Kel will venture to Wentworth Park, head to the heights of the grandstand, unpack his binoculars and form guide, settle in, and prepare for his dream to become reality.

"It was always a goal, and one of my dreams just to call a race there. It's the Randwick of greyhound racing," Kel said.

Back in late June, Kel was bestowed what he felt was a major honour of being selected to call the final of the GRNSW Country Challenge at Headquarters. He was more excited than a kid on Christmas morning.

Four days later, Sydney was in the midst of a COVID-19 outbreak, had been locked down and Wentworth Park was closed. Kel's dream evaporated.

But, with a combination of planets aligning this weekend, and regular caller Matt Jackson on leave, Kel has been summoned off the bench and will call all 11 races on the card.

"I am pumped. I am so over the moon. If I get hit by a double decker bus on Sunday morning I'd still be happy," Kel said.

"When I was told, the first couple of nights I was springing up in bed at 3am having dreamt that I mixed the red (number 1) up with the pink (number 8).

"You think about what it would be like to call at Wenty, but in all seriousness, in the food chain (of callers), I was probably well down the list. I want to thank everyone who has made this possible. This will no doubt be the highlight of my 40 years as a racecaller.

"Back in June when I got the text telling me the meeting was off, my wife was in Adelaide and I rang and told her, 'you wouldn't believe it, I've stopped the Southern Aurora'. Not long before then she had been on The Ghan and a passenger had told some lies about where he was from, they discovered he was from a hotspot, so everyone had to get off the train and isolate. We can stop trains, the O'Rourkes."

Born and bred in Canberra, Kel's father was involved with racehorses, and the family would often head to Wentworth Park if they had a win at Randwick.

On one of those trips he met racecaller Paul Ambrosoli, which not only began a lasting friendship, but fired an ambition to become a racecaller, and in 1981, his career began at Queanbeyan greyhounds.

"That first one was in November 1981 and the dog that won the race was Disco Bandit," said Kel. "It was the worst call ever. I had Disco Bandit running last, I had a dog in front who was actually fifth, the dog running second ... he stayed in the boxes, it was an absolute debacle.

"I got to about race 5 and I thought I just have to start to memorise a few of these otherwise I'm in the wrong gig. I think I got to race 8 and I absolutely nailed one, and I thought here we go I'm the next Paul Ambrosoli. And then the last two races were pretty similar to the first race.

"But I persisted, and got better thankfully, and couldn't think of doing anything else now."

This article was produced as part of an ACM partnership with Greyhound Racing NSW.

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