A strange breeding ground for friendship

I sometimes think a sharp crack split the cold air but perhaps that's just my memory garnishing the 20-plus-year-old incident. There's really no need to embellish the drama of bone splintering at 67km/h.

Huddled at the barrier, our small group groans in unison. Cupped hands to open mouths.

The rest of the pack gallops past. The race ends but there's no excitement, just concern for the centrifugally blighted canine limping back around the bend.

It'll be put down, of course. I suspect I know how.

Tonight is the first and last time I'll attend any greyhound race meeting and, from what those around me claim, it's rare, bad luck - surely more so for the animal, than me - I'm being initiated to the 'sport' when a competitor has been injured so badly (statistics suggest they might have been a touch coy on that one).

I'm at the track with a friend from work, a dedicated husband and doting dad who loves greyhounds almost as much as his family.

Although we share much in common, I'm not like my middle-aged mate. Racing is his passion and these are his people. They speak the same language.

I've never been able to muster much enthusiasm for the competitive running/fighting/riding/jumping/hunting/shearing of any creature and I'm not about to start this febrile, floodlit evening.

I nod politely or just zone out when they talk excitedly about bloodlines and whelping and race times and records.

It certainly doesn't help, either, that I'm no gambler, so my uninterest only intensifies when they begin to bang on about jollies and odds and totes and trifectas.

To me, SP bookies are in the same arena of intimidation as carnies at the show who leer down while you volunteer for the already disturbing act of shoving a ping-pong ball through the lipstick-smeared oral cavity of an impossible-to-please fibreglass clown torso and, besides, I'm quite sure my luck was tapped when, as a starving, tragically sober student, I won 500 bucks when I scored a royaly betting fives on the cardies at Nambucca Heads bowlo.

And a good night was had by all ...

Like many in this caper, my friend is a gambler and - again, like many in the caper - seems to win more than he loses.

I once watched on nervously as he entered the TAB needing to buy new bunks for his three kids and walked out 10 minutes later with the requisite cash.

The last time furnishing a bedroom seemed so risky was in Pulp Fiction, when Harvey Keitel asked Quentin Tarantino if he was an "oak man".

So, I suppose I'm at the dishlickers tonight, simply because my friend invited me and I've always been fascinated by subcultures in that vicarious way people are interested in cults or serial killers or cyclists.

We're still decades from the animal welfare revelations that will rock the greyhound industry in NSW and Queensland and pretty much erase it from the ACT, and although it's logical to assume horrible things are being done to racing dogs and many other associated species in this town and elsewhere, based on what's before me tonight, all I see is a collection of humble (slightly obsessed, slightly rough) folk who display deep affection and responsibility for their lissom charges.

I'm sure my mate, a former breeder, is representative of the majority of insiders who cherish greyhounds for their gentle nobility as much as for their ability to turn a lightning-quick buck.

I grew up believing greyhounds to be vicious, capricious animals mainly because the only time I encountered them was in the muddy light of early mornings or late evenings, when shifty characters - as if dragon-walkers in tracky dacks - would be out exercising their muzzled beasts on the end of a stout chain.

Thanks to the success of greyhound adoption programs, the breed's reputation has enjoyed a much-feted rehabilitation, to the point families now sit in the front of the telly with a couple of long, lazy louts draped over them like short-haired blankets.

Turns out greyhounds enjoy doing bugger-all as much as the rest of us

Our own clan enjoyed a glimpse of just how lovely greyhounds are when we visited my cousin at Christmas. As her pristine, child-free home filled with noisy young'uns, two tall rescue dogs (one missing a leg) rose graciously from their leather couches, allowed for various poking and prodding from curious hands, then, like ghosts, vanished for the duration of the festivities.

Turns out greyhounds are rather astute, too.

It's because of such refined qualities (not to mention their protein-harvesting prowess) greyhounds hold a unique place alongside the history of mankind. They're mentioned in mythology; namechecked in the King James Bible and Shakespeare's Henry V and the film clip to Hoodoo Gurus' My Girl is enough to make you cry.

My wife and I sometimes talk about adopting a greyhound or two. It's been years since we had dogs and we're beginning to feel guilty the kids are being denied some kind of inter-species right (or rite).

Our dear-departed girls were English pointers, a breed equipped with similar hindquarters and rear suspension of the greyhound, meaning (one of them, at least) was capable of reaching impressive speeds herself.

Apart from the obligatory experiences at the altar and in the maternity ward etc, I don't believe I've ever felt quite so elated as the moment we let the dogs loose in an infinity paddock on the outskirts of our village some 17 years ago.

They tore into the abundant grass (even scaring up a few quail in the process), so very, very happy to be realising their hardwired raison d'être.

Coincidentally, it was about the same time I last heard from my mate who took me to the dogs that winter night so long ago.

I've always missed him.

Some time back, I heard he might've even moved to the region and I wonder whether he'll frequent the new "straight" greyhound track being built in our neck of the woods, ostensibly to limit injuries to those poor dogs still being forced to run for the amusement of a cosmically lucky, and at times, venal, species of biped.

Life is full of friends who drift apart and sometimes the universe seems to pinpoint where they should reconnect.

I could always take a punt.