The new greyhound racing Centre of Excellence at Taree will be a catalyst to more younger people becoming involved in the sport in coming years.
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The multi-million Mid North Coast venue is nearing completion and expected to be ready to conduct trials in coming weeks.
Once it is fully completed, it will commence racing every Wednesday night.
Nathan Goodwin and his wife Leeanne are not only one of the Mid North Coast's most successful training teams, but one the region's biggest kennels, and Nathan believes that the new facility will have a positive impact on participant growth.
"I think the new track will be great for the Taree region because it's a massive region of the Mid North Coast for dog population," said Nathan who is based a modest distance up the coast from Taree at Kempsey.
"They have certainly made the right decision to go to Taree and make it the Centre of Excellence with that brand new track as there are now many more trainers in the Taree area than here at Kempsey and Wauchope and around our area," Nathan continued.
"It used to be different.
"I had this conversation recently where I remember 35-40 trainers here at Kempsey, now there's about five or six trainers here in town."
Nathan does have hope for the future of the sport in this region though.
"It's no secret that we need the younger generation to replace our older generation in the industry, and I think the new track in Taree will help that in a big way.
"Quite a few families in the region have younger kids coming through, and I'm sure they will pick up the baton and run with it."
Among the work conducted at Taree has been a new track with a loam surface, a new tower, new rail and SafeChase lure system, improvements to the patron areas, a new grass slipping track, new automated gates on the catching pen, and a new irrigation monitoring system.
Nathan says he hasn't been out to look at the building of the new facility as yet, preferring to wait until "it's ready to go".
"I'm told that it's coming along quite nicely. I really won't go there until it's open and ready to go.
"There's no need for me to go and annoy people.
"I'll just leave it until it's all said and done and the new toys are ready to play with."
Leeanne and Nathan have had some great success mainly racing at Ladbrokes Gardens in Newcastle and making the trek to Wentworth Park, but they will enjoy having a track on their doorstep in coming weeks.
And expansion is on their agenda.
"I know that sounds ludicrous in some ways, and you don't often hear that, but we are endeavouring to build a new kennel block in the future with 40 kennels, so hopefully we'll keep 40 race dogs in work and then use our old race kennels for dogs ready for retirement and winding down from racing, as well as broodbitches.
"It's full on, but that's the way it's meant to be. And I think the industry is in a good position.
"Stevie Wonder could tell that the industry was going to slow down a little bit with the downturn and rising cost of living and everything that goes with it, but I think the dogs are in good position.
"We're doing well out of the industry and we'll keep soldiering on. We just get on with it and hopefully make some magic happen."
This article was produced as part of an ACM partnership with Greyhound Racing NSW.
