This Saturday – some 443 days after it was closed for a $6.2Mil redevelopment – the once tired and run down Glenview Park greyhound racetrack in Traralgon will reopen for business.
It has been a busy lead-up for the club, which in recent weeks has held numerous trial sessions as well as a picnic meeting last weekend, and no one is more excited about the way things are progressing than Traralgon GRC Manager, Hec Caruana.
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Q. What did you take out of last Saturday’s picnic meeting?
Hec Caruana: The picnic meeting was terrific. We had 100 dogs go around in half-dog fields and we raced over four of our five distances excluding the 665m. It also gave us an opportunity to use the new facility, test everything to iron out any kinks, and it gave our staff the chance to get back into the routine of running a race meeting.
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Q. Are you happy with how the track has been performing so far?
HC: To be completely honest I was extremely nervous up until a few weeks ago when the first few dogs trialled here on a Wednesday afternoon. But they all handled the track really well and were holding their ground brilliantly. I’ve been supremely confident about the performance of this track ever since. We’ve held at least a dozen trial sessions since then with over 500 dogs going around, and the dogs are finding they’re able to hug the rail well, especially on the home bend. I haven’t heard a bad word from anyone.
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Q. What do you like most about this track compared to the old Traralgon track?
HC: There’s so much space to race on this track. In fact, the old Traralgon track would have fit inside this one. The front straight and the back straight are both nice and long, in fact they are exactly 80 metres in length, which the two bends are 150m long. The width of the track is 7.5 metres compared to 5.5 metres on the old track, so it is an extremely spacious circuit and is extremely conducive to clean racing.
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Q. Will Traralgon be racing every Saturday going forward?
HC: We’ll be racing virtually every Saturday (twilight) and also running Tier 3 meetings every Monday (twilight). The Traralgon Cup will be run in September, so we are looking forward to seeing a number of elite greyhounds heading this way to race over the coming weeks, which is very exciting.
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Q. What can punters look forward to at Saturday’s opening race meeting?
HC: We are hosting 12 races including three heats of a new race called the New Track Challenge, the first of which is Race 1 on the card. This race is open to local trainers only, so it will be great that the first greyhound to win on this track will be trained locally. Whichever greyhound wins the first race at a new track is something people historically remember so we as a club are really looking forward to that.
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Traralgon Saturday formguide: Click Here
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And in with the New…
A greyhound trials on the new Traralgon racetrack.