Last stop Wonderland, continued

by Chris Wright

THEY'RE OFF: the days when dog fans jammed Wonderland's new grandstand are over. "There's no people anymore," says one track employee. "Still, the dogs don't know that," says another.

Anyway, very few of those here are enjoying the weather. Most are inside, gathered around the banks of screens that carry simulcast signals from dog and horse tracks around the country. Some of them are sitting in private, TV-equipped cubicles, which they rent for $2 apiece. A few are staring through a large window into the paddock area, where eight willowy dogs are being readied for the first race of the night.

The human fascination with greyhounds dates back to ancient Egyptian times. They've been prized by Elizabethan aristocrats and Arab tribesmen alike, and watching these dogs you can see why. They are exquisitely graceful, noble, even wise-looking animals. But the guys pressed to the window have other things on their minds than aesthetics. "I'm going to have a fucking pop here," says one, moving toward the
windows to place his bet. It's hard to
tell which dog took his fancy -- they're all sleek, taut, and knotted with muscle. And you can tell they're all bursting to run.

The anticipation is even more tangible in the track's holding kennel, a complex of cages located behind the paddock. Walk in, and the first thing that hits you is the din. There are 15 races tonight, eight dogs per race. It's hard to describe the sound of 120 greyhounds barking in unison, but I imagine it's like standing beside a 747 as it touches down on a runway -- a fulmination of howl and roar. As you approach, the dogs stop barking and press their flanks up against the cage doors, their eyes imploring: pet me, pet me, pet me.

In the hours before a race, greyhounds get plenty of attention, or at least scrutiny. They are weighed a half-hour before they run, then re-weighed a few minutes before the race. Any discrepancy between the two weights raises the question of tampering, and the dog is scratched from the line-up.

Paddock judges and track employees watch as the dogs totter onto the scales, their muzzled noses testing the air. Having been weighed, they are led to a series of corrals, where a judge verifies each dog's identity by checking a tattoo on the inside of its ear. Dog switching, says one employee, "is our worst nightmare."

Finally, the greyhounds are led through a gloomy passageway called the Dog Walk and out onto the field. As they emerge into the floodlit arena, it's as if the ground had been electrified. Dogs and lead-outs make a skittish, leash-tugging beeline for the starting post. They are loaded into the traps, where they wait for a few seconds while the lure -- a stuffed rabbit who goes by the name of Swifty -- hurtles around the track, whips by the traps, and . . . they're off!

According to purists, greyhounds are a much more reliable bet than horses. There are no jockeys to take into consideration, and dogs are said to run more consistently than horses -- if you know a dog's history, you can gauge what kind of race it likes to run, which trap it prefers, and how it will fare against a given line-up.

For the uninitiated, however, it can be difficult to get a sense of what actually happens in a race. You're faintly aware of a sudden burst of movement, the cries of the bettors, a tangle of blurry, abstract shapes belting by, and . . . well, that's it. Before you know it, the dogs are milling around the spot where Swifty ended his journey. The whole thing -- five-sixteenths of a mile -- takes about 30 seconds. As one track employee puts it, "You don't get a lot of bang for your buck."

The brevity of a race is all the more acute if you lose money on it. As the winning dogs are posted on the tote board, you can practically hear the slips being ripped up, crumpled, flung to the floor. A guy with immaculate hair is hissing: "Sussinfrassinrassing lousy dog." His date responds with a shrug. "All you care about is money," she says, tossing back her drink. A janitor pushes a wide-headed broom across the floor, gathering the losing stubs into little drifts. "Sussinfrassinrassing," the immaculate-hair guy continues.

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Chris Wright can be reached at cwright[a]phx.com.