Apart from hydrobathing (for soreness reasons) the day before maybe, I never thought of washing a dog on raceday. This may be where I went wrong for all of those years. I do remember someone (4 or so decades ago) hydrobathing their dog (was to become an outstanding dog) several times on raceday as part of a process to get it beaten that night. They had another one in it (not in their name) that they backed. Yes, the "deaden" did after having its muzzle squashed into its mouth when being put into the boxes, clearly miss the start but it still managed to circle the field and win by 6 lengths. The other one, they backed, was unplaced. I didn't know about this before the race and backed the winner that blew from 7/4 to 5/1. I found out immediately afterwards when I was momentarily happy (for them) but they were not.