Angela Della Bosca with third placegetter Balmoral Queen, Riverina MP Michael McCormack, Ladbrokes’ Jarrod Timms, Mason Koffman with Bidgee Cup Final (525m) winner Intrepid Bale, Wagga Greyhounds Club president Ben Talbot, Greyhound Racing NSW club operations manager Tim Newbold, GRNSW commercial manager Ryan Earl-Najjor and Mark Suttle with runner-up Skedaddle Arlo. Della Bosca had her fair share of Dapto winners.
The Dapto Dogs had always been a story of grit and hope, a tale as Australian as a meat pie and a Holden car. It began in the darkest days of the Great Depression, a new greyhound track in a sleepy New South Wales town. It was a place where people could gather, cheer, and, for a few hours, forget the gnawing ache of poverty.
On February 25, 1937, the first race was run, a hopeful distraction that would soon become a global legend. Fast forward nearly 89 years to a Thursday night in September. The air, usually still and quiet on a weeknight, hummed with a mix of anticipation and melancholy. The Dapto Showground was a hive of activity, a stark contrast to the mostly empty stands of recent years. Food trucks lined the perimeter, their grills sizzling. Live music drifted from a makeshift stage, competing with the excited chatter of thousands of voices. Children shrieked with delight as jugglers and performers on stilts weaved through the crowd.
Among the throng was Joe Formosa, a man whose life had been intertwined with the Dapto Dogs since the 1970s. He’d brought his racing tip book from 1971, the pages brittle with age, the ink faded but still legible. He ran a weathered thumb over the entry for a first-place win: a princely sum of $98.
“The prize money was nice back then, and the dogs didn’t cost much to raise,” he said, his voice soft with nostalgia. He pointed out the dogs’ docile nature, “They’re one of the best dogs to have as pets.”
Earlier that day, he’d had a skin cancer cut out, but nothing could have kept him away from this final farewell. “This is an amazing turnout, not what I was expecting,” he admitted, a tear welling in his eye. Just a few feet away, Caroline Dyball, a 25-year-old local, felt her own wave of emotion. She’d been coming to the track with her family since she was a little girl, a cherished Thursday night tradition.
“As a kid, I remember it being packed pretty much every time we came,” she recalled. “It’s changed over the years, but I think now that everyone’s realising it’s going, they’ve thought they’ve got to come one more time.” Her voice cracked slightly. “I think it’s really sad. I’m getting quite emotional about it because I don’t want it to close.”
The liveliness of the night was tinged with the sadness of finality. Everyone knew this was the last time the dogs would run here. The decision to close the racetrack was a culmination of years of tension between Greyhound Racing NSW (GRNSW) and the Dapto Agricultural and Horticultural Society (AHS), the showground’s owners. The two had been on-again, off-again, but this time, the AHS had a firm vision for the future of The Groundz Precinct—a future that did not include greyhound racing.
After the final race, an announcement boomed over the loudspeakers, inviting punters onto the track. A hushed reverence fell over the crowd as people stepped onto the familiar clay-and-sand surface. They bent down, scooping up handfuls of sand—a tangible, dusty memory to take home. The finished post arch, a symbol of so many dreams realised and shattered, was then auctioned off, its final purpose to serve as a memento. Then, as the last of the crowds filtered out, the racetrack lights were turned off. Not with a dramatic flick of a switch, but with a slow, deliberate fading, a final sunset on nearly nine decades of history.
The Dapto Dogs, pioneers in their sport, a place of hope during the Great Depression, a tradition for generations of families, had run their last race. The story had come to an end, and all that remained were the memories, a handful of sand, and the quiet echo of a final, collective goodbye.
– Tully Potts
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