Why? Well, at the time he had a collection of really smart dogs which were very good beginners and liked races up to 450m. So they killed them at Maitland.

A good track is one where you can win - trainer or punter.

Second story. One of the most famous club managers in the country (called secretaries then) reacted to my query about the integrity of his track. "They will be alright if they nick out in front".

Third story. Out of the mouth of babes. I used to often sit next to a pretty sensible guy in the Clubtab. He did not really have a clue about greyhound racing but liked a bit of fun putting $2 bets on Exotic combinations - all based on the numbers. His question to me was about Ipswich 431m: "Why don't they do something about that start". It was the only trip that he refused to bet on.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - and the bloke who places his dogs well.

The grading system needs a major tweak.....especially with the lack of greyhounds whelped over the last 24 months.

There's 4 country race meeting on Saturday -
Lithgow
Cowra
Wauchope
Broken Hill

Not ONE Top Grade race over 506m, 453m, 457m distances. 4th Grade best value.

Good time to own a good dog that's 3rd grade or higher.

Moss Vale track was almost unique (more so than Casino) because it had absolutely no straight at all. Some dogs liked it, some did not.
Plenty of bookies, though.

For many years they failed to install supergrass in front of the boxes. When they eventually did, times were lowered by half a second.

The great (?) Darryn Flindell (later Hong Kong and Randwick) was the caller then. A deckchair on a sunny day was the way to go.

Dead and buried now (local council)!

6 races had no reserves to start with.

The fact is that this pattern has been going on for years. It is not recent, although it may have got even worse. IF you look more closely, an even worse situation would have emerged if authorities had not started programming Maidens, Novices and short races at city tracks. All of which then affected the provincials, and so on and so on. If you go back, the source of all that was the introduction of two weekly "provincial" standard meetings in Melbourne some 15 years ago. The rest just snowballed.

Part of the cause is the addition of extra meetings across the nation - eg more 12-race meetings in the hope of increasing revenue. Another is the concentration on presenting any old race, irrespective of quality. Part of that is the various grading systems which all favour low standard races and dogs (there are good and bad aspects of that). Note WA had to ease its interstate qualifications in order to attract more higher grade dogs to fill their normal races.

Above all, administrations have not been doing their sums.

Allied with that is the nonsensical findings of all three state reviews that over-breeding is the big problem. They are still saying that today. Hard to believe!

A solution would be to complete recast grading and programming to (a) match the demand and (b) establish marketing ventures to encourage more public support - thereby raising revenue per race (to replace any deleted races/meetings).

While we are at it, virtually no-one outside a few bureaucrats can tell us what revenue per race we are achieving - because the corporate cash is unknown at that stage. Consequently, published material (ie the tote) contains distorted information and is full of overbet favourites, thereby discouraging more punters. It's a vicious cycle.

... and they didn't get enough noms for a Grade 5 over the 520m ...

Caller was the late Graham Tonkin(god rest his soul).