Horse racing: Australian star has NZ Cup aspirations

Australia’s latest pacing star Leap To Fame.

The trainer of Australasia’s most exciting pacer has made a surprising admission about the races he would most dearly love to win with Leap To Fame.

The 4-year-old stallion has been stunning during the Queensland winter carnival, thrashing his older rivals in the A$200,000 Sunshine Sprint at Albion Park on Saturday night and he is red hot to repeat that in this Saturday’s Blacks A Fake.

While trainer-driver Grant Dixon says his main aim for the season is the A$2.1 million Eureka, the new Sydney slot race on September 2, longer-term, the race he would love to win most is in New Zealand.

“It has always been a dream of mine to compete in a New Zealand Cup and obviously to win it would be amazing,” says Dixon.

“If I could win any race with him, it would be the Eureka, because it is worth so much, and that has been his main aim this whole year. But obviously he can’t race in it again next season [it is for 3 and 4-year-olds], so the New Zealand Cup is the next race I’d love to win out of the big ones.”

Leap To Fame won’t be turning up at Addington on the second Tuesday in November this year, though, with the Inter Dominions in his home state of Queensland, will be his next target after the Eureka.

But being well-mannered, qualified from a standing start and a wonderful stayer, Leap To Fame could target the 2024 New Zealand Cup while he is certain to be sought after by slotholders for the $1m The Race by Grins at Cambridge in April. So it wouldn’t surprise to see him race in New Zealand twice next season.

While that is all a long way away, it provides plenty of time for Leap To Fame’s New Zealand equivalent Akuta to further embellish his record before the two sons of champion sire Bettors Delight eventually meet.

Dixon is measured for an Australian harness trainer, having been involved with some great horses, none better than the remarkable Blacks A Fake.

So he stops short of suggesting Leap To Fame is the best pacer in the world or even too good for all his Australian rivals.

“I watch quite a bit of US harness racing but I can’t judge where he sits against their best horses.

“I’m confident if he went to North America, he would race well, but then again, their best horses would come down here and race well.”

Dixon says fellow Australian 4-year-old Catch A Wave, who won the Miracle Mile in March, may be as talented as Leap To Fame, and if he draws to lead in the Eureka, then Leap To Fame would struggle to sit outside him and beat him.

“He [Catch A Wave] is a good horse, so he will be hard to beat any time we meet him, and who wins could come down to draws.”

The Queensland winter carnival has seen Kiwi-trained Manhattan, downed on the line in the A$150,000 Golden Girl, pipped by New Zealand-owned and bred mare Amore Vita.