30 million tonnes of coal, 2200 megawatts of electricity and 22 greyhound owners. That’s the La Trobe Valley’s Loy Yang Power Station in a nutshell.

A group of new greyhound owners began their journey in greyhound racing at the Ready2Race (R2R) sales this year with one syndicate member – David Mason – also winning a 10 per cent share in a greyhound with Dr Turf (John Rothfield).

David won the 10 per cent share through the SEN program Off The Bench which is also broadcast into regional Victoria. During the program, people are invited to call in and answer questions posed by Dr Turf for the chance to win a share in a greyhound bought at Greyhound Racing Victoria’s (GRV) R2R. David is also part of a syndicate comprised of shift workers at the mine.

“22 blokes that all work on D Roster are in the syndicate,” David said “we all operate the big dredges and things like that.”

“One of the guys about 6-8 weeks ago suggested we buy a greyhound and we all put in about $300 and bought one at the Ready2Race sales.”

The group bought Asha Rhode at the sales with the help of greyhound syndicator Paul Groves.

Last Thursday, 10 of the workers made the journey to Warragul to watch Asha Rhodes’ – that is trained by Katharine Gorman – first race under their name and witnessed her first victory.

“There were 10 of us there and we were all so excited. Two or three minutes after the race one of my mates called me and said he could hear us yelling and screaming through the TV!” he laughed

At their shift later that evening, the syndicate members couldn’t hide their excitement.

“We have a thing called a muster room and the supervisors tell us what’s happening for the night. When we got there we were all talking about the win.”

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WATCH: Asha Rhode breaks through for first win

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Related content:

R2R Sales Results

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PIC: 10 members of the D Roster Syndicate with Asha Rhode and trainer Katharine Gorman after her first win. Courtesy: Gerry Sneyders
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