TAREE Greyhound Club will conduct a non-TAB meeting at the Kanangra Drive track next Wednesday.
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Club president Des McGeachie said this will be a dress rehearsal for the first TAB meeting to be held at the track on Wednesday June 17.
"This will give us a chance to get the bugs out of the system before we go to the big time,'' Mr McGeachie said.
In January Greyhound Racing NSW (GRNSW) announced that Taree would conduct 18 TAB meetings a year, in a first for the code on the Mid North Coast. All meetings will be run on Wednesday afternoons.
It was planned to stage the first meeting in April.
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However, the COVID-19 pandemic stymied those hopes. Taree hasn't run a meeting since March as Greyhound Racing NSW reduced the number of meetings held throughout the State and also the number of tracks where racing could be held.
However, Mr McGeachie said the delay has also enabled the club to complete the majority of upgrades at Kanangra Drive required by Greyhound Racing to conduct a TAB meeting.
"We're about 90 per cent finished,'' he said.
"We had an inspection last week and a couple more little things were added to the list. But we should have those finished by June 17.''
Mr McGeachie said GRNSW recently lifted the travel restrictions throughout the State that were in place due to COVID-19.
He explained the club is now conducting trials two days a week at the track.
"We have to book the trials now to make sure we don't get too big a crowd at the track at the one time. And we've been fully booked out so far,'' he added.
Mr McGeachie expects the club will have 12 races on June 3 and a similar number for the June 17 TAB meeting.
He said there'll be a strong representation of visiting trainers here for the opening TAB meeting.
"We already have a lot of Newcastle boys here for the trials,'' he said.
"And we've always enjoyed great support from Newcastle trainers. This will only get better when we start running TAB meeting regularly.''
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However, patrons won't be able to attend meetings for the foreseeable future due to tight restrictions on who can enter the track.
Trainers can only stay for as long as they have racing commitments while there are numerous other guidelines the club has to comply with.
Mr McGeachie said the club will hold a gala meeting when crowds are permitted back to the track to welcome in the new era for greyhound racing in this area. That was the original plan before the pandemic hit.
"Whenever it is it won't be our first TAB meeting. But it will be the first meeting open to the public,'' he said.
