Each Thursday when the Greyhound Recorder would hit the streets, Vadim Roz would take a break from his courier run and spend his lunch break looking through the classifieds.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
"Going back to the early 2000s I was a fulltime courier based in Rosebery," he explained.
"I used to get the Greyhound Recorder newspaper and while I was on my runs, having my lunch break, I would look through the classifieds at dogs for sale. Eventually there was a dog advertised and I bought. It was $800 and I soon realised why it was $800, because it's no good.
"That led me to a $2,000 dog and I would train the dogs in my backyard at Mascot. Anyway, fast forward 10 years and about $100,000 and I learned lots of valuable lessons, and expensive lessons, about this industry. I paid for my education I feel, but I learnt so much.
"Eventually I purchased a bitch called Yarramundi Star from Kel Greenough. It was bred by Martin Hallinan.
"She was the first dog that made me realise that all these years when I was training dogs and couldn't get winners, it was because they were just slow dogs and I couldn't do anything with them.
"When I got her, she made me realise that I can train. She was a quick bitch and I was able to give myself that confidence that I'm good at what I do and I started getting results.
"Fast forward another 10 years, and here we are today."
Where he is, is Tomingley, 50km south-west of Dubbo.
He will be at Dubbo on Saturday night chasing $50,000 in the Ladbrokes Brother Fox final.
Last week Roz's Who Knows Gus caused an upset, winning his heat over Greyhound of the Year, Palawa King.
"It's a very good achievement and I'm very happy for the owner and the dog, and great to be in features at my home track.
"It's such a high-pressure race with Bella Una in box one and Palawa King in there, and we've got box five. He will run his race, and if he runs in the top three it would be fantastic."
Before heading to Tomingley in August last year, Roz and his partner Michelle Moon prepared "a boutique" team at Lewiston in South Australia.
"This opportunity came up to lease this place and we thought let's have a look at what it's like and we're still here.
"Our business is called Yarramundi Racing which is a small boutique set-up. Transparency is so important. Owners need to know as much about their dog as I do. If it's not chasing, I'll show you a video that it's not chasing or if it's trialling quick, I'll show you that video.
"That's where the model has been so successful because the owners feel like they're part it. Without owners there's no dogs.
"It's important to look after the owner and disclose all the information to them and make them part of the journey."
Who Knows Gus is owned by Troy Roberts, who's based in Broken Hill. He approached Roz at Gawler races one day to ask if he had room for a couple of pups.
"I said I've got room for one, and that one dog was Who Knows Gus. When I told Troy we were moving to Dubbo, he said, take him with me. Fast forward six months and he's made the semis of the Golden Easter Egg, and now he's into a really nice feature race final."
This article was produced as part of an ACM partnership with Greyhound Racing NSW.
