RICHMOND Race Club’s biggest race of the year will feature three Hawkesbury owned runners.
Kristy and Michelle Sultana’s Struggle Street, Frank Bennett and Brock On while Frank Hurst has Unique Gatsby in the Richmond Riches final.
Struggle Street has drawn box one, while Unique Gatsby has drawn box three.
In 2014, the club hosted the Richmond Riches auction and sold 350 pups, which would be eligible for this year’s race series.
Over the past two weeks there have been heats and semi-finals to drill down to the eight quickest dogs for the final race, with the winner taking home $100,000.
Richmond Race Club general manager Brad Adam said the race would be the biggest on the club’s calendar for the foreseeable future.
“It is just a huge boost for the club. In the climate we're in at the moment, to have a showpiece $100,000 race and the success and calibre of the greyhounds puts a nice footprint down for the club,” he said.
“We’re pulling out all the stops to encourage families to come down. We’ll have an open air cinema, a jumping castle and go-karts for the kids. This is our feature event and we'd love for everyone to come and support it.”
Adam said while he would love to see a locally owned greyhound win the race, Thirty Talks, trained by Tony Brett had become a crowd favourite.
Thirty Talks sold for $30,000 in 2014, and has mixed it with some of Australia’s best already.
“When Thirty Talks first came to race a few weeks ago, you could have heard a pin drop because the crowd wanted to know how he would go,” Adam said.
Adam said the Richmond Riches idea, excitement aside, had been a very successful one for the club.
“The hard work of the committee, board and [former general manager] Wayne Billett all sees this come to fruition on Saturday,” he said.
“We want crowds coming back to the track and it helps when you've got such a great calibre of greyhounds racing.
“The club is over the moon. The first two weeks have exceeded our expectations. In a business sense the club has done exceptionally well.”