Commencing next month, one maiden event over 305 metres (worst to best rating) will be programmed at Mount Gambier’s weekly time-graded meetings.

This follows consultation between the Mount Gambier Greyhound Racing Club and Shaun Mathieson, Greyhound Racing SA’s Racing Manager.

As far as Sunday 305 metre races are concerned, maidens will take preference followed by juveniles and then masters. Overall, the club will preference in order races over 732 m, 600 m, 512 m, 400 m and 305 m.

The MGGRC was also looking at how to address the situation whereby greyhounds remained in time-graded events after they had won multiple races, often in brilliant time and were simply too good for those events.

Mathieson said there didn’t appear to be an issue with the 1-4 wins block as greyhounds move out of that on race wins but he believed 5+ wins events required some addressing.

“Greg (Barber) and I have considered some options and the best one could be restricting the 5+ events over 400 metres to no faster than a time rating 5.50. What this means is greyhounds with a 5.25 time rating or faster are left out altogether.

“The numbers are high in this pool so it shouldn’t be affected too much. We wouldn’t recommend this for 512 metre racing as the numbers generally provide for only one race. Any restriction could cost others a run.

“Also, we’re not sure if restricting field sizes or pulling out last start winners based on a one-off time will aid this issue.”