Leap To Fame winning the 2023 Inter Dominion Photo by Dan Costello
CHAMPION pacer Leap To Fame will take a surprise step right outside his comfort zone at Albion Park on Saturday night.
For just the second time in more than four years and 65 race starts, Leap To Fame will switch from mobile start to standing start racing.
His only other standing-start race was on June 8, last year when Leap To Fame came off a 20m handicap to emphatically win the Flashing Red Discretionary at Albion Park over 2647m.
The six-year-old’s task will be even harder this week off the maximum 30m handicap and the race being over the shorter 2138m trip.
Despite Leap To Fame winning first-up from a break at Albion Park last Saturday night, his trainer-driver Grant Dixon was moved to back him up quickly.
“It was a bit hard to assess things on such a wet track, but I felt he should have won a bit easier,” he said.
“Trista and I felt he could do with another two races before the Inter Dominion starts and that meant we really had to back him up this week.
“There was also the option of a mobile sprint race, but there are a few reasons we opted for the stand.
“He will get more conditioning from a race like this stand, especially over 2138m.
“And we are thinking about taking him to the NZ Cup later in the year, which is a standing start and this could be one of the last suitable opportunities we get to show him the (standing start) tapes and see how he handles it.
“The Flashing Red and Redcliffe Cups are coming, but he’ll get 30m in both of those. The Flashing Red will be a lot stronger than this week’s race and Redcliffe isn’t really a suitable race for him.”
Dixon said racing again this week meant Leap To Fame could return to mobile start racing for his final lead-up race on June 21.
“Then he’ll have had the three weeks and get a two-week gap before the first round of (Inter Dominion) heats (July 5),” Dixon said.
Dixon felt Leap To Fame, who won narrowly but impressively first-up at Albion Park last Saturday night, needed more racing before the Inter Dominion starts on July 5.
“I thought he should’ve won a bit easier and that he’d need two more runs, not just one, before the heats.
“That really meant we had to back-up this week and it made more sense on a few levels to go to this (standing start) race rather than a 1660m mobile. This will be a better conditioning run.
“It means he can run this week, have two weeks to his third run back and then another two weeks before the first round of heats.”
Less than an hour after Leap To Fame steps out, his major Brisbane Inter Dominion rival Don Hugo will return from a let-up in the seventh race at Menangle on Saturday night.
Don Hugo upset Leap To Fame in the Miracle Mile on March 8, but the latter turned the tables with a powerhouse win when they last met in the $1mil Race by betcha at Cambridge on April 4.
They have clashed three times and Leap To Fame leads 2-1.
PHOTO: Dan Costello
