Privately owned by the Richmond Race Club and has been used to run racing businesses since 1912.
Close to three booming northwest development corridor including, developers would be eyeing the land.
But general manager Brad Adam has been quoted as saying the club was still weighing up its options.
Soon after the Baird Government announced it would close down the industry after a damning report found systemic cruelty, Mr Adam told the Financial Review it was “too early to make decisions”.
“First thought is we have a sizeable piece of land with a function centre and liquor licence and we need to decide how to use it best,” Mr Adam said.
Richmond, Appin Greyhound Track and Potts Park Arena at Yagoona will all be affected. They employ mostly local people.
Cruelty in the industry first came to light in a ABC TV Four Corners report in 2015.
That led to the NSW Government setting up a special commission of inquiry into the NSW greyhound racing industry.
As well as live baiting, the commission found evidence that at least 50 per cent of dogs bred were deliberately killed because they were not competitive racing greyhounds.
The commission found that the practice of live baiting was "rampant and chronic" and "firmly enmeshed" in the industry and that the Greyhounds NSW board knew since at least 2009 that live baiting was an issue and had done nothing about it.
It estimated that somewhere between 49,000 and 68,000 dogs (50 to 70 per cent) born in the past 12 years have been killed because they never were, or no longer were, capable of being competitive greyhounds.
The commission made 80 recommendations to the NSW Parliament. Seventy-nine of these recommendations focused on ways to prevent live baiting and improve industry governance to protect animal welfare.
Old trainers dogged by ban
DANNY Keaney’s doctor is worried about him since he let his beloved greyhounds go.
But his depression is not just over giving up his beloved racing dogs Molly and Suzie - it’s his grief at the greyhound racing industry virtually ending after next July.
“I have had a quadruple heart bypass and exercising the dogs was good for me, but it was no use keeping them when I couldn’t race them,” he said.
“Doctor says I’m suffering from depression since I let my two dogs go. I lived for them, preferring their company to people sometimes,” Danny,67, told Access, showing us around his South Granville home where there are constant reminders of his dogs - the leashes, muzzles and a collection of washes and ointments.
Danny does not deny that there has been cruelty in the industry with live baiting and mistreatment of under-performing dogs, although he says he did not ever witness that.
“Look, the industry had to be cleaned up but closing it down completely is going a bit far,” he said.
“Most of us small-time trainers are not in it for the money. We just love the dogs and the camaraderie we get from each other.”
Danny mostly raced and trained his dogs at the non-TAB track at Yagoona, which faces closure next July when the greyhound racing ban comes into force.
His mate Bill Shaw, who lives around the corner, still has his two dogs, Tibby and Sweetie, and is a second generation small-time trainer.
Bill, 70, says racing his dogs had provided “a good second income” but, like, Danny, he mostly enjoys seeing his dogs run and being with other greyhound owners.
