After a couple of tough years, Central Park are enjoying a mini boom in fortunes. It has been a big turnaround following a worrying time for owners, trainers and staff at the Kent venue.
The catalyst was the controversial BAGS decision to hand the Saturday night fixture to doomed Wimbledon. The loss of revenue had many locals fearing a track closure. That fixture was eventually reversed, to run in tandem with the Sunday equivalent. However, the addition of an RPGTV fixture on Wednesday night and the return of the Kent Slyde Kings speedway team on Mondays, all give the place a new buzz.
Spokesman Barry Stanton said: “It didn’t happen by accident. Roger (Cearns, promoter) had a strategy and it has worked well. The Wednesdays give the local trainers a chance to get more runs for their dogs with a midweek fixture. We recently took on three new trainers and that has given us even more scope.
“Brian Nicholls and Paul Donovan both reduced their kennel strengths as Wimbledon wound down. Brian has between 15-20 runners but aims to return to 25. Paul has six or seven with a target of 20. Nick Deas, who was at Harlow, has been 15-20 runners with a plan for 25.
“At this stage we have 240 dogs available but we are confident of building on that if another fixture became available.”
As part of the strategy, the stadium are due to launch a revamped website launched at the end of the month. Though their social media ambitions go much further through the appointment of wemanagesocial.com.
Stanton said: “Their new Facebook site, centralparkgreyhounds has a new fresh feel to it as does twitter @ centralparkdogs and with instagram, centralparkgreyhounds, all bases are covered to promote the activities at the track.”
Two Spencer Mavrias trained runners are heading the local winners list so far this year. Designer Cee (Hello Deejay-Kilara Belle, 14) boasts a record of six wins and two seconds from 10 races. Pookies Raptor (Godsend-Pookies Rosie, Sep 14) has six from nine outings.
