Just Believe. Photo by Stuart McCormick
THE similarities to how the 2024 Australian Pacing Grand Circuit and Trotting Masters’ finished were remarkable.
Last Saturday night’s Inter Dominion finals were the last legs of both series and won by “fresh blood.”
While it was Don Hugo winning his first tilt at Grand Circuit racing in the pacing final, it was the exciting four-year-old The Locomotive.
Just like Just Believe in the past two years, The Locomotive went through the series unbeaten in his three heats and final.
As his trainer-driver Brad Hewitt said: “You couldn’t ask for an easier drive or win to post the biggest success of your career.”
The Locomotive’s 100 points for winning the final gave him a share of fourth on the Trotting Masters’ table for 2024.
Keayang Chucky, who finished second to The Locomotive last Saturday, leapfrogged him to finish outright third on the table with 118 points. He’s banked 58 points across other Trotting Masters’ legs this year.
But just like Leap To Fame in the Grand Circuit, Just Believe successfully defended his Trotting Masters’ crown with 260 points, well ahead of Callmethebreeze on 211. Neither contested the Inter Dominion final.
Trainer-driver Brad Hewitt said The Locomotive would get his chance to make an immediate splash in the next year’s Trotting Masters through the opening leg, the Great Southern Star, at Melton on February 1.
“If you’d have told me a few years ago my first really major win would come with a trotter, I’d have thought you were joking, but this is so exciting,” Hewitt said.
“He really thrived through the series and got better with each run. He just did it so easily (in the final).
“He’s still young and should keep improving, too. It looks like an exciting next couple of years ahead.”
Hewitt already has one eye on an Inter Dominion title defence, given the new scheduling will see the 2025 series run in just seven months from now at Albion Park.
“That suits me,” Hewitt laughed. “He’s got the Great Southern Star, the big mile race here (Menangle) on Miracle Mile night, maybe that slot race in NZ and then the Inter Dominion in Brisbane.”
With stars like Just Believe, Callmethebreeze and Arcee Phoenix missing from this Inter Dominion, plus the emergence of the freakish Keayang Zahara, the next year or two in trotting looks amazing.
