Gracilis Tears

Hi Paul,

So sorry to hear that’s happening as gracillis/hamstring tears depending on severity can spell the end of a racing career, or at the very least some loss of overall speed.

The main cause of the actual tear occurring is the foot slipping too far forward while the dog is placing both its full weight and driving force on the limb, and because this mostly occurs on the first tun it generally affects the right hind leg.

This occurance can be agravated by the surface on the turn being loose and soft compared to the rest of the track, as the dog adjusts its stride to the existing surface and then steps on a softer area without being aware of it, and to make it worse it occurs during the part of the run where there is already additional strain placed on limbs by virtue of holding on to the turn.

I must admit that I personally have real concerns about the current practice of pulling dogs up on the lure on the turn instead of in a catching pen off the actual track surface.

For two main reasons, and these are, one, the track surface being chopped up on the first turn increases the likelihood of both wrist and gracillis injuries and brushing the track between races does nothing to alleviate this as that generally just fills the indentations on the track wit soft sand, and two, the problem of the greyhounds that get to the lure first having their back legs being impacted by the dogs running into that same area.

The other times when the dog is at risk of damaging the gracillis and hamstring is coming out of the starting boxes and slipping on the green matting if insufficient sand has been brushed into the matting, particularly if the matting is wet. The other time is during a handslip as a they try and get going hard right from the start, increasing the chance of hind limb slippage. Then of course both the running on wet grass, and particularly the pulling up too quickly on wet grass.

Avoiding all of the above can at times be extremely difficult but with care the danger times can be minimised, and the other main item to minimise gracillis and hamstring injuries is to thoroughly massage these areas regularly to reduce tension and scarring in the muscle tissue starting right from when the pup is first educated to chase the lure. Iodised oil is ideal for that purpose except on race night of course. The other is after having massaged the hamstring/gracillis to then do regular physiotherapy by lifting the foot towards the tip of the shoulder blade ten times and thereby improve the hamstring/gracillis ability to stretch safely.

Cheers,
Tom

Hi Paul

There is no doubt that being involved in training racing greyhounds is far too often real disheartening, and you guys in NSW have unfortunately had some real smacks in the mouth over the past year.
:-(
Using a mechanical massager, especially if using an impact massager and iodised oil, you should only need around one minute on each area. While hand massage requires around three to four minutes.

When using a massager just rub a small amount of iodised oil into the area first by hand, and then use the massager with slow controlled movements to avoid irritating the skin, and then do the gracillis/hamstring stretches while those muscles are still warm from the massaging.

Cheers,
Tom