Leap To Fame bounced back from his NZ Cup second to win Friday's Free-For-All. Photo / Ajay Berry
Nobody loves consolation prizes.
They are nice and all and even more so when they come with winning part of the $200,000 stake Friday’s Allied Security NZ Pacing Free at Addington did.
Leap To Fame won that lion’s share, with his lion’s heart carrying him to the winner’s circle just days after his enormous second in the IRT New Zealand Cup.
Most horses would have still been at home, having a nice nap in the Canterbury sun, but Larry did what Larry does.
He got up, went to work and – as almost always happens when he is able to lead – he won, holding out Republican Party and Merlin.
This was a Group 1. No small deal and yet for Leap To Fame, it was the “other” race he wanted to win this week.
You could tell as much as co-trainer Trista Dixon got Larry ready to leave Addington, as well as herding the kids while husband Grant was out on a catch drive in the last race.
“It has been a great week and obviously we didn’t get the Cup but he still went so well, so we were really proud,” says Dixon.
“It is lovely to pick up this race and show everybody he still has it, which we never doubt.
“But I think he is looking to get home. He will fly to Sydney and have a night at Robbie’s [Morris] stables and then be home by I think Wednesday.
“He has been away from home for a long time and has done such a wonderful job.”
Leap To Fame looked like a horse who had been away from home for ages. We all know how it feels.
You get tired, miss your routine, things just become that little bit harder.
And sitting parked for 3200m in a New Zealand Cup wouldn’t have done a lot for his sense of humour, either.
So yes, we didn’t see the absolute best of Leap To Fame in the Free-For-All on Friday.
But even below his peak, tired after Tuesday and ready to go home, he won a Group 1, beating the best pacer in New Zealand this spring and the Free-For-All defending champion.
He achieved most horses’ career highlight as an afterthought.
Thanks for coming Larry, get home safe.
There isn’t much Robert Dunn hasn’t achieved in his career.
He was winning the biggest pacing cups decades ago, and Diamond Racing started adding big trotting success to their arsenal just a few years ago.
But now, when he should be in the twilight of his career, the man known as “RJ” has found another special horse, this time to share with daughter-in-law and training partner Jenna and his son John.
Because Got The Chocolates is the real deal.
He has to be, because he shouldn’t have been able to do what he did in The Velocity at Addington on Friday, sit three wide, then parked, and go on to beat a very good horse in Marketplace.
And for good measure, he tore 1.4s off the 1980m mobile three-year-old national record, all after never seeing the marker pegs.
It was the third straight time Got The Chocolates has bested Marketplace, after playing second fiddle to him for the first year of their careers.
Make no mistake, there are no excuses and no arguments: Got The Chocolates is our best three-year-old pacer. Not by much, but by enough.
“That was very special because it was such a great race, what racing needs,” said Dunn.
“He has always been a good horse but when he had no gate speed it made it so hard on him.
“But we added a nose roll to his gear, which helps him concentrate better behind the gate and that has helped him get handier early.
“But of course he is also bigger and stronger. He is just a better horse than he used to be.”
The pair will clash again in next Friday’s NZ Derby, for which Got The Chocolates is now incredibly the $1.45 favourite, with Marketplace at $3.20, odds which that have seemed impossible at the start of this campaign.
“We are so thrilled to have a horse like him for Ross and Angela [Gordon, owners] and we will get him home tonight and get him into the surf tomorrow to help him recover.”
Providing he’s safely through next Friday’s Derby, Got The Chocolates could even tempt Team Dunn to look at a race like the Chariots Of Fire at Menangle in March, a track that would suit his racing style but might charge him some hefty tax for his lack of gate speed.
“We haven’t campaigned one in Australia for a long time but maybe this horse could change that,” says RJ. Got The Chocolates’ incredible form resurgence also suggests that whoever wins next Friday’s Derby could be named New Zealand Three-Year-Old Pacer of the Year.
It’s just another unbelievable possibility this most wild of Cup weeks has raised.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.