I have always been quite intrigued by racing and especially greyhound racing because I just love the dogs and I find them so elegant and absolutely stunning and even when they are racing they seem to enjoy it but then again all dogs love chasing after things. When my company decided we were going to put it forward as a night out I was up for the idea and off we went to Perry Barr Greyhound racing club and what a great night was had by all and here is why.
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Location:
The Perry Barr Greyhound racing track is situated inyes you got it Perry Barr which is extremely close to Birmingham city centre. The full address if anybody is interested is;
Aldridge Road
Perry Barr
Birmingham
B42 2ET
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Packages:
There are plenty of packages you can get for your night and the simplest is simply just paying your admission fee which is £5.50. They do specials though which do work out better especially if you are planning to spend the whole night there.
One of the cheapest and best is a punters pack which for £6 - £7.50 (depending on the night) you can get admission, a couple of bets paid for you and also some drinks vouchers.
There is a top dog deal if you want food which is £11 13.50 and includes admission, two bets and a food and restaurant voucher.
The package we went for because there are a lot of us was the restaurant party package which cost us £98 per four people and we got admission, race cards and a three course meal plus half a bottle of wine each which always goes down well as you can imagine. You can book in parties of multiples of four or six as these are how the tables are set out.
If you give the stadium a ring though and tell them what you want they are pretty good and the guy I spoke to was extremely helpful when I told him how many were going and for him to give me the cheapest package.
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The Restaurant:
The restaurant is pretty good and it is spread out over a couple of floors. We were right up at the top on the third floor and everything is set out sort of like you expect a school hall at lunch time to be set out. the tables all have their matching table cloths and they are all square tables set out in seats of four and six. The restaurant is quite large so I think you can get hundreds of people in the whole restaurant for one night.
The decoration is just simple with white walls and then there are nice pictures over the walls and nothing else. Within the restaurant you can see the bar and also a small betting table and the kitchens. The whole place looks cramped in terms of how many people they cram in there but quite spacious and airy because of the way the place is decorated. Of course all along one wall are large windows giving you a perfect view of the greyhound track.
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Fast Food:
There is a smart looking fast food place on the bottom floor of the stadium but I didn't really get to inspect as we were up on the third floor. It basically just looked like it sold burgers and fries so the sort of thing you would get at a football stadium.
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The Track:
The actual track is like a huge stretched circle. You can actually go by the track if you are spending the night in that area but we were in the restaurant so we really didn't get to see it. I was impressed that they looked after the track after every single race so that it was safe for the dogs.
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The Dogs:
I thought they must be worth a mention as they were stunning. Chasing after this plastic rabbit you could tell that they were all having fun and they almost looked disappointed when it had stopped. The dogs racing here are obviously looked after very well as I even saw some getting treats after the race and the owners who had their dog win looked positively gleaming.
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Betting:
The way you are able to place bets is pretty much the same format as you get everywhere. You can place any priced bet which here is a minimum of £1 or £2 and you can place as many bets as you like.
The bets which I made were as follows;
Win Obviously here you place a bet on which dog you want to win the race.
Place Bet on any dog to come first or second.
Trio Bet on three dogs to come first, second and third. You can also reverse this so they do not have to finish in order.
Forecast Pick two dogs to finish in a specific order.
Other bets were things like betting on which dogs were going to win several races and you got quite a lot of money for those if you win although it would be pretty hard to win.
Bets in Perry Barr can be made at the special betting booths around the ground or if you are eating in the restaurant people walk around so you can make your bet at the table and not have to get up every ten minutes.
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Food:
We ate in the restaurant and the food was lovely. They were three course meals with an extremely generous choice of meals available. For the starters the favourites were king prawns with sweet chilli sauce, melon and soup. When they came they were very read more