With the price of petrol at the moment, it was probably the last thing Peter Presutto needed.
Last Saturday night’s Ladbrokes Country Classic Final at Dubbo was literally washed out when a freak storm hit the track, with officials deciding to postpone the event a week to March 28.
For Peter and his wife Nat, and the race favourite Without a Trace, it was back in the car and back to Devon Meadows in Victoria.
They will head back to the Central West again this Saturday for take two of the Classic final, and having been to Dubbo a week earlier for the event’s heats, by the time they get home on Sunday, they will have clocked up around 66 hours and more than 5,500 in kilometres on the road for the event.
“Someone joked that we need to win the $100,000 (first prize) to pay for our petrol bill,” Peter joked. “That’s a slight exaggeration but look, it is what it is. When you have a good greyhound, you have to travel.
“We can sit at home and wonder what would be, but when you've got ones that can run, you have to go where the races are. It’s not easy, but you have to have a crack. It’s about 11 hours with stops, and I don’t find it too bad.
“My wife Nat comes everywhere with me. On the longer trips it’s either me flapping me gums, and she just listens, or there’s always Spotify, and we’ll listen to a podcast or some Pink Floyd or Crowded House or Andre Boccelli. You chill out and before you know it your halfway there.
“It’s a good time to talk and relax. You're not doing the dogs at home, the kids are looking after that and in a way, you're sort of resting your mind.
“It's the closest thing to a holiday we tend to get.”
Peter and Nat did have an overnight stay in Parkes on the way home last Saturday night, choosing to break up the trip this time.
They also offset the disappointment of the Dubbo postponement by watching their dog Off The Chart win the $40,000 Shepparton Cup.
“We pulled over just as we got through Dubbo and I had to stop to watch, and honestly it was such a different experience. When you're at the track and you win, you can't really show that emotion and how you feel inside, but when it was just us, in the car, it was just pure relation, so bloody good.
“I was gutted on the night for everyone at Dubbo. I feel for the club it’s their big night of the year, it was a decent crowd, it looked great and would have been a huge night and hopefully they get them all back this Saturday.”
And while the Dubbo adventure will end this Saturday night, the travel won’t.
Presutto will have Without A Trace in the heats, and probably the final of the Group 1 Association Cup at Wentworth Park on April 4 and 11, so there will be another four 10-hour road trips up and back to Sydney.
Without A Trace, a striking greyhound being all white with a black mark around her right eye like an eye patch, was bred and is raced by Darren and Michael Puleio, and Peter admits he fell in love her when they first met when she was a young pup.
“She was absolutely gorgeous. She is striking and you don’t see many like her. She nestled into me because she was only a pup, and I knew pretty quickly she was going to be good … very good.
“You see the potential unfolding but you don’t know where it's going to end. It might stop, but with her it has kept going.
“And she's special at home too, everything about her is … how can I put it? She's just almost human. The good ones are, and she’s a good one.
“But you can't take it for granted. You can have years of drought and then a good one comes along, and you don’t know how long it's going to last. It makes you appreciate every moment, even the hard yards, because if you're doing the hard yards and you're doing those long trips, there’s a good reason why, it’s because you have a very good one.
“And she also doesn’t mind the travel. She relaxes and takes it all in her stride.”
Peter, Nat and Without A Trace will get back in the car at Devon Meadows at around 4.30am on Saturday morning. They’ll lock the map directions into the vehicle, see that it tells them Dubbo is nine hours and forty minutes away – which gets out to about 11 hours with toilet and food and water stops – and head off.
A little after 7pm Without A Trace will contest the Country Classic and hopefully for Peter and Nat, just over 34 seconds later, she will pass the post first and claim the $100,000 prize.
Win or not, the Presuttos will be back in the car and hitting the highway home soon after. Then seven days later, it will be back to Sydney for the Association Cup.
Perhaps Peter should play some Willie Nelson on the trip as “On The Road Again” seems very appropriate.
