Leap To Fame produces career best performance to win the $1m The Race

By Michael Guerin

Harness racing hero Leap To Fame was already the best of the best.

But those lucky enough to be at Cambridge on Friday got to see the best of his best.

The Queensland phenomenon produced the most brutal and beautiful performance of his rule-breaking career when he sat parked and smashed most of the best pacers in Australasia in the $1m The Race by Sport Nation at Cambridge's Night of Champions.

That in itself is not surprising. But the style and the stats are.

Leap To Fame has sat parked to win the biggest races before including the Miracle Mile just 27 days ago. 

But this was different.

All the superstars were at Cambridge barring Don Hugo, the horse Leap To fame crushed in this race last season.

It was an all-star cast, one of the strongest harness races held in New Zealand this century. 

He turned them into supporting actors to his action hero.

To have the toughest trip in this field, three wide then parked and then have the sheer rudeness to race clear and win by six lengths defies logic.

There were some helpful moments along the way, fellow Queenslander The Janitor having a gallop in the score up while Swayzee was left flat footed early and forced back to last.

But their indiscretions don’t take away from Leap To Fame's indestructability.

Not on this night when a horse built better than others decided to put his flag in the ground with vicious intent.

If Leap To Fame had led and won by six lengths it would have re-affirmed he is a champion.

If he had sat parked and won by anything, champion again.

But to sit parked, covering more ground than almost all of his rivals and treat them like rag dolls was one of the most amazing wins by any horse, of any code, on New Zealand soil.

Even his usually reticent trainer-driver Grant Dixon, who trains the great one with wife Trista, admitted this was Leap To Fame’s best ever win.

“I know he sat parked to win this race last year but this year was a stronger field and he beat them so much easier,” said Dixon.

“So it would have to be his best win.”

Akuta showed the benefit of racing with cover to charge into second, while Swayzee was superb in third racing against his usual pattern.

It was hard to find words of consolation for the others, although The Janitor clearly did his chips before the start.

Even the younger members of the Cambridge crowd, many mainly there to see Drax Project perform after the race, knew they had seen something special.

That something special is not done with New Zealand yet, even though Leap To Fame heads home in a few days to be set for the Inter Dominions in his home state in July.

There is one mountain still to climb, with Dixon fascinated by the New Zealand Cup at Addington in November.

He had to settle for second to Kingman in that iconic race just a few months ago. 

Leap To Fame paid him back tonight by savaging him in front over the last lap before starting his one-man show from the 400m.

So Leap To Fame will race on, delaying his stallion career for at least the rest of this more season to chase that New Zealand Cup. 

The last jewel that really matters in his crown. The exclamation point on a career of determination and domination.

If he can add the New Zealand Cup then the horse they call Larry can rest easy.

No more wars to win.

And maybe then we can talk about whether the magnificent beast who showed us his best at Cambridge on this autumn Friday night might be the best to ever do it.