century-old U.S. sport.

With the state now out of the greyhound-running business, four tracks in three states — West Virginia, Arkansas and Iowa — are left still chasing rabbits.

When Amendment 13 passed in 2018, Florida had 11 of America's 17 dog tracks, which were spread out across six states. Earlier this year, tracks in Texas and Alabama went out of business.

"Florida was the mecca (of dog racing), the base, the largest state with the most tracks," Humane Society Florida Director Kate MacFall told NBC News recently, celebrating her state's role in the sport's decline. "Now this industry has withered."

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Pets/Animals; Society; Sports
KEYWORDS: changes
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Horse racing is next!
1 posted on 01/01/2021 3:47:23 AM PST by sodpoodle
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To: sodpoodle

It’s a dying breed. Too soon?


2 posted on 01/01/2021 3:50:02 AM PST by EQAndyBuzz (Keep the Faith. Everything happens for a reason.)
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To: sodpoodle

They’re reserving the tracks for us...


3 posted on 01/01/2021 3:51:36 AM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: sodpoodle

Greyhounds are a special breed. My best friend has 2 rescues and we walk at the dog park. Those 2 dogs will run around the perimeter 20 times, chasing no rabbits but just for the fun of it. They love to run. It’s what they do.


4 posted on 01/01/2021 3:55:19 AM PST by lucky american (Progressives are attac Iking our rights and y'all will sit there and take it.)
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To: sodpoodle

Bring on the cat races.


5 posted on 01/01/2021 3:56:22 AM PST by Libloather (Why do climate change hoax deniers live in mansions on the beach?)
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To: sodpoodle

Here where I live in Florida, they have turned at least one of the Greyhound Tracks into a Poker Room, where gambling is still legal...

Another of the tracks is abandoned and looks like something out of the apocalypse....


6 posted on 01/01/2021 3:57:35 AM PST by srmanuel (It)
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To: sodpoodle

How long will it be before the Maoists outlaw beef...chicken...pork...lamb...milk...cheese? They’ve made it clear that that’s their ultimate aim.


7 posted on 01/01/2021 3:57:52 AM PST by Gay State Conservative (STOLEN ELECTION 2020)
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To: EQAndyBuzz

“sporting” events, including NBA NFL etc., are supported by gambling, but internet technology may be taking over.


8 posted on 01/01/2021 3:58:54 AM PST by sodpoodle (Life is prickly - carry tweezers)
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To: Gay State Conservative

For the little people? I expect those meat “luxuries” will go fast.


9 posted on 01/01/2021 3:59:57 AM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: lucky american

Of course a sodpoodle is not a poodle, but a prairie dog - I am an old female prairie dog;)


10 posted on 01/01/2021 4:10:56 AM PST by sodpoodle (Life is prickly - carry tweezers)
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To: Libloather

Cat races will have to be from the center of a circle.


11 posted on 01/01/2021 4:11:26 AM PST by freedumb2003 (No matter what, resist and stop the agenda of biteme and the whore)
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To: sodpoodle
The Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team occasionally holds pierogi races. A good time is had by all. So I say replace greyhound racing nationally with pierogi racing.

(For the woefully uninformed, a pierogi is a dumpling filled with potatoes, meat, fruit, etc. They are of Eastern Europe origin.)

12 posted on 01/01/2021 4:23:41 AM PST by Leaning Right (I have already previewed or do not wish to preview this composition.)
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To: Leaning Right

Lol, the sausage races are hilarious as well. I watched one where a “sausage” ran into a police officer outside the stadium and fell over.


13 posted on 01/01/2021 4:27:26 AM PST by Amberdawn (Want To Honor Our Troops? Then Be A Citizen Worth Fighting For.)
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To: lucky american
They love to run. It’s what they do.

I grew up in the Tampa Bay area, and dog racing was a way of life for a lot of people. The greyhounds absolutely love to run, and yes, there were cases of animal cruelty; but they were few and far between.

The crybaby liberals got their way, and the public got their say in a "constitutional amendment" to ban it outright. Nevermind the people whose livelihoods are gone.

And yes, horse racing is next. Count on it.

14 posted on 01/01/2021 4:27:37 AM PST by rarestia (Repeal the 17th Amendment and ratify Article the First to give the power back to the people!)
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To: rarestia

Olympic events are based on ancient wartime skills.

It will also be banned.


15 posted on 01/01/2021 4:33:14 AM PST by Lazamataz (America is a carcass, to be plundered.)
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To: sodpoodle

In 2018 the voting public in the State of Florida was inundated with and subjected to exaggerated and false stories in the controlled media of “abused greyhounds” for months prior to the election, convicting the racing industry in the court of public opinion, to make sure that damned initiative passed. It was all a lie, those dogs loved racing and with very few exceptions were treated exceptionally well by their owners and handlers in the industry.

The “ballot initiative” process in the State of Florida is an unmitigated disgrace and disaster and a blatant abuse of power by an uneducated and uninformed mob of the voting public which is routinely propagandized and led by the nose by moneyed special interests on the left hellbent on curtailing free market economic activity and the Constitutional right of assembly.

Many residents lost employment and related small businesses closed as a result of this racing prohibition as well as thousands of talented and well-trained and cared for dogs now left to the vagaries of dog adoption in a state already inundated with dogs which annually have to be euthanized because there are no homes which can be found for them. The take at the tracks for these races was what kept the dogs economically and physically viable and gave them good lives.

Allowing uninformed and emotionally vulnerable voters to have control of the process of amending the state constitution by directly voting for crack-brained so-called “Amendment” schemes and then having them automatically become “law” is a direct affront to the powers and functions which are supposed to be reserved for the state legislature.

This malicious and devious run around the legislative process has become the left’s most productive wet dream. Uninformed emotionally unstable masses voting for ill-conceived but cleverly-disguised left-wing attacks on personal freedom and free market economic activity.

We are supposed to have a representative form of government but the left has turned the Florida Constitution into a grab bag of ill-conceived laws and prohibitions designed to further its nefarious goals.

Am not sure how this particular genie got out of the bottle down here but we see it every election year most notably from the high speed rail idiots who continually attempt to enlist this perverse political process in its efforts to get property owners to foot the bill for a boondoggle high speed passenger rail system which it hopes will get Floridians out of their pickup trucks and SUV’s forever.

Am also not sure what the hell the remedy is going to be to get this nightmare process purged from our state before it makes of the state a Marxist hellhole.


16 posted on 01/01/2021 4:35:50 AM PST by 4Runner
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To: Leaning Right

Thirty or so years ago I was looking at the want ads — in Massachusetts, I think — and some company was advertising for “Pirogi Pinchers”. It’s an actual job. It struck me funny, but I guess somebody has to do it.


17 posted on 01/01/2021 4:38:05 AM PST by MayflowerMadam (I'd rather have Covid-19 than Biden-20.)
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To: sodpoodle

I used to go to the track in St Pete, and later to the PBKC. I knew it was just a matter of time when they replaced the rabbit with “Wishbone”.


18 posted on 01/01/2021 4:43:43 AM PST by beef (Use a VPN, use Tor, and get a shortwave radio. Oh, and ACAB- All Commies Are Bastards)
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To: Gay State Conservative

“How long will it be before the Maoists outlaw beef...chicken...pork...lamb...milk...cheese?”

It seemed like everyone had rib roast on Christmas this year. I think they sense that this might be their last chance to have something like that.


19 posted on 01/01/2021 4:47:15 AM PST by beef (Use a VPN, use Tor, and get a shortwave radio. Oh, and ACAB- All Commies Are Bastards)
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To: Lazamataz

Ancient wartime skills like waving a ribbon on a stick?


20 posted on 01/01/2021 4:54:43 AM PST by HartleyMBaldwin
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