The general concept of breeding is to breed from the best, to the best, and hope for the best. This leaves a question mark. Is there other ways which might enhance the prospect of producing good greyhounds? I believe there is.
Track records on all tracks have from 3 to 40 years ago reduced times by approximately .75 of a second or more which equals 10 to 12 lengths.
Training methods have not changed over the years, nor has the feeding of the animal made any contribution to the fantastic reduction in racing times of the Australian greyhound.
The track was fast is a quotation which always accompanies a track record which has been broken. A track has to be fast for a dog to run a track record. The track would also have been fast when a dog ran the record 30 to 40 years ago.
Why is this so?
The improvement of the greyhound in Australia did not happen overnight. It came about by breeding from the best of thousands of greyhounds each generation, then from the best of the best and so on down through the years.
All records have tumbled including the records of the famous Zoom Top who established a total of 19 track records in her career.
The generation of a greyhound is approximately four years. By the time a bitch pup is whelped, reared for racing, retired for breeding and goes through her gestation period, it is approximately four years.
To reduce records by 10 to 12 lengths, the dogs of today would have to be superior to the generation of four years ago. The dogs of four years ago would have to be superior to the generation of eight years ago and so on.
What would happen if a breeder using this deduction as a guideline was to breed a generation every two years?
Selecting my best bitch, I bred her a two years of age. From her litter I bred her best offspring when that bitch turned two years. After four generations I had dogs which in theory were dogs of the future. The dogs were actually eight years ahead of their time. I produced many classic winners during this experiment.
I once bred a very good litter using bloodlines which I have never seen used before or since. I believe it to be unique. Combining the bloodlines of the immortal Chief Havoc on all four lines with a dog and a bitch on either side. From this litter came Fawn Scout the Sandown Park distance record holder, Jefferson the Olympic Park distance record holder, and My Mercedes the dam of Carobi the Olympic Park sprint record holder.
Many breeders like to use bloodlines in selecting a stud dog which could be compatible to their broodbitch. Where the same stud dog appears on the third generation, or third line back on both the broodbitch and the stud dog is, in my opinion, the perfect cross.
If a broodbitch has a temperament problem, then I would suggest an outcross mating would be appropriate.
My motto in breeding is to breed as close as possible to champions. It is no good breeding from an ordinary performed dog and bitch and hoping for progeny to be six to eight lengths better than the parents. This just does not happen.
During the mid-forties when the mighty Chief Havoc was burning up the track in NSW, I had the Victorian champion which I named Balkan Chief. I often think, would the champion of yesteryear be good enough to compete with the greyhounds of today?
Times say no.

Thanks for posting such an interesting story, David.

IMO Rods theory is flawed in that unless he applied the same theory to the sire. Hes wasnt advancing the breed as much as its claimed. Looking at his results...he was just a great breeder, breeding from great dam lines.

Apart from USA imports and some select Irish imports we are just recycling the same lines but with different names

It could even be argued that these import sires are just bringing back old lines that have faded out here i.e. Tell You Why, Gorgeous Babe etc , the effectiveness of these have been argued out in this forum many times

Feral Franky and Good Odds Harada and co were produced when Collision was 16 years old

CLICK HERE
IMO, it goes back to mating compatible lines, the front line name doesn't tell the whole story

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I would like to know whoever has the Head Honcho vial, what they are going to do with it

The real interesting example is PAWs...hes benefiting bringing highly influential outcross gene Grove Whisper as close up as possible. New Tears, Grove Whisper, Satans Legend etc are everywhere and still influencing. So, will be interesting to follow what he does along the way with Dyna Patty. To see the worth of breeding to a vintage sire, such as Roanokee. Especially to see if he follows the same pattern of genes...

Fair play Ryan! Would he have consistently used unproven sires then? Youd imagine he would have had to, to follow his belief...

The thing that I noticed with PAW, and I could easily be wrong in my assumption, is that he used a wide variety of imported sires in building up what he has today by bringing Sand Man up as close as he could multiple times in a pedigree

Whilst the Australian outcry was Temlee, Temlee and more Temlee, it seemed PAW was using Sand Man as his Temlee

And agree Darren he uses Grove Whisper quite frequently, I am guessing because he was a locally standing sire that was successful and a great vehicle for Sand Man, his grandsire

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PAW, also from what I have seen has no hesitation either in using new sires, especially those that are compatible to his lines.

He seems to use both old and new sires judiciously

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and basically any dog by Fernando Bale/Barcia Bale/Dyna Double One that is line bred back to Elusive Rebel/Bobniak and Grove Whisper

Plus his damline goes back to Tassin, which is the founding bitch of Gails Beauty's line

He uses grove whisper because he's a highly inbred/linebred dog.

He stated as such on a topic previously however some very selfish people jumped on and attacked him and they deleted the topic. Fortunately I saw what he wrote before the topic was deleted.

It was stated that if you look at ashom bale and dynabolt you'll figure out what he does with pedigrees. Cheers.

ps. is that still on this topic ?

Take for instance FAWN SCOUT and his fine littermates
the litter he bred that carried both sire and dam with a balance of Chief Havoc (via son and daughter in each).

This is Fawn Scout's pedigree

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BUT, has anyone then done some greater research on this pedigree.
You will see it contains Pendle Havoc and Gorgeous Babe 3x3 and well placed to greatly impact with each other.
They are virtual brother and sister.

This is how their pedigree match appears

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if we take this even further
the legend broodbitch ELSIE MOSS is also bred on this cross

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2x1 to Gorgeous Babe and her virtual sister Maggie Moss