This is a great article.  I don’t give a shit one way or the other about dog racing, and, like a good documentary about something you know nothing about, this was fascinating to me.  Balanced, objective, personal while still hitting the larger issues.  Thanks.

So what you're saying is, sports intersect with politics and society, and good sports reporting is truly just reporting. So weird, I hope some other people figure that out. 

Preach. Ybor is the Rays’ only real hope.

So now we’re writing weepy elegies for the days of dog racing? This G/O shit got real really fast without Megan.

“I learned about the hormones the dogs are given, the over-breeding, the way they are kept in their cages, how the females are forced to make litter after litter after litter. It makes me so mad.”

I may be misunderstanding how exactly it works, but one trainer being in control of 90 dogs is just crazy. Are they solely responsible for the care of these dogs? Or were they helped by others, a la stable hands?

Good riddance to another anti-sport that abuses, then discards the majority of its non-consenting, so-called athletes. Next on the chopping block: horse racing. All the same talking points will be used by the abusers (“But, but, but... Thoroughbreds will go extinct!” et al.) and everyone in the industry will fret and…

I think you did a really great job detailing the experience of the employees, I really feel for them and it warms my heart to hear how much they love their dogs. I have two greyhounds, one is from this track. I do not think conditions are as bad as they were in the past but our greyhound certainly had a horrible…

It didn’t get a funeral because society has already evolved past forcing dogs to race, as it is about to do with horse racing. Animals are not ours to exploit for entertainment or gambling, period.

In Ireland we still have a “healthy” dog racing industry, though after a recent exposé on it, sponsers started pulling out when people started seeing the numbers of animals that are being killed or shipped off to Asia for meat markets because they’re not good enough runners.

He was born in Georgia but he’s been coming to Florida for the races since he was seven. “Me and my daddy used to drive down here with a big white styrofoam cooler full of beer,” Clark said. “My job was to hand him the beers while he was driving on the way to the dog races.”

As someone who grew up in Hillsborough, and now a Pinellas resident this makes me sad. I think it’s better over here. I completely agree with you though that Gandy is already a nightmare.

Was this article supposed to make me feel sad that dog racing got shut down? I feel bad for the people who will lose their jobs but keeping people employed is not a good reason to continue to allow shitty things. It no different than when we try to pass clean air laws and people scream about how coal miners will lose…

Fantastic read. Our former neighbors had 3 rescue greyhounds. They were truly wonderful dogs...until they would turn on each other. That’s a truly horrifying spectacle. They were so high strung that it was hard to relax around them.

I’ve worked with enough dog rescue places to know that most of the dogs that come out of these tracks are really fucked up.  So while I hope people like Deb can find a new way through life, I have no sympathy that her old one is going away.

I’m curious to see what’s going to happen to Derby Lane. It looks like it will close as of 2021 and they are trying to position it as the perfect stadium site for the Rays since it’s JUST across the bridge from Tampa.

Dog racing isn’t dead, it’s just moved to a farm upstate.

Great article. I walked away with two things:

Yeah. I’m sorry that the people lost their jobs, but they are people, and as such they have rights, families, friends, social assistance programs and such with which to rebound from this and have at least a change at self-determination. The same cannot be said for the dogs. Good riddance to dog racing. Up next, good…

The last 10 years living in America has brought me to a pretty solid hatred of white males