Trevor Thompson entered 11 greyhounds for Casino on Friday and came away with another winning double. But until moving to Lismore in 2009 to help his seriously ill father Bob with his greyhounds, he had no interest in the sport.
Now Trevor is one of the leading trainers in the highly competitive Northern Rivers district where he has a team of 27 racers and another 25 brood bitches, puppies and retiree pets on his five acre property at North Lismore.
When living in Sydney, Bob Thompson had owned and trained Size Seven, winner of the 1970 Wentworth Park St Leger (now the Paws Of Thunder) but in those days Trevor ignored the greyhounds.
"In the early 70s the family moved to Lismore but in 1974 I became an apprentice carpenter and returned to Sydney," Trevor, now 55, recalled.
"I travelled around the country working as a carpenter but ten years ago fell off a roof and suffered a bad injury and could not continue with my trade.
"Then in August, 2009, dad got very sick and asked me to come back to assist him with his greyhounds, because my mother Ruth had dementia and couldn’t help out.
"Within a few weeks I fell in love with everything about greyhounds and when dad passed away 18 months later I was left holding the bag so to speak.
"But that was not before dad had time to show me the ropes while he had also had the foresight to outcross some of his bitches to American stud dogs Kiowa Sweet Trey and DK’s Prime Time.
"Until then we mainly had 300m dogs but the American outcross put strength into them and the promising youngsters I have now are the offspring of bitches whose dams were mated to those sires.
"My setup at North Lismore is ideal as I can’t get built out because there is a flood plain below my property and people are not permitted to build there.
"When I first came here the best dog we had was Highland Hi but more recently my most successful greyhounds have been Lucky Rose Hi and She Rose Hi who won 22 and 21 races respectively.
"Perhaps because of the American breeding influence my greyhounds don’t reach their peak until they are at least two years old.
“Pam Rose Hi, the most promising youngster I have at present, was an ordinary bitch two months ago but has improved by one-and-a-half seconds and broke 23 seconds winning a 411m maiden recently at Casino.
"Although I’m only two minutes from the Lismore track I have more success at Albion Park and especially Casino, which is definitely my favourite course.
"I’ll be sad to see Casino converted to loam because now it is the perfect circuit to teach young dogs to rail up and when the grass surface goes it won’t be the same.
"All our paddocks where we rear our pups are grass so why shouldn’t we race on turf?
"My usual plan is to breed around 30 pups each year and sell 50% of them.
"But that’s in theory and if they can’t be sold I sometimes finish up with 30 to race.
"Having a big team in training makes it necessary to have a good system in place and to have steady, reliable people working for you, and fortunately I have all that."
And the best greyhound Trevor has seen?
"The Western Australian champion stayer Miata," says Trevor.
"I’ve never seen anything like her."
