Urine samples, soft-serves and an empty grandstand: A night out at the greyhound track

Of all the places to spend a cold Thursday night in inner Sydney, the Wentworth Park greyhound racetrack is not top of many Sydneysiders’ list. But for a select few, there’s no better place to be.

It’s been days of horrible headlines for the industry: the Herald wrote about an explosive report that alleged “barbaric” treatment of Greyhound Racing NSW dogs, the group’s chief executive resigned hours later and the state minister for racing has demanded to know why the entire board shouldn’t be sacked immediately.

Empty stands at Wentworth Park Greyhound races on Thursday night.Credit: Louise Kennerley

But what is a regular Thursday night greyhound meet like? We went to find out.

You know it’s a race night before you arrive at the track – barking dogs can be heard from blocks away. And as Glebe locals walk past the track with their cavoodles and labradors, inside the racing dogs are being put in a kennel.

From there, an official takes a urine sample via an oversized soup ladle, and dogs are prepared to be paraded onto the track with their trainer.

The first dogs are boxed up on the track just before 7pm (the races go on well past 10.30pm). With a great buzz, a lure – a mechanical object attached to the inside of the track with two rabbit-tail-like objects attached to it – flies past the boxes and the dogs leap out in chase. It remains about 10 metres in front of the first dog.

In one race, a greyhound falls on its back, having stumbled as it chased the lure. It gets up uninjured, but places last – by a long while.

I’m watching the 11 races (with titles like Ladbrokes Fast Withdrawals and Ladbrokes Easy Form Bitches Only) from the grandstand’s bar (called the Ladbrokes Sports Bar). It is drenched entirely in the colours of the betting giant. About 20 people have set up for the evening on wooden tables, the only things in sight that aren’t red and white. The chairs are red and white and so are the ribbons that cover the ceiling. The pool table, the bar, and even the toilet cubicles are all bright red.

Five scrawny men in their early 20s sit in one corner of the bar’s outdoor section overlooking the track. It’s their first time here, having travelled up from Melbourne. They’re wearing white business shirts, tucked into unironed pants. One wears a suit.

I ask them why they decided to come to the dogs, as fans call it. Each of them place their two mobile phones on the table, and one mentions being in a syndicate. Then another one tells them to stop talking.

“But it’s legal,” one of them, with a spiky mullet, rushes to add.

But these men are by no means the youngest here. There are many children around the grounds. One child spends the evening sleeping in a van in the car park, and four boys, no older than seven, are chasing each other through the seats of the almost-empty grandstand, their father watching on.

This entire evening is made for broadcast. In the 20 minutes between each race, similar races are presented from Ballarat, Penrith, Hobart and beyond. More than $200,000 was held in TAB pools on Thursday, but millions more were bet with corporate bookmakers by stay-at-home punters.

At the end of the night, some trainers approach an ice cream truck in the muddy car park. It’s here every Monday and Thursday, and does good business: the greyhounds love soft-serve ice cream.

With Chris Roots