The two trainers have been suspended by the National Greyhound Racing Club (NGRC), the sport’s governing body. Young’s husband, Graeme, has also been suspended from his job as an assistant racing manager at Pelaw Grange, a licensed dogtrack at Chester-le-Street in Co Durham.

Both Fenwick and Young now face formal stewards’ inquiries by the NGRC. The body has the power to fine them up to £5,000 each and to impose a lifetime ban from attending racetracks. NGRC rules stipulate that only vets can put down greyhounds.

The NGRC’s action comes a week after The Sunday Times exposed for the first time how healthy greyhounds were being slaughtered simply because they were no longer considered fit enough to race.

The killing of the greyhounds, some of which were aged only four or five and could have lived another 10 years, had long been suspected but never before proved. Alistair McLean, the NGRC’s chief executive, admitted he was “flabbergasted and appalled”.

Each year trainers retire around 10,000 licensed greyhounds from racing, but homes are only found for about a third of them. The remainder simply “disappear”, according to animal welfare groups.

Yesterday campaigners mounted dozens of protests outside tracks and betting shops throughout the country. In parliament last week, politicians raised concerns that the government’s forthcoming animal welfare act will not regulate the dog racing industry quickly enough.

The government is delaying until at least 2009 proposals that would make it illegal for a greyhound to be put down by anyone other than a vet using an intravenous injection.

The dogs buried in Smith’s so-called “canine killing field” were slaughtered by shooting them in their heads with a bolt gun, which is not at present illegal. The carcasses were then tipped into a hole in his plot before he used a mechanical digger to cover the “graves” with soil.

Smith told an undercover reporter that it took him three years to fill his one-acre plot with bodies, at which point he started over again. It was also said Smith had been providing a £10-a-time dog-killing service for sections of the greyhound industry for up to 15 years.

The scandal has caused widespread alarm within both the racing industry and also among the general public, as well as sparking inquiries by the government, the RSPCA and the tax authorities.

The Environment Agency, which has voiced concerns over the possible health implications of so many bodies buried in such a small space, is attempting to gain access to Smith’s land in order to excavate the plot.

Fenwick, 73, who was photographed arriving at Smith’s makeshift abattoir with his 44-year-old daughter and two greyhounds 11 days ago, revealed last night that the location was known to people in the industry as “the Garden of Eden”.

He said he had taken the dogs to be killed because they were too noisy and “a menace”, but insisted he had never visited Smith before and had not realised how he disposed of the bodies.

Fenwick said he was not the dogs’ trainer and claimed that he did not know their names although he estimated them to be four or five years old.

He said an unnamed man had given him the dogs, which were lame, and he had intended to keep them as pets before becoming irritated by their constant barking. “I just got them off this chap, he’s not a trainer, he’s an owner I think,” he said. “He gave them to us because they were a menace, barking and barking and barking, and I knew I’d get reported by the residents.

“I was going to keep them as pets, but it was private houses where I had got them and they were barking so I was talking to a chap as to the best way to put them to sleep and he said ‘the Garden of Eden, you can take them any morning’. But I wouldn’t have taken them there if I’d known [what happened there].”

He added: “I’d never been there in my life and one of the chaps said . . . if you take the dogs there they are put to sleep. He [Smith] has his own incinerator, the greyhounds are burnt and then the ashes are put on the land.

“Well, when I saw in the paper what he did with it I would never ever have taken a greyhound to be shot. I am totally innocent.”

Fenwick, who said his daughter only accompanied him “for the ride” and to help unload the dogs, insisted he normally used a vet to kill dogs humanely.

Last week Smith was visited by the police, who have satisfied themselves he was acting within the law. Bolt guns, which kill by firing a metal rod into an animal’s skull, have not required a licence since 1997.

Paddy Sweeney, a retired greyhound vet, said he knew Smith well and was aware he had been killing dogs for about 20 years.

He said Smith provided a cheap and humane service, but he was critical of the greyhound industry for causing dogs to be frequently injured, necessitating their destruction.

“Without a shadow of a doubt Dave Smith puts down dogs that have been injured at licensed tracks,” he said. “He is a good man but the people who exploit the dogs are vermin, they are lower than a snake.”

Harry Williams, a licensed trainer who has previously expressed concern over the welfare of retired dogs, said the industry’s problem with them being killed was linked to an increase in demand for greyhounds to fill bookmakers’ race programmes.

“The trainers are not interested in quality dogs, they just want cheap ones to fill race cards and, once they get injured, it is not worth their while to get them treated by a vet. We now have the advent of the disposable greyhound, thrown away like disposable nappies.”

Jeff McKenna, owner of the Pelaw Grange racetrack, said he had suspended the Youngs and Fenwick as soon as he was made aware of the allegations. The NGRC has no jurisdiction over Graeme Young, but McKenna said he had suspended him because of his family links to the trainers and would carry out his own inquiry. “We take the welfare of the dogs very seriously,” he said.

McLean said that as a result of a hotline set up to elicit more information, the NGRC now had “quality” tip-offs on about 30 trainers.

The kennel books of trainers showing where retired dogs have been sent are now being scrutinised by officials. “This is a very serious matter. It has brought the reputation of the sport into disrepute,” said McLean.
“We will do whatever is necessary to clean up our industry even if it takes six months or a year. We are extremely grateful for the assistance provided by The Sunday Times.”

RISE IN ANIMAL CRUELTY

The number of cases where animals and pets have been treated cruelly has risen sharply, according to figures to be announced this week.

Statistics compiled by the RSPCA will show a “significant rise” in every category of animal abuse.

Last year the charity reported 70,000 animals were being neglected or abused, a 78% rise on the 2003-04 figures. The 2004-05 report found 20,000 animals had been deprived of access to water, an increase of nearly 100% on the previous period.

It also highlighted cases such as a man who cut off a puppy’s ears and a couple who were found with the decomposing remains of dozens of exotic pets.

The latest, undisclosed, figures have been drawn from a number of sources including complaints made to the charity, prosecutions and convictions.

The charity will use the statistics to pressure the government to find parliamentary time for a new animal rights bill. Animal welfare campaigners want to see it on the statute book by early 2007.

The proposed law will impose a basic duty of care on every owner and provide for prosecutions of people who keep animals in conditions likely to lead to cruelty or neglect. At present, the authorities can act only once an animal has suffered abuse.

GA Comment: It is quite incredible that the NGRC appears to be so suprised by this revelation ... they know themselves less than 1/3 of the retiring licensed dogs are re-homed by their schemes ... didn't they ever wonder what happened to the others??? Surely if so many dogs are disappearing year after year ... you might ask questions ... lots of people involved in the racing industry obviously did know about the killing field ... because the estimated 10-15,000 dogs killed there had to come from somewhere.

The drug stops dogs winning because it "fries" their brains, preventing them from running on top form, and crooked punters cash in by betting on the doped greyhounds to LOSE.

There have been four cases of dogs testing positive for cocaine —and none of them finished first —but it is feared many more have gone undetected.

In an exclusive interview, Noel Thompson, security co-ordinator for the National Greyhound Racing Council, said: "People are giving drugs to dogs which they know will stop them."

Cocaine is a stimulant in humans, but when the drug is mixed in with a dog's food, its nervous system is overstimulated and the animal becomes disorientated.

"A doped greyhound will often struggle to go round bends and lose vital ground," said Mr Thompson. "Certain drugs will take the edge off a dog."

He added that the callous fixers are cruelly playing with the dogs' lives."They are giving them poison, because that's what drugs are," he said. "An overdose could kill a dog, just as it would a human being.

"We know for sure a number of gambles have taken place involving a greyhound which later tested positive. Inevitably gambles have been landed on greyhounds that were not tested."

Trainer

Around 10,000 dogs a year are tested and in 2005 up to 30 were found to be doped with drugs, including cocaine. The most recent cocaine case involved Dark Ranger at the Pelaw Grange track near Chester-le-Street in Durham last September. Both his trainer and kennel-hand were fined £1,000 and disqualified after the 7-4 chance finished third.

Mr Thompson said: "It's unlikely that a dog is ‘got at' without a trainer or someone on the staff being involved. People are definitely trying to buck the system."

He added: "Apart from cocaine, another big stopper is Cyclizine, the travel sickness pill.

"Beta-blockers, heart drugs, chocolate and amphetamines have all been used on greyhounds, I believe."

Another trainer, Andrew Gardiner, was severely reprimanded and fined £1,000 after his dog Emma The First was doped with beta-blocker Propranolol at Brough Park stadium, Newcastle upon Tyne, in October.

And greyhound agent William O'Donoghue was reprimanded and fined £400 after theophylline, an asthma treatment, and caffeine were found in a urine sample taken from Kiel Sensation at Perry Barr, Birmingham, last July.

Even the 2003 Greyhound Derby winner Droopys Hewitt tested positive for a painkiller in the third round of the competition, although the result was not known until after he had won the £75,000 final, two weeks later, when it was disqualified.

Millions of punters bet on greyhounds in betting shops, at dog tracks every day and on TV worldwide.

Annually greyhound racing generates a colossal £2.3 billion in off-course bets, and £87.5 million in Tote on-course bets at the UK's 31 tracks.

Wrecking

Online betting exchange Betfair—who offer punters the chance to gamble on greyhounds to lose races—has teamed up with the National Greyhound Racing Council to hound out the crooks.

When Betfair spot suspicious betting patterns they alert NGRC investigators who launch an immediate probe.

Mr Thompson says the sport's security squad is doing its "absolute best" to stop the dopers wrecking the country's second biggest gambling sport after horse-racing.

He added: "I think it is awful and disgusting for anyone to dope greyhounds, and our stewards look at it in the same way