The greyhound industry needs to unite on Sunday morning and get to Albion Park at 11am in big numbers to listen to Racing Queensland Chairman Kevin Dixon address them as to "Racing Queensland's vision for the greyhound industry going forward". It's high time the greyhound participants knew the fate of the new 30-odd million dollar standalone venue at Logan that Dixon's predecessor Bob Bentley promised.

Since he assumed the office of Chairman of Racing Queensland some months ago, the silence has been deafening from Kevin Dixon as to exactly what his intentions are with the greyhound racing industry in this State. In fact I would go so far as to say the way that the greyhound fraternity of Queensland has been treated by both the previous Racing Queensland boss – and new Chairman Kevin Dixon – is “an absolute and utter disgrace”.

Under the Bentley regime, the greyhound folk didn’t know whether they were coming or going. They were going to get a new facility built exclusively for their industry at Logan on Brisbane’s outskirts, primarily so they didn’t have to fight like school children with the harness racing crew at Albion Park, or worry about bowing to stupid and insane requests from show societies like the Ipswich Greyhound Racing Club has to from time to time. So after the greyhound industry were all set to get their own facility, then Bentley canned it. Then in an amazing back-flip just prior to the last State election Bentley agreed to spend 30-odd million to allow the Logan facility to proceed. Of course it’s history now that the Labour government didn’t get returned to power at the 2012 State elections, so that placed a question mark over Logan going ahead.

For his part, in his tenure of Chairman to date, Kevin Dixon won’t say whether Logan is going ahead or not under his regime - but it’s fair to say he’s gone out of his way to appease both the thoroughbred and harness racing industries, to this point, whilst doing seemingly nought for the greyhound industry.

In fact Dixon, to this point, has refused to tell the media - in particular respected greyhound racecaller and journalist Paul Dolan - if Logan will go ahead. Writing his weekly column in Ipswich’s daily fish and chip wrapper, The Queensland Times, on 18 May this year, Dolan asked Dixon the question: “When might we expect an announcement of what the new RQ (Racing Queensland) board proposes (for greyhound racing to have a new venue at Logan) to which Dixon replied, “Not within three months but no longer than six months” (which means not sooner than 18 August 2012 and no longer than 18 November 2012, minus a few days, as obviously Dolan wouldn’t have asked Dixon the question the day the article actually appeared in the paper). Now with the greatest of respect to Kevin Dixon, that is totally ridiculous - the greyhound industry shouldn’t be ginned around until the end of November to know if Logan is going ahead.

In a Justracing article that I penned on 22/5/12, I advised “Today Justracing can exclusively reveal what even the new Chairman of Racing Queensland, Kevin Dixon, cannot – namely that the greyhound industry in this State is to get a standalone venue at Logan, but Justracing understands that when it is eventually announced it will come with a twist” (that the 30-odd million Bentley promised will be a fraction of that figure, as Dixon wants to look after his good mates in the other two codes first then greyhound racing can have the scraps).

So it is vitally important that all greyhound licensees and interested persons attend a greyhound industry meeting this Sunday morning (22/7/12) at 11am upstairs at Albion Park and the details that have come through to this website from Stephanie Houghton of the QGBOTA (Queensland Greyhound Breeders Owners Trainers Association Inc) are that the meeting will feature “Kevin Dixon as guest speaker” and the topics to be discussed are 1) governance of the industry and 2) Racing Queensland’s vision for the greyhound industry going forward.

Justracing attended a harness racing public meeting in May at Albion Park, which featured only the Albion Park Chairman Kevin Seymour as guest speaker - and 112 attended that gathering, so hopefully more people can turn up to watch the actual incumbent Racing Queensland leader address the greyhound meeting.

Racing Queensland Handicapper Andrew Whitehead has advised that the scaled weights for Eagle Farm tomorrow are Race 1 + 0.50kg, Race 4 + 2.5 kgs, Race 5 + 2.5kgs, Race 7 + 2.5kgs, Race 8 -2kgs and Race 9 +2.5kgs.

Brisbane Racing Club Track Manager Bill Shuck advised the website late today that the Eagle Farm track is currently a slow 7. Bill further advised that he "expects the track to race like a genuine slow track tomorrow afternoon". He also passed a very interesting piece of information on to website visitors, noting that "on Wednesday, tests showed the evaporation rate was only 0.60 of one mm per hour, so it's no wonder tracks take so long to dry out in Winter".

In the exclusives department, rumours abound about a drama involving two high profile licensees at trackwork at Eagle Farm yesterday morning. I guess the Chief Steward, Wade Birch, will be right on top of that one, if there is any truth in the rumour mill. In the other major exclusive, watch for a high profile thoroughbred track CEO to possibly be shown the door after what is apparently being deemed a failed recent Carnival at his track. The CEO is currently employed at a major club, somewhere north of Sydney and could be up as far as Townsville. (Editor's footnote: Another website has the story up that the employment of the Grafton CEO has been terminated, so the news is already out. Thanks to the email writer who advised me soon after this article went up.)

The apprentice jockey weights for Eagle Farm tomorrow should be:

JOCKEY	WEIGHT
Anthony Allen	50 claims 3 kgs.
Kirk Matheson	51 claims 3 kgs.
Ryan Hurdle	52 claims 3 kgs.
Maija Vance	53 claims 2 kgs.
Brooke Richardson	42 claims 3 kgs.
Jacque Brown	52 claims 3 kgs.

Today on www.brisbaneracing.com.au I look at Eagle Farm Race 6. On www.sydneyracing.com.au I preview Flemington Race 4, whilst on www.melbourneracing.com.au Matt Nicholls looks at Flemington.

There are two major jackpots on Tattsbet tomorrow and they are: