Dog racing foes to seek ban at polls

Opponents of greyhound racing plan to gather this morning at the State House and march to the attorney general's office to file a ballot initiative calling for banning the sport.

The Somerville-based Committee to Protect Dogs, which believes the practice is cruel to the animals, wants to put the measure before voters in November 2008.

If Attorney General Martha Coakley approves the wording of the question, racing opponents will have nine weeks this year to collect 66,593 petition signatures to get it on the ballot.

A similar measure made it onto the 2000 ballot, but lost by a narrow margin. A campaign to get the measure on the ballot in 2006 stalled when the state's highest court ruled the wording of the proposal was invalid.

Wesley Eberle, a spokesman for Wonderland Greyhound Park in Revere, had no comment. A message left at the Raynham-Taunton Greyhound Park was not immediately returned.

Christine Dorchak, who cochairs the Committee to Protect Dogs, said, "Greyhound racing involves cruelty to these gentle dogs."

She said that many greyhounds are injured and that when they are not racing, they are confined in "warehouse-style kennels" where they can barely stand up.