It's not the usual method of gauging success, but as he maneuvered through the crowd on the night of Sunday April 10, Broken Hill Greyhound Club president Regan Edgecumbe found himself repeatedly saying "excuse me".
That's never happened before, and it has nothing to do with his manners.
His club was hosting their biggest night of the year - the largest in the 14 years since Edgecumbe joined the club - the Broken Hill Cup final, and the town had turned out.
"We ran out of seats. We had people bringing their own fold-up camping chairs. It was chockers," Edgecumbe said.
"In my time here at the club, it's the biggest crowd I have ever witnessed. Having to say excuse me just to get by people. It was just like being at a big race meet somewhere.
"We had families here who haven't been at the track for 15 to 20 years but they wanted to be a part of it."
The night was 18 months in the making back when Greyhound Racing NSW approached Edgecumbe with a plan to grant their 2022 Cup meeting TAB status, and have it broadcast live on Sky Racing.
"We had to start contributing back to the industry, that's the only way we could survive, and this was a way of doing that," he said.
"What myself personally and the club were striving for, was for the future of racing at Broken Hill, and we had to attain the TAB status to do that. There was a lot of hard work in that time and a lot of volunteer-based work; men on shovels and things like that. And the fantastic support from GRNSW too. When we needed something outside of our budget they came to the fore and made sure we could obtain that. I can't express enough how much we thank GRNSW.
"And the support the local trainers gave the club. Week in and week out, making sure we had fields and races to keep things going long before we got to this night."
The television coverage of the meeting on the red earth of the outback looked spectacular, and importantly showed that while Broken Hill may be 1200km from Sydney, it was a worthy centre of attention.
"It put us on the map and people could see it was fantastic on TV rather than just hearsay about what the track was like, and they want to come and visit," Edgecumbe said.
"Already there has been interest from people wanting to come next year."
GRNSW CEO Tony Mestrov and board members Matt Waring and Kevin Gordon made the trek west for the event, with GRNSW adding a carrot to the Cup meeting, with the winner - She's A Hotshot - getting a ticket through to the semi-finals of the TAB Million Dollar Chase.
"What a tremendous night it was, and congratulations to Regan and his team, and also the people of Broken Hill for making this night a huge success," Mestrov said.
"This is what it's all about for us. We're about the regions. We came out here to show the people that we do support them at GRNSW.
"A substantial amount of work has been done here over the past 18 months to bring us to this moment where we can show the country what a wonderful, and unique racing facility this is. And they have a really strong Greyhounds As Pets program out here which is very important to us, so not only do the dogs race here, they rehome them as well."
This article was produced as part of an ACM partnership with Greyhound Racing NSW.
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