STEVE Kavanagh must be doing something right. Steve, 62, has been in greyhound racing since 1973 and while he will always be best remembered as the man who put the polish on the legend Brother Fox, ask him to name some of his top performers and it reads long and loud.
Steve and partner Carol potter around on a five-acre property just outside Murwillumbah (in northern New South Wales).
They’ve been there for a few years now, churning out winner after winner, most of them quality gallopers.Dogs like Smooth Rumble (left), Collision, Ace Hi Rumble and today’s stars Hot To Rumble, Rumble Fire etc.
Steve ALWAYS has a smart dog in his kennel. He breeds and rears his own, sticking religiously to his own damline, one that he has had since 1976 when he bought Miss Rumble (Hot Rumble-Calm Josie).
His property has a kennel block, two whelping areas, two pup holding yards, a 300m straight track and a four-acre galloping paddock.
It is a showplace property tuned to producing not ony winners, but quality race dogs, some among the best in the world, breed shapers to say the least.Steve Kavanagh talks to Journal Editor DAVID BRASCH about his breeding and rearing methods.
STEVE Kavanagh spent most of his younger days living in Dubbo. It was where he started his greyhound racing passion. It is said everyone has their 15 minutes of fame, but Steve has had much more than that.
But he learnt from the best, Ron Brown, Alan Pringle and “trial and error”. He has specific ideas about just what type of bitch makes an ideal broodbitch.
He makes judicious sire selections based mostly on what type of greyhound he will produce.
And then he rears his pups better than most, with nothing but the best food and as much galloping as those pups can possibly take.
TEMPERAMENT
Steve’s first criteria when deciding on a future broodbitch is their ability. “They have GOT to be able to run, be at least a city winner or the potential to win in the city,” he said.
But while that is the first criteria, it is just as important to Kavanagh that his broodbitches MUST have the right temperament.He has been nurturing his current damline since he bought Miss Rumble back in 1976.
“I will never entertain a bitch that is overexcited, hyped up, noisy, or a raving lunatic no matter how fast they are on the racetrack,” he said. He points out that he has heard his latest superstar broodbitch Rumble Spirit bark only once in her 10-year life.
Because Steve is so well known in the industry, gets around the country racing his best dogs, and has so many contacts within the game, he quickly gets to know the traits, good and bad, of most lines specially those of stud dogs.
Certain lines keep producing the hyperactive type of dog and that’s the lines I stay away from, no matter how fast the pups they sire or produce are,” he said.
Kavanagh says he prefers a race bitch to be a stayer, or one that can run out a strong 500m. “That’s not to say I haven’t bred with a bitch that was a shortcourser, but these days I stick to the stronger bitches,” he said.
“Rumble Spirit won in 30.48 around Albion Park, but she also ran a tick off a track record at Beenleigh and she is by Malawi’s Prince who has been a great broodbitch sire.”
His present day star broodbitch Vintage Rumble won from 400m to 747m winning the Coonamble Stayers Cup and a number of city races. “She ran home in 12.42 at Albion Park one night when winning a 520m race,” he said. “That’s strength.”
He would never breed with a marathon bitch. “That type of bitch usually has a question mark about their chasing instincts,” he said.
FIGHTERS
Steve says he would never entertain breeding with a bitch that fought. And the question of “iffy” bitches having the ability to produce high class greyhounds is not a thing he has to worry about.
“I’ve found that by concentrating on my own damline, it is not a problem for me,” he said. “My damline produces chasers. I don’t have to keep my fingers crossed all the time hoping they will go.”
As for the number of race starts a potential broodbitch should be restricted to, Steve does not limit himself or his race bitches. “I don’t have a cut-off number,” he said. “But I seldom race them past about 50 race starts.
“But you also don’t see me racing my bitches twice a week, and even week in, week out. If I’ve got a good race bitch, then it is in the back of my mind to breed with her so she won’t be flogged around.”
When a race bitch finally comes to the end of her career and Steve puts her to stud, he will breed from her every time she comes on season, barring any unforeseen problems etc.
“Obviously if a bitch has raced on hormones then she should be given time to let down,” he said. “But usually my bitches are ready to be bred with the first time they come on after they finish racing.”
He says many of the things breeders, owners and trainers adhere to in this industry are based on “old wives tales”.
“If you went along with every phobia in greyhound racing, you wouldn’t walk outside the door,” he said. “I find that the non achievers make the most noise.”
WHELPING
Once a bitch is retired, Kavanagh takes them off a racing diet and starts “desenseatising them”.
“They are still allowed to free gallop every day in the paddock.”
Steve and Carol have whelped so many litters over the years that it is almost second nature to them. They always inform their local vet they have a litter due just in case any problems arise that need vet attention.
“We can handle most situations,” he said. Once a broodbitch whelps, Steve feeds the bitch as much food as she wants and keeps the fluids up to her. She is normally wormed in the middle of the pregnancy and has a parvo shot at the six weeks stage.
The pups are wormed with a mild wormer at a week old and then every week until they are 12 weeks old when they are started on Ivomec which is then used for the rest of the dog’s career.
Pups at the Kavanagh property are introduced to solid food very early, usually after two or three weeks. “It is usually a diet of soft mince and milk, cereal etc and it is amazing how quickly they get used to it and take to the solid food,” he said.
Vaccination comes at six weeks and again at four months. “These days you’ve got to have the vaccination certificate up to date before you can sell a pup and that means they stay with you at least until they are four months old.”
GALLOPING
All Kavanagh bred pups are moved from their whelping box at eight weeks to 40m x 50m holding yards and their mother is moved to this yard with them. Kavanagh is a stickler for keeping the broodbitch with her pups at least until the pups are six or seven months old.
“The dam teaches them everything,” he says. “We put her in the galloping paddock with her pups twice a day. She gets them running and generally disciplines them as well.”
Every litter being reared by Steve and Carol has a “good session” in the four-acre galloping paddock morning and afternoon.
“When the pups get a bit older, we will often put a racing dog on our straight track which runs alongside the pups' galloping paddock,” said Steve.
“The racing dog will gallop up and back a couple of times and this really stretches out those pups. This usually happens from about 10 months old until we send them to breaking in.”
Steve cannot believe people who restrict the galloping of pups. “Our pups are galloped from the moment they can. And we produce sound, quality race dogs. “The best pups we have reared often appear to be those that naturally want to run all the time when they are growing up. They are the ones that never need anything to get them to gallop.”
BEST BROODBITCHES
Kavanagh reckons in all the years he has been breeding and rearing, the best broodbitches are more often that not those who are the best mothers.
“They are nearly always the ones who have huge amounts of milk to feed their pups, refuse to leave them at all and care for them so well,” he said.
“We’ve had bitches still wanting to feed their pups when they are four months old.”
He is adamant that this is all part of the temperament factor he bases his broodbitch selection so heavily on.
Pups on the Kavanagh property are fed only the best fresh meat he can buy. He does not overdo the milk supply for his pups but does feed it in the morning.
“Our pup meal consists of red meat mixed with kibble,” he says. “We will also mix, from time to time, chicken mince, lamb offcuts, chicken necks just to try to vary the meal for the pups.
“We do not feed our pups individually. They fend for themselves, but there is always enough for every pup to get its fill. And because of the temperament of this damline, we do not get any problems with pups fighting each other.”
The kibble used is a mix between Supercoat and Hills Science Diet. The racing dogs all race on Hills Science Diet. No vitamins are added to the Kavanagh pups diet. “We do give a dose of cod liver oil every second or third day, and we give brisket bones all the time, at least two or three times a week,” he said. The racing dogs get shin bones.
BREAKING IN
Education at the Kavanagh kennel starts at six to seven months when the pups are taught to lead.
Before they go to be broken in, each will come into the racing kennels for a month to get used to this routine, and are also given a couple of gallops up the straight track behind the drag lure.
“We don’t do a lot with them before breaking in, but we at least want them to be chasing up the straight before they go,” said Steve. “I really only want the breaking in complexes to get them coming out of the starting boxes and go around a circle track a few times.”
STUD DOGS
Steve is adamant that 75 percent of the recipe for success in greyhound racing comes from the broodbitch. “It is easily that number,” he said.
When choosing a prospective stud dog mate for his bitches, he will not use stayers, but he wants a dog to have run out a strong 520m and run time on a number of different tracks, and even in a few different states.
“And I want consistency in their performances.” He does not particularly select a stud dog for its conformation. “When someone buys frozen semen of an overseas dog, how do they know what he looks like,” he said.
“And the size of a stud dog does not worry me either.”
He will use a proven or unproven stud dog if he likes the dog and feels he fits his breeding criteria.
”I’ll give you an instance,” he said. “I’m going to use Westmead Hawk who is not proven. But he twice won the English Derby and then his half brother won it this year. He’s out of a bitch by my dog Smooth Rumble.”
Steve has Spiritual Rumble and Vintage Rumble planned for matings with him. It will double-up his damline. “The Irish dog is not as good as the Australian dog, but it is fast catching up with the Aussie influence,” said Steve.
NOT FOR SALE
Steve admits to breeding failures as well. “We had a really smart race bitch called Bristol Shade who was a sister to Paris Match. Our bitch was a failure but Paris Match was a broodbitch legend,” he said.
“We’ve had other damlines but finally got rid of them. The Osti Lee damline has been fantastic, but we’ve never had any luck with it.”
Kavanagh’s pups these days are generally not for sale. “I can’t sell the factory,” he said.
He and his great mate Tony Lockett usually split litters.
He is selective however. “I bred Vizard (Collision-Late Show Lady) and he broke three track records at the Gold Coast and his litter brother No Excess who was almost as fast,” he said.
“But none of the bitches in the litter were fast enough. So why breed with them.”
While he will look at breeding theories, nicks, crosses etc, Steve says he will not go out on a limb.
He’s proven that with success for the past 30 years.
DAVID BRASCH RUNS THE QUEENSLAND GREYHOUND JOURNAL
(188 runners in 32 races)
JA MANN (Brett Lee x Black Stone Lace)
DROOPYS LEE (Westmead Hawk x Droopys Maddy)
CAPE TIME (Westmead Hawk x Swift Time)
BANJO (Droopys Maldini x All Claddagh)
SOVIET MALDINI (Droopys Maldini x Soviet Georgia)
TIP AND TIN (Crash x Tinas Glory)
for the excellent condition of the running surface. To even get racing to take place was an achievement as the roads around Thurles resemble an icerink and the cotton wool-like freezing fog is falling quickly.