Racing: Leap to Fame springs to prominence in Cambridge

Leap To Fame winning the Race by Betcha. Photo / HRNZ

It was worth the wait.

It may have taken Leap To Fame a little longer to get to New Zealand than harness racing fans would have liked, but it took him a lot less time to get around Cambridge than his rivals would have liked in Friday night’s Race by Betcha.

The magnificent Queensland pacer was supposed to make his debut on these shores in the New Zealand Cup back in November but missed that iconic race with a blood complaint.

He came to Cambridge on Friday night and turned the $1m Race by Betcha into something iconic instead.

The six-year-old and his trainer-driver Grant Dixon were on a mission, a mission to turn the 2200m race into a fight – survival of the fittest, or bravest or greatest.
“Larry” as he is known, was all three.

Dixon had to take his medicine early. Every horse drawn inside him wanted to head forward and he was forced back to last but with cover as first Republican Party, then Don’t Stop Dreaming and eventually Merlin worked to sit parked outside Don Hugo, who had led effortlessly from the start.

While they were all happy to hand up the dreaded park position, when Dixon got there he saw it as a launching pad for a one-lap attack on the leader.

Dixon, usually quiet in the cart, was all motion and motivation, asking Leap To Fame to go faster. And then a bit faster.

He wanted to know – maybe wanted us all to know – who could go the fastest for the longest.

At the 500m mark, Don Hugo looked for a few seconds as if he was sneaking away. Larry reeled him back in on a string made of sheer guts.

Once they were eyeball to eyeball at the top of the straight, it was Don Hugo who blinked first. Larry set sail for the post and Chase A Dream and Merlin chased.

They did not gain.

At the line, Australia’s best pacer has recorded one of the most stunning wins of any code in this country, a thing of beauty by the beast.

It was win 50 for Leap To Fame from 63 starts, he heads home with the promise to return for this year’s New Zealand Cup, a promise rival trainers hope he will break.

“That was a great relief,” said Dixon, who was driving his first winner in New Zealand.

“I had a lot of people telling me how to drive him and I just wanted to turn it into a staying race.

“I got up in his [Don Hugo’s] face and it paid dividends.”

Leap To Fame’s national record time of 2m 33.6s was 1.5s inside the previous record, a 1m 52.4s mile rate on a wet night when the Australians emphatically continued their recent domination of New Zealand’s best horses.

That put a smile on owner and slot holder Kevin Seymour’s face.

“I was thrilled he could come here and beat the very good local horses and show everybody here how good he is,” said Seymour.

While there were no excuses for those beaten behind the harness hero, Chase A Dream was brave in second and has put his career back on track in the last week. Merlin was excellent in third, probably performing to at least the same level as when he won The Race last season.

Don Hugo punctured to run fourth after being Larry’s punching bag for the second lap after setting the record speed for the first.

As is so often the case in big races, one horse has its moment of arrival and on Friday night that was Pinseeker, flashing late into fifth, beating home five horses he wouldn’t have been considered as good as just a month ago.

He was, by his standards, a star. At this level they are all stars.

But they are stars who on Friday night found themselves trapped in the Larry-Verse.

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.