Greyhound Racing NSW (GRNSW) today has announced a number of positive amendments to the NSW Grading Policy, that are an extension to the established Industry Future Blueprint, designed to further maximise opportunities for participants and their greyhounds in NSW.
The GRNSW Racing Operations Department have developed the amendments to the Grading Policy and will be introduced to the Racing Program from meetings drawn after the 16 October 2026, that follows the conclusion of racing at Wentworth Park next month.
GRNSW undertook consultation with the Trainers Advisory Group (TAG) panel who have indicated support of the Grading Policy amendments.
GRNSW Racing Operations Manager, Richard Zogbee, said the amendments to the Grading Policy will provide greater opportunity and flexibility with participants now being able to place their greyhounds to win $21,000 in 5th Grade City Class events before moving to a 4th Grade, whilst further Grading amendments will support greyhounds having won 16 races the opportunity to drop back to a 5th grade event.
The Four Grading Policy amendments are:
· Grading Policy 7.3(a)(i): To increase the number of 5th Grade City Wins from 2 to 3 before a greyhound goes to 4th Grade.
· Grading Policy 7.5(a)(ii): To increase the number of 5th Grade Provincial wins from 2 to 3 before a greyhound goes to a 4th Grade at Country Class meetings.
· Grading Policy 8.5: To amend the Greyhound Drop Back Rule that will allow a greyhound that has won 16 races and more the opportunity to drop back to a 5th Grade.
· Grading Policy 9.2(vi): To remove the unrequired reserve preference from graded events.
The Grading Policy amendments will encourage participants to nominate for City Class meetings knowing that their greyhounds can be placed to have three opportunities to win penalised 5th grade events before being eligible to be drawn in a Non-Grade event, simply adding an extra 5th grade City win within the Policy.
This will result in participants having the opportunity to win the $21000 in 5th Grade City class events before moving up to 4th Grade.
The increasing of 5th grade Provincial wins from 2 to 3 before going to 4th grade at Country Class comes about as the industry has an excessive amount of 4th grade greyhounds with 3 or 4 wins, having won these events at provincial class meetings. The change will create a more even spread of grades across distances at Country meetings with greyhounds with similar wins racing together.
In amending the drop back rule this will allow greyhounds that have won 16 races the opportunity to drop back to 5th grade. Currently, once a greyhound has won 15 City & Provincial events combined, excluding its maiden, it is ineligible to drop back in grade from 4th grade to 5th grade at Country or Provincial meetings.
This amendment allows greyhounds to drop back to 5th grade following 5 unplaced runs since it’s last win in a particular class and distance category.
The final amendment was to remove the unrequired reserve preference from graded events.
An unrequired reserve comes about when drawn reserves do not gain a start and these greyhound reserves had insufficient points to be drawn in a field. This Grading Policy previously served a purpose when the industry had excessive nominations at meetings racing once per week, giving greyhounds the opportunity to be drawn the following week. In the current racing climate with tracks and regions conducting on average multiple meetings per week there are a limited number of greyhounds missing out on an opportunity to start, particularly over the Sprint and Distance categories.
This change will not be instigated for maiden events as these greyhounds can sometimes miss out on being drawn in an event through other circumstances, not necessarily poor form.
In further positive news for participants and also punters, GRNSW has commenced publishing weights of greyhounds at each race meeting.
Stewards upload the weights to the organisation’s website, thedogs.com.au before the first race. These can be found by hitting the ‘weights’ tab on race fields on the site.
GRNSW has also initiated discussions with GWIC and is hopeful of an imminent positive outcome around introducing universal kennelling closing times of 30 minutes prior to the first race as the case is at Wentworth Park, instead of the usual 45 minutes at other tracks.
