Greyhound Racing NSW (GRNSW) has announce that the NSW State Sprint and Distance Championships will go ahead next month, albeit under different circumstances and conditions due to the current COVID-19 situation.
While Greyhound Clubs Australia announced earlier this week that for the second year in succession they would unfortunately be forced due to interstate travel restrictions to cancel the national finals of both events, which had been scheduled to be run on August 28 in Melbourne, GRNSW is able to conduct the State Championships of both events under its current strict restrictions which are in place.
As a result, the 2021 NSW State Championships will be split into two divisions.
A Zone 1 event will see the Sprint and Distance Championships run at Dapto on Thursday, August 12. This will be exclusively for participants in Zone 1, the region determined as a locked down area by the NSW Government and NSW Health: Greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains, the Central Coast and Wollongong.
Zone 2 will also host a Sprint and Distance Championship, with the Sprint event to be held at Bathurst on Monday, August 9, and the Distance event to be held at LADBROKES GARDENS on Friday August 13. This will be exclusively for participants in Zone 2, the region outside the locked down area.
All events will be Non-Graded, Best 8 of any grade, and each race carries $10,000 to the winner. To be eligible greyhounds must have been domiciled in NSW for at least 76 of the 150 days immediately preceding the closing date of nominations for each event, and trainers must nominate directly into the event to be considered.
GRNSW has planned to offer a place in the TAB Million Dollar Chase semi-finals for the winners of each of the State Sprint Championships, and significantly, as a result of the current situation and circumstances, GRNSW has decided that one place will be offered to each of the winners of the two Zone Championships events.
Last year's NSW Sprint Championship Final was won by the Mark Gatt-trained Ritza Coen (pictured) while the NSW Distance Championship was taken out by Blue Moon Rising.
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