That is the accepted speed map for tonight’s 2200m slot race, that Leap To Fame from barrier seven will work forward and sit parked outside leader Don Hugo from barrier 2.
No shock in that. About the only gift Leap To Fame wasn’t given is gate speed and that coupled with a series of dreadful draws means he has done more than his share of sitting parked in our best races.
But here is the shocking, and thought-provoking, part for punters: he almost always gets beaten when he does.
Larry, as he is affectionately known, has sat parked in seven races at the highest level and been beaten in five.
The only exceptions were when he won a somewhat below-par Miracle Mile last year when Sooner The Better even gave him a late scare, and in the 2024 Blacks A Fake when he sat parked outside the enormously inferior Hi Manameisjeff.
So how can clearly the best pacer in this part of the world get beaten so regularly when asked to race outside the leader?
Welcome to modern harness racing.
As the breed has refined, gear and tracks improved, the best harness races have become punishing affairs.
Most are won by horses on the markers or, when things get crazy, swoopers. Few, very few, are won by horses sitting parked.
Leap To Fame is THE living example of that.
Examine the five times Leap To Fame has sat parked and been beaten and you find the leaders were been Swayzee (twice), Rock N Roll Doo, Catch A Wave and in last month’s Miracle Mile, Don Hugo.
So every time the champ has sat parked outside a Grand Circuit winner in a major race, he has been beaten. Every time.
That is not to say it will happen tonight and if almost any other horse was drawn to lead tonight you would be happy taking the TAB’s $2.30 quote that “Larry” could sit parked outside them and put them to the sword.
Tonight his issues are two, or maybe threefold.
If he can crush Don Hugo, no small feat, Leap To Fame could still be left a sitting duck for stalkers Merlin or Don’t Stop Dreaming, who aren’t as good as him but might not have to be.
But first he has to get past Don Hugo, a Eureka, Inter Dominion and Miracle Mile champion driven by a freak in Luke McCarthy and one who could cover 6-8 fewer lengths than Leap To Fame.
Don Hugo isn’t as good as Leap To Fame either but that isn’t the point.
The point is – actually the question is – do you really want to take $2.30 for a horse to do something it has only successfully achieved 28.4% of the time?
Of course you do.
Because you want to see Larry win. You want to witness greatness and feel that rush.
Possibly, maybe probably, he will give that to us.
But wanting doesn’t produce winning. And very rarely, as it turns out, does sitting parked in $1 million races.
Larry’s parked problems
Leap To Fame’s record when parked out in the highest level races:
- March 2025: 2nd to Don Hugo in Miracle Mile
- Feb 2025: 2nd to Swayzee in Hunter Cup
- July 2024: 1st in Blacks A Fake, beating Swayzee.
- March 2024: 1st Miracle Mile beating Sooner The Bettor.
- Oct 2023: 3rd to Act Now in Victoria Cup.
- Sept 2023: 2nd to Encipher in The Eureka
- July 2023: 2nd to Swayzee in Blacks A Fake
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.
